Pink Floyd’s ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ may be among the most unlikely songs Christy Moore has ever covered, but the success of his re-working of the band’s tribute to the late Syd Barrett is very precisely indicative of his ability to take over a song – virtually any song – and inhabit it from the inside. It is a gift he exhibits over and over on this fine set, in which the more reflective and controlled approach of the mature Moore is beautifully captured.

Other fine – if less familiar – covers here include Ian Prowse’s ‘Does This Train Stop on Merseyside?’, Wally Page’s ‘Duffy’s Cut’ and Hank Wedell’s ‘Listen’. Moore’s own ‘The Ballad of Ruby Walsh’ is another of his word-spinning comic inventions, while ‘Barrowland’ is his salute to the Glasgow venue. The final track is his tribute to Rory Gallagher, ‘Rory is Gone’, recorded live in that very hall.

(Columbia)