She absorbs you with an unrestrained exuberance,” notes Smithfield Fair’s
Dudley-Brian Smith about his Celtic colleague Beth Patterson. Given the bouzouki-slinging
solo act’s live disc, such a laudable endorsement couldn’t be more
prophetic. Culled from various venues, including O’Flaherty’s Irish
Pub, Patterson’s craftings are an anachronism of sorts: traddish melodies
stirred with contemporary, philosophical songwriting that’s a tsunami of
intellectualism and signature expression (“Epona,” “Microcosm”).
While she evokes images of a medieval country siren channeling her music through
a delicate Irish-sounding set of pipes and ten prodigious fingers – especially
with Robert Burns’ “Jon Anderson” and “Eisht As Nish” in
Manx Gaelic – how quickly those images fade. She’s adept at genre-crossing
fusions like the Middle-Eastern-bent “Blue Blazes” and the foot-percussive “Musique à Bouche” that
melds into the Cajun folk song “Raisin, Raisin.” In between sonic
personalizations, she unravels hilarious antidotes like the time a terrier barfed
on her in response to her gushing, sickening baby talk. At one point she even
expresses maternal sentiments only to drop the bomb: “It’s the ultimate
gesture of complete gallantry / Darlin’ please get that vasectomy.” With
Patterson, there’s always a surprise in store except for one—she
still snorts when she laughs, okay?