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Petula Clark - now ninety-one years old - was already an established star in the UK when the British Invasion hit America like a tsunami in 1964. "Downtown" - her debut single on this side of the Atlantic Ocean - hit #1 on the Hot 100 in January 1965 making Clark the first female, British singer to reach that lofty position after rock and roll became the dominant pop-music force in the USA. She was only the second British woman to ever accomplish that feat in history. (Singer Vera Lynn was the first one to do it in 1952). Clark's original recording was an exuberant mixture of pop-rock, big band jazz and Broadway that included a muted trumpet solo during the fadeout, something seldom heard in pop music then or now. In 2011, the celebrated Celtic rockers, The Saw Doctors from County Galway, Republic of Ireland, recorded "Downtown" after witnessing the huge reaction it received during one of their concert's encores...

The Saw Doctors live performance at the Black Box in Galway, Ireland on New Year's Day 2005 was released as a limited edition CD with a run of only one thousand autographed copies. All proceeds from the sale of the disc went to the Galway Sri Lanka Relief Fund to aid tsunami victims. When orders for New Year's Day exceeded the number made available by the original pressing Leo Moran, one of the band's founding members and primary lead singer, wondered how The Docs could keep their promise to fans that their purchases would still be part of a limited run while trying to fill all of the excess orders. The answer was to issue another thousand discs with brand new cover art, shown here, and new liner notes written by Moran. This would preserve the exclusivity of the original thousand and keep the remaining customers happy. After copies of the first thousand sold out the band gave the fund a check for 15,000 euros. New Year's Day is an excellent live disc, more enjoy...

The Saw Doctors played World Café Live in Philadelphia last night to a loyal crowd who cheered their every note. The veteran band, featuring founding members Davy Carton (lead vocals and guitar) and Leo Moran (lead guitar and additional lead vocals), is another fixture in a long line of irreverent Irish rockers. However there is a big difference between the Saw Doctors and bands like Black 47 and U2. Carton and Moran direct most of their frequent barbs at the Roman Catholic Church in lieu of the events and individuals resposible for Ireland's tumultuous and often sad political history that the other two bands prefer. There is nothing like "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "New Year’s Day" (U2) or "Bobby Sands MP" and "James Connelly" (Black 47) in their repertoire. The Doctors are not a jam band in the least. Their songs are all compact, and to the point. They played almost thirty songs in just a little less than two hours. Both Moran and Carto...

The Saw Doctors first three studio releases were all cut from the same cloth. They were irreverent and often light-hearted, pub rock albums with vocals sung through an echo chamber effect that frequently made the lyrics difficult to understand. Too often the Docs sounded like a bar band trying to adjust to a big arena. Fortunately the lyric sheets that came with each CD helped a lot. The only time the echo effect caused a problem with lyric comprehension was on their compilation of singles, EPs, and oddities, Play It Again Sham! (2003), and that was because the disc didn't contain a lyric sheet. Then on their fourth and fifth studio albums, Songs From Sun Street (1998) and Villains (2002), the Docs went to a folk-rock sound, featuring more acoustic instruments and upfront vocals that were easier to understand. The difference in sound was more a result of the production style rather than in the songwriting, arranging, or attitude. With the release of The Cure the bar band sound tha...

Live In Galway , released in 2004, is The Saw Doctors first live album and their latest to be available in America. The Doctors are one of the great Irish rock bands, second in popularity in Ireland only to U2, yet they remain virtually unknown in America except to hardcore fans of Celtic music. Because vintage Saw Doctors music is not easily available stateside you may view Live In Galway as a tempting first purchase, but please do yourself a favor and don't rush out to buy this CD unless you are already a fan of their first two releases If This Is Rock & Roll I Want My Old Job Back and their followup All The Way From Tuam . If you are not familiar with those CDs Live In Galway will be an unfullfilling experience because most of the songs do not have the high quality production of their excellent studio recordings. The melody and lead guitar are washed out of the songs due to the imperfect live mix and therefore the songs all tend to sound the same. When I finally heard the...