Yella Hoose and Goodnight Ginger, the two brilliant solo album’s from Scotland’s leading instrumentalist / producer / musician of choice for the stars, John McCusker. They have been newly remastered with extended sleeve notes by Phil Cunningham in a 16 page booklet. One of Scotland’s most accomplished and versatile musicians in any genre, John McCusker is a multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer and on Yella Hoose and Goodnight Ginger his wonderful fiddle playing is centre stage.
'Yella Hoose' showcases John McCusker's writing talents. He is a prolific composer of tunes and, eighteen of the twenty-one featured on this CD are written by him. There are airs, jigs and marches aplenty and a rather lovely song "Night Visiting Song" with vocals by Kate Rusby. John has gathered a fine collection of musicians to play along with him and they are:
Ian Carr - guitar, Andy Seward - bass, Andy Cutting - diatonic accordian, Tim O'Brien - mandolin, Darrell Scott - guitar (track 12), Michael McGoldrick - flutes & whistles (tracks 3,4,6,8), Kevin MacKenzie - guitar (tracks 2,3). Conrad Ivitsky - double bass (tracks 4,8), Russell Hunter - piano (track 3 ), Simon Thoumire - concertina, Gino Lupari - bodhran, Iain MacDonald - whistle, small pipes, jews harp (track 1), Keith Angel - percussion (track 2), Kate Rusby - vocals, Jackie Wells - cello, Donald Hay - wee bell, Mike Katz - small pipes (track 4), Malcolm Stitt - guitar (track 9), bazoukie (track 6).
'Goodnight Ginger' is no less a classic CD with lots of guest musicians including Andy Cutting (diatonic accordion), Andy Seward (double bass), Phil Cunningham (accordion), Michael McGoldrick (flute, whistles, pipes and bodhran), Kate Rusby (vocals), Kris Drever (double bass), Iain McDonald (pipes and flute), John Doyle (guitar), Neil Yates (trumpet and flugelhorn), Simon Thoumire (concertina), Ian MacFarlane (fiddle) and Brian Finnegan (whistle).