The Maker’s Mark   
Artist: Tony McManus 
Label: Compass Records
Time: 15 Tracks / 54 mins
 
Tony McManus is a professional (and poll-winning) acoustic guitarist who specializes in adapting Irish music for guitar, and this disc was born from a conversation with Dream Guitars owner Paul Heumiller about the quality of today’s instruments. As a result of that chat, this disc uses a different Dream Guitars instrument for each of the first fourteen tracks.      
 
McManus’s intuitive way with Celtic music comes out in most of these pieces. On the opening “Inveran / The Devil In The Kitchen / Lochiel's Away To France”, you can hear the lower strings replicating the rhythmic fiddle, while the higher strings highlight the melody clearly and sharply with typical Irish bounce.
 
“Donal Og / the Lea Rig” is a gentler piece, though still with its Celtic charm. While picking out its lilting melody, McManus accentuates the top end with a series of sparkling harmonics. On “Maids of Mitchelstown” he takes another traditional piece and slows it right down with dreamy effect; and there is a lovely, vibrant, trebly tone to “The Laird of Drumblair / The Margaree Reel” where McManus employs some Giltrap-like flitting around the fret board. 
 
Away from the Celtic works, probably the best known of these tracks is the South African national anthem, “N'kosi Sikelele Afrika,” but McManus also whisks us off to Spain for the laid back and melodic “Chanlaneru” as well as to Eastern Europe for some Bulgarian dance music.  Probably the highlight is the climactic, wide-eyed and transfixing “Valse des Belugas,” where he employs each of the fourteen guitars in an impressively uncluttered way. Some guitars are used purely as accents, when he wants a mandolin effect or twangy edge.
 
To this untrained ear, many of the guitars have a sonic similarity, although the on “Doïna / Parov’s Daichevo” the sitar-like effect of the Linda Manzer guitar is an obvious standout. Michael Greenfield’s instrument has a very bright sound, clear on the treble notes; and I was surprised to see a Paul Reed-Smith guitar here, as I know him as a specialist electric guitar-maker (who has produced instruments for the likes of Alex Lifeson, Carlos Santana, Axl Rose and Mac Powell), but his acoustic has a rich, rounded tone.
 
This disc is all about celebrating the guitars, so tracks that might otherwise have had more instrumentation sound more naked than they could – as “Valse des Belugas” shows by contrast. Nevertheless, McManus skillfully plays all that he touches here, even if he does seem quite restrained and classical in approach, showing less individual personality than some players. The Maker’s Mark works well, whether it is only wanted for background, or whether guitarists want to study the showcased instruments; but I felt that it tended to drag a bit three-quarters of the way through, needing a fresh input of tone. Maybe a couple more multi-layered pieces would have given it more casual impact.

Derek Walker