Recordings: Pooh - Friends Forever

Although my daughter has excellent musical taste, we do from time to time buy or borrow so-called "children's music." And although a great deal of it is, well, horrible, and never gets played again after the first listening, there are exceptions. So the other day my wife tells me that she's picked up a Winnie-the-Pooh CD at the library with some tin whistle on a couple tracks, and our daughter likes it. Sounds interesting, but I didn't think much of it. Then a couple days later we're riding in the car and she puts the CD, called, "Pooh - Friends Forever" on.

Well, yes, there's tin whistle, but there's also Uilleann pipes, simple system flute, they're playing a jig, and when I pick up the CD I see that track 13, "Reel Friendship," is performed by Solas. Solas on a Pooh CD?!? How weird is that? Even stranger, you'd hardly know it to look a the CD. Solas is mentioned in tiny type on the back. Most of the musicians are uncredited. The folks from Solas are credited, as are some of the vocalists — sort of — but it's not at all clear who plays most of the instruments on the CD or even who wrote the songs. Do John Doyle and Winifred Horan play only on the single Solas track? Someone with a better ear for style than I posess will have to answer that. Seamus Egan is credited for playing the bodhran — only! All in all it's an odd little find.

Not all of the CD is ITM. Granted, ITM doesn't generally feature Tigger on vocals, but some of the tracks are a bluegrassy version of what you've come to expect from "Pooh songs" if you've seen a few of the Disney movies. That doesn't make them bad, however; the whole CD is a cut above the typical Disney soundtrack.

You can hear samples of the CD at the Amazon page.