Product Description Chuck celebrates his Southern roots and Celtic heritage in this collection of story songs. Now funny, now sad, always entertaining and often thought-provoking. Mike Simpson, of TrueWind Music, says: "Sweet Reunion is my favorite, of McCabe's albums. It is visually the richest, and includes a fine picture of the singer as a youth, amidst the family that helped form him. The Point is clear: we need to go back and look again at what made us what we are - the past has given us things worth keeping." With a little blues and gospel, a dash of country and some stirring Celtic flavor, the instrumental work on this album is mostly acoustic, string band stuff- guitar, Dobro, banjo, bass and harmonica, all superbly played by Norton Buffalo (Steve Miller Band), Rob Ickes (Blue Highway), Brian McNeill (Battlefield Band), Myron Dove (Santana) and David Brewer (Molly's Revenge). The stellar production by Joe Weed is worth the price alone, and the songs are among McCabe's best. Rambles Review: Sweet Reunion marks McCabe's first real flirtation with Celtic musical influences. The thought of a meat-and-potatoes American folk musician like McCabe dealing out Celtic fiddle and Scottish pipes at first seems questionable. But there's no attempt here to be another faux-Celtic musician. McCabe borrows just enough from his Irish-Scottish roots to inspire his own style. The results are an exuberant and very American synthesis. Two songs draw most obviously from McCabe's Celtic experiment. 'The Junk in Murphy's Yard' is a simply perfect song that covers art, life, death and immortality with the imagination and whimsy of a Dr. Seuss or Shel Silverstein poem. The sparkling percussion that echoes the rain of the song turns into a step-dancing rhythm or a dirge with perfect timing. 'Erin the Fair (& Caledonia the Brave)' is a homage to the suffering of the Celtic immigrants who made the McCabe name and so many others into common American surnames. Pipes and whistles call out the defiance and sorrow of all those who left their homes behind to find a better future across the sea. But no matter where McCabe comes from, he's an American boy, and Sweet Reunion has the rhythm and blues to prove it, and plenty of wild country to prove it in. 'Grandpa Played Softball' and 'That's What I Like About My Baby' show off McCabe's flair for celebrating the everyday, along with some surprisingly elegant rhyme schemes and outright great guitar work. 'Gone to Utah' paints the vibrant colors and wide open spaces of the American Southwest in strokes of steel strings and the lingering touch of suspended chords. 'Deliver Us from Evil' and 'No Good to Me Now' borrow from the distant but related realms of blues and gospel, one a thunder-heavy prayer on the wickedness of life, the other a joyful, horn-backed celebration of personal growth. 'Sweet Reunion' is the perfect ending to an album full of separations and brief alliances, a powerfully hopeful promise of better eternities. McCabe is one of our great singing poets, and he does it all without any overt pretense at poetry. No straining experimental rhyme schemes, no deconstructed traditions. He just gets out there and says the important things that everyone knows, but few can put it into words. He can put those things into words; better still, he can put them into music. His guitar work is powerful, his vocals are low and pitched right into the spine; but it's that rare gift of expression that makes Sweet Reunion truly satisfy, ears, mind and soul. By Sarah Meador Rambles.NET 1 April 2006. Review When a musical artist hits his stride and produces one meaty release after another, attention must be paid. Case in point: Chuck McCabe. Building on the momentum of his fiendishly listenable 2004 release, Chicken Dinners and 2002 s equally tasty Bad Gravity Day, the northern California-based singer-songwriter s Sweet Reunion is the richest, most ambitious album of his career. Sweet Reunion attests to the full creative maturity of its maker and indeed the vitality of the album as a musical format. Download a choice cut or two, but you ll want the CD, not least for its elegant design, but mainly to hear a contemporary artist at the top of his game. --Tim Peters, MusicdishMcCabe borrows just enough from his Irish-Scottish roots to inspire his own style. The results are an exuberant and very American synthesis. But no matter where McCabe comes from, he's an American boy, and Sweet Reunion has the rhythm and blues to prove it, and plenty of wild country to prove it in. "Grandpa Played Softball" and "That's What I Like About My Baby" show off McCabe's flair for celebrating the everyday, along with some surprisingly elegant rhyme schemes and outright great guitar work. "Gone to Utah" paints the vibrant colors and wide open spaces of the American Southwest in strokes of steel strings and the lingering touch of suspended chords. "Deliver Us from Evil" and "No Good to Me Now" borrow from the distant but related realms of blues and gospel, one a thunder-heavy prayer on the wickedness of life, the other a joyful, horn-backed celebration of personal growth. "Sweet Reunion" is the perfect ending to an album full of separations and brief alliances, a powerfully hopeful promise of better eternities. --Sara Meador, Rambles.netSweet Reunion is my favorite, of McCabe s albums. It is visually the richest, and includes a fine picture of the singer as a youth, amidst the family that helped form him. The Point is clear: we need to go back and look again at what made us what we are - the past has given us things worth keeping. --Mike Simpson, TrueWind Music About the Artist Chuck McCabe began his life "on-the-road". He was born into a career Navy family that moved every 2 years. For 20 years he lived in the deep South, far North, and up and down both coasts. (Key West, Seattle, Rhode Island, San Diego) The travel must have gotten into his blood, for he chose a career that would keep him on the road for the next 20 years, as well. He played summers on Cape Cod, winters in Vail & Steamboat and recorded both in Nashville and L.A. (for Capitol, ABC and GRT). He was a staff writer for ABC. He started out on 5-string banjo, and played it in Disneyland at Frontierland's Golden Horseshoe Saloon. He took up guitar, and has played that just about everywhere else... from trendy bars on Sunset Strip, to USO shows in the wilds of Viet Nam, Thailand, Japan and the Philippines. This veteran performer does his own music now, and has released his 4th CD on the BlahBlahWoofWoof label. A vein of humor runs through his distinctly American music, drawing from ragtime and blues along the lines of Fats Waller and Jimmy Rodgers, and their modern counterparts like Leon Redbone and Randy Newman. Somebody once said Chuck's musical style falls somewhere between Roger Miller and Hoagy Carmichael. His material has received recognition from the Boston Folk Festival, Pine Mtn Festival, Napa Music and Wine Festival, the Sisters (Oregon) Folk Fest, the Sierra Songwriters' Festival, North State (Calif.) Songwriters Festival, Tucson Folk Festival, the Wildflower Festival in Dallas, and the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah, Oklahoma (Woody's hometown). After watching one of Chuck's performances, Erik Darling, of the legendary Weavers and Rooftop singers described him like this: "Onstage, he appears taller." See more