Michael Cooney
mc{at}michaelcooney.com
PO Box 278
Friendship, ME 04547 USA
Michael Cooney
Reviews from all over
East
Few singers can convey the sheer fun of singing as skillfully as Michael Cooney, who delighted an enthusiastic audience...His style is personal, happy, easygoing. Like Pete Seeger, he can turn a whole auditorium into a living room.
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Cooney is an expert on folk music. When he plays a traditional song, he will also tell where the song comes from, and how it was written. But Cooney's main strength is that he doesn't turn stuffy or academic. He gives the audience a crash course in folk music, but he keeps the mood cheery and informal.
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...a veritable history of the blues.
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Michael Cooney is a vast reservoir of folk stuff; he spans entire histories and traditions
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Cooney was a one-
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Michael Cooney is the ultimate goodness of the city folk music scene. He is a singing encyclopedia of everything that has to do with solid, respectful knowledge of the past and its traditions and a concern for the present.
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Cooney is capable of giving an audience more pure enjoyment than the sophistications of most contemporary music allow.
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The evening of traditional songs, all of them interesting, and nearly all of them funny, was without question one of the happiest events of season.
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Cooney stole the evening for my money. A sly, charming, happy guy, he seemed to have everybody laughing...
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Usually when I hear glowing reviews about a movie, play or concert artist, I am always a little disappointed in the final product expecting too much, I suppose. Michael Cooney has changed all that and renewed my faith in performers. He WAS everything promised and MORE.
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Michael Cooney is the consummate folk musician... filled the hall with a magical charisma that held both young and old in his spell all evening... kept the audience roaring with laughter.
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Tradition served with wit by Michael Cooney...one of the most popular guitarists and singers at contemporary folk festivals.
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Midwest
Cooney is the nation's most consummate, versatile interpreter of traditional musician encyclopedia of songs and stories.
This one-
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He obviously is quite serious about the whole thing, and he has a genuine folklorist's
interest in the history and culture of the songs that he sings -
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Small wonder that Michael Cooney is nicknamed "the one-
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Michael Cooney is so rare and special that every time you see him, it's like the first time you had ice cream. It's a discovery, something new and marvelous that you'll never forget... he can't help impressing happy audiences that he is close to being the complete entertainer.
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He'll turn the dustiest, most obscure old relic into something that's absorbing entertainment.
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Folksinger, musician and lorist Michael Cooney -
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...three sets of music interspersed with moments of high comedy.
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West
A natural show-
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...he has achieved that rarest of plateaus, the ability to put any audience, anywhere, completely at ease.
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His concerts are 1/3 learning, 1/3 pleasure, and 1/3 pure enthusiasm, and one leaves with a deep sense of what traditional music is all about.
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For the folk music fan and for someone who just wants good entertainment, Cooney is the answer.
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Canada
In addition to being an exceptional folk singer, Cooney is also a sincere folklorist. Not only does he sing well, but he can also weave engrossing tales about how, why and when the songs came about, adding yet another angle of interest and enjoyment to his performance
It's impossible to resist urging people to catch one of his performances when they are such honest quality.
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We saw, in Mr. Cooney's music, the roots of blues and jazz, of country music and the more modern forms of rock, not to mention even some classical forms... he has an outstanding ability to stand up before an audience and make everyone feel at home, expressing a clever sense of humor and relating interesting anecdotes about the history of music. But the inescapable fact about his performance which made it outstanding was that the audience was able, through his words and voice and musicianship, to take a trip through literally thousands of years of musical history. It was an experience in musical education. He delivered what was promised and more.
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...a fantastic collection of warm and unusual songs performed by a great artist.
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