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Review: 17 New Tunes For My Mandolin, Richard Crouch
A 17 track CD of self penned tunes, played on a Paul Shippey 'cherry' mandolin and various guitars.
No other musicians named so one must presume Richard plays all the instruments, and very well at that, and as composer he has considerable talent.
This is a superb collection of tunes, played by as good a mandolinist as you could wish to hear, Richard gets superb tones from his mandolin, not difficult on a Paul Shippey, I play one myself, but this guy is a master.
Most of the tunes have a classical feel to them with few notable exceptions, the opening track
Garden Swing, is quite like the traditional American tune ' Bill Cheetham ' but different enough to stand out by itself, very ' old timey ' feel to it, I got this feeling with a few of the other tunes too but you can't put your finger on any names, track 9 Angela's Garden stands out for me, a very beautiful air, beautifully played, but there isn't a duff track on this CD.
I can heartily recommend this CD to anyone who loves mandolins and mandolin music and if Richard hasn't done already, he really must publish a book of his tunes, I would certainly buy it.
Dave Hanson
