Paul Brady - Nobody Knows: The Best of Paul Brady (1999) Lossless

Although Paul Brady has spent time playing traditional Irish music (notably, if briefly, as a member of Planxty), it's his songs that have brought him the most fame and at least some degree of fortune. No doubt about it, these are big songs -- if they don't always give you a lot to hold onto, melodically speaking, they rarely fail to grab you and pull you in on their own terms. Brady helped Bonnie Raitt make her comeback by contributing the title track to her album Luck of the Draw; Bela Fleck and Roy and Victor Wooten join him on several songs; "The World Is What You Make It" was the theme song to a successful British sitcom. A few of these numbers bear a distinct whiff of the '80s -- listen to the synth on the singalong chorus of "Paradise Is Here" -- and a few go back even further, but his powerful songwriting is a constant that overrides issues of style. And when he turns his hand to the occasional Irish song, as on "Arthur McBride" and "The Lakes of Pontchartrain," the effect is no less impressive. Highly recommended to fans of folk-rock and great pop music of any kind.