This Really is the Border of Heaven   January 28, 2002

I loved the CD because it's sung and arranged beautifully and because it has a variety of musical moods--traditional American, Celtic, and folk. There isn't a song on the album that I don't enjoy, and my wife loves it, too. I'm honestly surprised that Connie Dover isn't more famous than she seems to be, and I can't wait for her next CD.


The Border of Heaven by Connie Dover   October 24, 2001
  3 out of 3 found this review helpful

This album includes the type of music we expect from singers of Celtic music plus some old favorites like Sweet Betsy from Pike and the Streets of Laredo. Plus some of my favorite musicians are on it including Phil Cunningham, Jerry Douglas and Skip Gorman. This is lyrical music that you would expect from Enya, Loreena McKennitt and Mary Black.


Connie Shows Her Brilliance!   May 5, 2001
  11 out of 11 found this review helpful

I've been a fan of all her albums, but this is the first time I would use the word "brilliant". To me, this album was my first glimpse at just HOW much inner beauty this artist possesses. I'd known about her lush, textured voice. I'd known about her polished, sophisticated style. I could have told you she was talented and worth hearing.

But to me, this album is a stretch to a whole new level. The songs Last Night by the River and Wondrous Love are nothing short of powerful. Powerful in that immortal sort of way - songs that are so important that it's worth buying a dozen albums in search of them.

Exquisite!


Average for Connie is still stellar for everyone else!   January 31, 2001
  7 out of 9 found this review helpful

As I implied, this is an average recording for Connie. Her previous album, The Wishing Well, while not always consistent, at least delivers more shivery moments per song than this one does. In fact, shivery moments are hard to find on Border of Heaven. But there are some standouts, notably an adorable rendition of Sweet Betsy from Pike, the plaintive I Am Going to the West (gorgeous melody), and a slightly different take on the American hymn Wondrous Love.

It's very hard to top Connie's voice. She could sing excerpts from the phone book and I'd listen. That's why songs that really wouldn't grab me if anyone else did them, such as Last Night by the River or My Dearest Dear, manage to sparkle and grow on me over time.

Some pieces have not really grown on me: Brother Green, Lord Franklin, or the rather laconic version of The Water is Wide. That's okay--rather than skipping them as I might on someone else's album, I just let them play in the background while I do something else. A tribute to Connie's talent.

I must admit that I have not heard Connie's first two recordings, If Ever I Return and Somebody. Why? When I picked up The Wishing Well, my first thought was, "Oh boy--I'm going to meter out this singer. No binging here. I won't buy those others until I am at a low point in my life when I need more truly excellent music." I'm not at that point yet, but in a way, I hope it comes soon!


Singing the Cowboy Etherial   January 3, 2001
  2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Another Connie Dover album of pure, smooth, evocative, melifluous, and very clear renderings of mostly traditional songs, delicately and elegantly backed by some of the best and most well-known Scottish folk musicians who handle the American West music idiom perfectly when required.

It differs from Connie Dover's previous CDs only in emphasis, containing mostly songs of the American West related by tune or words to Celtic or English tunes or songs, with a few just generally New World.

Flaws? Perhaps too many of the slower songs are grouped in the second half of the album. Perhaps some of the renderings are too placid (particularly "What Wondrous Love"). But otherwise ....

I laughed from pure joy and delight on hearing "An Spailpin Fanach (The Wandering Laborer)", as the beautiful Gaelic syllables pour out to the lively, unequalled tune better known as "The Girl I Left Behind Me."

"Going to the West", mostly Connie Dover's own composition, and one of the most tuneful and moving songs on the album, had for me a meaning I don't think she intended at all to from her notes. The West, where Sun and Day vanish, is in some mythological traditions the Land of the Dead. But this interpretation works wonderfully, especially in light of the album's name (which in her notes she derives from a description of the land of Beulah in John Bunyan's _Pilgrim's_Progess_).

It is the well-known songs that mostly grab me here: "Sweet Betsy from Pike" (in a full, gritty, matter-of-fact version detailing pioneer rough joy, hardship and despair), "The Water is Wide", "Lord Franklin", "Winter's Night" (which is mostly the widespread , floating "Who will shoe your pretty little foot" verses) and "The Streets of Laredo" where Connie Dover sings an Old British version of the ballad followed by guest Western singer Skip Gorman with the cowboy version. Some of these I thought I'd been satiated with from numerous other renderings; but they compel again, which is, I suppose, why they remain such well-known songs.

But I'm grateful for the other, previously unknown, gems. The scholarly notes are judicious, dust-free, with enough hints and references for those who wish to seek further.