{"id":145157,"date":"2024-09-11T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-11T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=145157"},"modified":"2024-09-06T15:57:44","modified_gmt":"2024-09-06T22:57:44","slug":"review-all-my-friends-aoife-odonovan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/review-all-my-friends-aoife-odonovan\/","title":{"rendered":"With \u2018All My Friends,\u2019 Aoife O\u2019Donovan Composes a Soulful History Lesson and Call to Action on Women\u2019s Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra in Central Florida asked Aoife O\u2019Donovan to write five songs commemorating the centennial of the 19th Amendment, she sent sketches to orchestrator Tanner Porter and decided to draw on speeches and letters by activist Carrie Chapman Catt, whose work helped make it possible for women to finally gain the right to vote in 1920. A second commission from the FreshGrass Foundation<\/a> gave O\u2019Donovan the resources to record more songs and pay for sessions all around the country\u2014in Nashville, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Berkeley, as well as Central Florida, Vermont, and Massachusetts. The result is All My Friends<\/a>,<\/em> a genre-blurring album with nine songs that skillfully alternate between orchestral movements and quiet passages, blending folk\/Americana and orchestral flavors for a potent mix that feels supremely relevant as the U.S. heads toward another fiercely divisive presidential election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Aoife<\/a>
Aoife O\u2019Donovan, <\/em>All My Friends<\/a> (Yep Roc)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Given the current political climate, an album about suffrage and women\u2019s rights could easily be, well, bleak. Instead, All My Friends <\/em>is a gorgeous, exquisitely paced meditation that doubles as a call to action. The musicianship is uniformly excellent, too. On songs like \u201cSomeone to Follow\u201d and \u201cThe Right Time,\u201d the album gets its Americana flavor from contributions by O\u2019Donovan touring compadres Alan Hampton (bass) and Griffin Goldsmith (drums), plus Rob Burger (accordion and keyboard), Noam Pikelny (banjo), Jim Fitting (harmonica), and Luke Reynolds (pedal steel). The young women of the San Francisco Girls Chorus, headed by Val\u00e9rie Sainte-Agathe, bring their A game to songs like \u201cAll My Friends,\u201d \u201cDaughters,\u201d and \u201cAmerica, Come.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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