Mary Black

For Saint Patrick's Day, this is my favorite version of my favorite song about Ireland—Mary Black performing "Song for Ireland" with DeDannan. I went to one of her concerts a couple years ago just to hear her sing this song. The concert was on St. Patrick's Day, so I figured she would have to sing this, and she did.



And a traditional Irish song, "Oró Sé do Bheatha 'Bhaile"



This next song is my favorite song off Maura O'Connell's latest album, but there is no video of her performing this. So here is Mary Black's version of "Bright Blue Rose". Both women do great versions of the song.

Hard Times Come Again No More

Not many songs have 100 years of recorded history. The song "Hard Times Come Again No More" does though. This song was written by Stephen Foster in 1854. For obvious reasons it was popular during the Civil War.

Foster wrote many other songs that are still remembered, including "Old Susanna", "My Old Kentucky Home" and "Camptown Races". But "Hard Times Come Again No More" is probably that one that is recorded the most today.

This song was first recorded in 1905 by the Edison Male Quartet. You can hear that recording here.

Mavis Staples recorded this song for a recent album of Foster songs called Beautiful Dreamer - The Songs of Stephen Foster. Here is a video that was made of that recording.





James Taylor, Yo-Yo Ma, Mark O'Connor and Edgar Meyer record the song for the album Appalachian Journey.





Here is an Irish version done by Dé Danann, with vocals by Mary Black and Dolores Keane.





And for good measure here is Bob Dylan covering the song.