Cara Dillon review by Rob Adams

Cara Dillon has confronted her sternest critic. Several times they’ve gone head to head. Despite her young daughter’s protests, though, the singer from Dungiven still sings Come Flying with Me. And why shouldn’t she? It’s a sweet lullaby that Mum sings beautifully and it put her firmly on Disney’s radar (it features in Tinkerbell and the Great Fairy Rescue alongside Dillon’s singing of the title song) even if that detail doesn’t impress everyone at home.

There’s every chance, of course, that this is Dillon being economical with the truth because she likes a leg-pull. Did her band really threaten mutiny unless they got to show off? Unlikely but the tunes that turned the spotlight on fiddler Niall Murphy and button accordionist Luke Daniels, both superb players with bags of character, would have backed up their case emphatically if they had.

If Dillon fibs between songs, she’s entirely believable when it matters. Her unaccompanied singing of The Winding River Roe conveyed clear, heartfelt understanding of its homesick expatriate letter-writer’s pining and her storytelling style on songs such as My Donald and Eighteen Years Old confirms her ability to get right inside a narrative and relay it with warm, genuine musicality.

She’s helped in this by her husband, Sam Lakeman, another target of Dillon’s teasing, and his talent for framing her singing in supportive, buoyant arrangements both at the piano and in a two-guitar partnership with the ever apposite Ed Boyd. The songs also are well chosen, with the deeply attractive Shotgun down the Avalanche, the gospel flavoured Bright Morning Star and the soaring Hill of Thieves further stand-outs in a consistently high quality performance.