I was hunting down folk who sing with a Northern Irish accent for #ThePlaylist and was disappointed to find a lot of singers from here seem to suppress or downplay their accent. So, for St Patrick’s Day, here’s Foy Vance in the Bushmills Distillery with some very County Down vowels.
Wow, great performance, but amazing to me how the accent sounds just like a certain variety of stuff from the US, doesn't sound unusual or "foreign accent" to me at all.
@dlakelan That’s interesting, because to me that’s a very strong local accent. The way he sings “down” in the second line and “now” in the chorus are very characteristic of a specific area.
But then, I’ve spoken to Americans who think Liam Neeson’s American accent is great so now I suspect you lot just can’t tell the difference 😉
Foy Vance is good though. He’s like if Van Morrison wasn’t a massive twat.
Yeah, I can hear the "down" (sounds like "deern"). But I think you may also be underestimating the effect that Irish immigrants had on American music particularly in bluegrass. I'm definitely a bluegrass fan so that may play into it.
Here's like some random recent bluegrass that's not at all a good comparison but I definitely hear altered pronunciation vs american common english
@astronomerritt
https://youtu.be/5rDrPBzJo5o?si=Yo1awOrhRWMndQpv
here's Abigail Washburn singing and playing banjo in an alley 😅.
Undoubtedly you'll hear the difference more than the similarity. She certainly isnt going to pronounce "down" like "deern" but as you say the exaggerated vowels are also not normal modern american pronunciation. If I went back and played some 1950s bluegrass with old school Appalachian players it'd sound even less modern american.
Steph (crisis version)
Daniel Lakeland