Michael Cooney lives in Friendship, Maine; this is his first album in 23 years! On it he sings and plays... on guitar, banjo, fretless bass, and concertina...what he calls "wonderful songs." Some are traditional, others are goofy covers.

At Cooney's web site, you will find an essay on "What Is Folk Music?" According to his favored theory, if you know who wrote it, it's not a folk song. Also according to Cooney, he's not a folksinger, but rather an entertainer who sings some amount of folk songs. Maybe since the subject has come up, someone or other has classified him as a folksinger singing folk songs. Maybe someone would call this album folk music in the old Mother Earth News tradition.

Together Again begins with Howard L. Kaplan's "Nogie's Creek," a charmingly clever and ultimately dark song about Canadian frogs prevented from mating by a hypothetical chemical spill. Another song is about a woman working in a wax museum who begins a romance with a bartender, they find each other more interesting than their subjects. Scottish songwriter Adam McNaughtan's synopsis of Hamlet is there. Oddest of all is "Squalor" by the Berrymans of Madison, Wisconsin. These ditties span 1979-1995, and reveal that Cooney has a definite affinity for witty, but not necessarily aestheticly deep lyrics.

Cooney's traditional or "folk" songs are a shift in another direction and provide a rest from so much wit. Some, like "Little Do People Know" is an a capella song written by a civil war soldier one stormy night. "Lord Franklin" and "Furze Field" have lovely tunes and are accompanied by concertina. The perky "Angeline the Baker" is accompanied by banjo and "Millicent" is a pretty tune with no words played on banjo. These concertina and banjo tracks may be the high point of the album for British Isles junkies.

Cooney sounds like a regular northern guy singing folk music, on key but no Gorka or Keelaghan. His style and arrangements, accompanying himself on one of several acoustic instruments, are clear and uncluttered by the musical mush of corporate labels. The banjo playing especially is as sharp as a broken bottle of Allagash. Together Again will prove a fun and pleasant album for down-home devotees of North American music!

[Judith Gennett]