Irish Music Magazine
May 1, 2007
Dan Possumato, "Land of Sunshine - Irish Traditional Music on the Melodeon and Button Accordion" own label, 12 traks, dur. 42.58, contact dpossumato@earthlink.net.
Box player, Dan Possumato from Anchorage, Alaska, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on St Patrick's Day, and as a youngster he was familiar with the celebration of popular Irish culture and traditions in his home place. "I clearly recollect my earliest birthday parties that featured harps and shamrocks on the cakes," he says, "going with my parents to watch the big parades downtown, and of course the Irish music that always filled the air." At one of those parades he heard his first live céilí band that was playing on a flat bed truck, and from that moment he was hooked on Irish music. He has been a regular visitor to fleadhanna ceoil in Ireland, and he spends time with his musician friends in Galway and Clare.
One of the first recordings he bought was an LP that featured fiddler Seamus Creagh and box player Jackie Daly. He played it over and over again, and then went out and bought his first melodeon. He had one lesson from Terry Winch who now lives in Washington, DC, and after that he was on his own. Well, he has learned well, and what we have here on his new CD, Land of Sunshine, is an accomplished and unpretentious presentation of traditional tunes, a few original numbers and a couple of tunes of his own composing. There are two songs by Laura Mulcahy, and musicians who play on individual tracks are, Quentin Cooper, banjo, guitar, and bouzouki, sound engineer and instrument maker, Jerry Mulvihill, banjo, and Alan Wallace, guitar.
Dan's steady and easy playing style reminds one of the older traditional players once heard in house céilís of a former era and all the more appealing for it. The title track, Land of Sunshine, is a reel composed by Martin Mulhaire, and it's followed by Miss Lyon's Fancy which he heard from the playing of Mary Custy. Two charming little waltzes of his own, Charlotte's Waltz and Yana's Waltz, were inspired by his friendship with "two darling little girls who stole my heart" and who live in Anchorage.
Laura Mulcahy sings The Lakes of Pontchartrain, a song Dan says believes may have been written by an Irish veteran of the Confederacy after the U.S. Civil War, and Blackwater's Side. Coincidentally, I collected variants of these two songs from the late great singer, Mrs Caroline Brennnan of Ship Cove, Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. This is a most enjoyable collection of dance music and song by Dan Possumato and his friends, and I am delighted to recommend it to the lover of box playing and for an honest rendition of the old tunes.
-- Aidan O'Hara, Irish Music Magazine