Don't I Know
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Description
Maura O'Connell's exquisite collaborations with producer/Dobro master Jerry Douglas aren't just collections of beautifully wrought songs. They're life lessons, instructions on how to live, love, lose, and survive, even when it takes excruciating effort. O'Connell's dusky Irish alto is a wondrous instrument, capable of summoning the brooding of the ages, but also brimming with such rich integrity and old-soul wisdom as to nurture the most casual listener. But one can't really be casual about songs of such power, where writers Patty Griffin, Al Anderson, Jenny Orenstein, Mindy Smith, and Tim O'Brien ponder significant birthdays, loneliness, emotional fragility, and the seeming finality of death. By O'Connell's illumination, these are not depressing topics, but rather moments of liberating, potent truth, given wing with musical support from Bryan Sutton, Viktor Krauss, Edgar Meyer, backing vocalist Carmella Ramsey, and Douglas himself. Rapturous. --Alanna Nash
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