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Great Big Sea - The Hard & The Easy Audio CD

A fair review of the Great Big Sea "The Hard & The Easy" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Great Big Sea reviews here, or go back to the Great Big Sea tabs.

Great Big Sea Band: Great Big Sea
Title: The Hard & The Easy
Rating:
Release Date: 2005-10-25
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Come and I Will Sing You (The Twelve Apostles) 2: Old Polina 3: The River Driver 4: The Mermaid 5: Captain Kidd 6: Graceful & Charming (Sweet Forget-Me-Not) 7: Concerning Charlie Horse 8: Harbour LeCou 9: Tishialuk Girls Set 10: French Shore 11: Cod Liver Oil 12: Tickle Cove Pond

Love this!
The harmony and simplicity of the River Driver balances the fast pace (and, to me, tongue-twisting!) of Charlie Horse. This collection offers a wide range of music from traditional (Come and I will sing you) to sweet (Graceful & Charming) to just plain fun (Mermaid, though it's not as good as the YouTube version! and Captain Kidd). All together, this cd is one of my favorites from GBS. .


Excellent CD
If you like witty folk music with an irish/scottish twist, then they are for you. This is a band I have newly discovered and boy am I glad I did. The tongue in check songs make me smile while I am driving to work.

A very nice CD!.


Freakin' AWESOME
This CD touches a little more on inland Newfoundland. As always, Great Big Sea put out a fantastic record. It speaks of logging, horses falling through ice and river driving, to name a few things. Of course the record is still full of nautical themes, too.


An all-acoustic, all-folky outing (no original material), very enjoyable
When preparing their latest album, according to interviews at the time, they had so much material they decided to split the album in two - one dedicated more to the new music (which, I guess, became the album "Something Beautiful") and one dedicated to all folk songs. The normal Great Big Sea album contains both original material written by the band and more traditional (mostly Newfoundland) folk songs. While I like Great Big Sea's original material (at least, some of it!), I usually prefer the traditional stuff, so I was thrilled to have a whole album of it. After having listened to it many times, I am still happy with the album, and would recommend it to anyone interested in the genre of "Canadianised Celtic" music.

For those that know the band and/or know the type of music they play, more description might be necessary. This album is quite low-key relative to their other outings - there are more "Donkey Riding" and "General Taylor" songs (i. e. acoustic or totally instrumentless) than there are "The Night Pat Murphy Died" or "Run Runaway". Perhaps this is the effect of the retirement of bass player Darrel Power from the band - the songs have little lower-end drive. However, it is not missed as the band manages to generate lots of energy when required.

The slower songs are naturally a mix of sentimental (Sweet Forget Me Not, The French Shore) and bittersweet (Tickle Cove Pond, The River Driver), but the best songs on the album are those with some pep and some humour. They include:
"The Old Polina," a song about whaling vessels racing between Ireland and St. John's;
"The Mermaid" where a sailor falls in love with a mermaid but bemoans the fact that her bottom half is a tail
"Concerning Charlie Horse," one of two (!) songs about a horse falling through the ice, where his drunken master and his buddies decide they need to haul him out of the pond and give him a proper burial
"Captain Kidd," which I consider a Nova Scotian song (I grew up near Oak Island, supposedly home of Kidd's buried treasure), rather than a Newfoundlad one, but never mind - about the "misunderstood" pirate who recants his wicked ways just before his execution.

Also included is an hour-long DVD with interviews and "live" performances of all the songs (many in Alan Doyle's living room). These live versions are by no means polished - Alan corrects Sean McCann's erroneous lyrics in one song, and changes the key half-way through in another ("Actually, this is supposed to be in E. . . "). All-in-all, a very enjoyable, if generally low-key, album from our favourite Newfie band.


Brilliant
It is back to the form shown in their early CDs and encapsulated in the "Road Rage Live" album. Brilliant. The track "The Mermaid" is wonderful. The accompanying DVD is excellent. As you can see I am a fan after seeing them live in Glasgow in 2001 with Runrig.


You can see a complete list of all Great Big Sea discography, or go back to the Great Big Sea tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.

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