Mary Black has the gift of being able to sing traditional and contemporary music with equal grace. No Frontiers is a beautiful example of her modern mode. Even when she is singing something as pop-oriented as Burt Bacharach's "Say a Little Prayer," Black's pure voice retains echoes of her roots. (Her father was a fiddler and her mother sang in dance halls in Dublin.) The arrangements are contemporary, but many of the songs have a distinctly old, folk tinge. Her grounding in traditional music gives her performances of new material a timeless feel. --Michael Simmons
