While Eddi Reader's Sings the Songs of Robert Burns may sound like something deeply unpalatable foisted upon cowering school music students as part of the National Curriculum, it isn't. And besides--the former Fairground Attraction vocalist has come up with a folk album sensitive to the protestations (Jacobite rebel songs), lusts and romantic tragedies ("Ae Fond Kiss" and the unbearable tenderness of "My Love Is Like a Red Red Rose") of Rabbie Burns's work. While poetry may not be the new rock & roll, Alloway's 18th Century "ploughman poet" made more of a decent fist at getting pissed and overly frisky with the ladies than was ever managed by Jim Morrison. And when it came to poetry, Burns wrote "Tam O' Shanter". Morrison wrote "Death of My Cock". Enough said. Abetted by some of the most prestigious names in the contemporary British folk world--John McCusker, Colin Reid, Boo Hewerdine, Kate Rusby (who duets harmoniously on the homesick Highland panorama of "Wild Mountainside") and with Kevin McCrae's eloquent string arrangements (with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra) meriting comparisons to Robert Kirby's work on the first two Nick Drake albums, this is an album that serves to impress upon the listener the desire to explore the works of Burns--and Reader--further. If "Jamie Is My Darling"--a call to sexual initiation--is justly delivered with all the juvenile frisson of a tentative knee-trembler behind the bike sheds then "John Anderson My Jo" is breathtakingly poignant in its tale of life-long commitment. Thoughtfully--and for the benefit of Sassenach speakers of the "De'il's tongue"--Reader's sleeve notes provide handy translations of some of the more abstruse elements of Burns' Scottish dialect. She also admits to being a bit coy about Burns' bawdiness ( "Brose and Butter" omits the most offensive, female crotch-area word in the English language) so one can only hope she'll be brave enough to include a version of "Nine Inch Will Please a Lady" on her next Robert Burns album. After all, on the strength of this effort, a second volume is surely warranted. --Kevin Maidment
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