Sleepless

1	The Cobbler's Daughter 2:38
2	I Wonder What Is Keeping My True Love This Night 4:40
3	The Fairest of All Yarrow 2:58
4	The Unquiet Grave 4:38
5	Sho Heen 4:02
6	Sweet Bride 3:38
7	All God's Angels 4:12
8	The Wild Goose 4:22
9	The Duke and the Tinker 3:42
10	Our Town 4:43
11	The Sleepless Sailor 3:46
12	Cow Song Bonus Track 4:37
13	Botany Bay Bonus Track 4:10

Barnes & Noble

English folk phenomenon Kate Rusby explores small moments -- the lingering flight of "The Wild Goose," the predicament of "The Cobbler's Daughter," the musing of "The Sleepless Sailor." She does this with a fine ear and voice for detail, treating her songs -- from the traditional "Goose" to the original "Sailor" with the spare yet passionate delivery they merit. She also offers a definitively different take on Iris DeMent's saga of the death of a small southwestern hamlet, "Our Town." Rusby is from Yorkshire in the UK, and her distinctive accent lends authenticity and personality to the tales she shares. The twentysomething Rusby's unlikely combination of simplicity and sophistication as well as her understanding of musical tradition is opening doors for her in other parts of the world as well. Kerry Dexter

All Music Guide

Hourglass, her 1998 debut, was a huge hit in her native Britain, and with good reason: her voice is a sweet but slightly rough mezzo, she sings and plays guitar with equal plainspoken skill, and she picks great songs. So you can't blame her for sticking with a winning strategy on her follow-up. With the help of young producer and fiddler John McCusker (of the Battlefield Band), Rusby serves up a generous program of minimally arranged traditional songs, as well as a few originals; there are more guest musicians this time out, including American folkies Tim O'Brien and Darrell Scott, but they never clutter the sound or pull the focus away from Rusby's gentle Yorkshire-tinted singing. There's also an Iris DeMent cover, a version of the sweetly affecting "Our Town"-a song whose distinctly middle American overtones don't necessarily ring completely true in this context. But "Botany Bay" certainly does, and so does "The Fairest of All Yarrow," and if on "The Cobbler's Daughter" Rusby drops grisly details with a disquietingly off-hand grace, well, welcome to the wonderful world of traditional music. Highly recommended. Rick Anderson