Christy Moore

It's rare to find an album that can keep you entranced for 40-odd minutes, but Moore exerts a kind of magnetism on his landmark 1984 record. He stepped away from Irish traditional music (bringing Donal Lunny with him), singing folk songs that appealed outside Ireland's borders yet remained utterly Irish in outlook. Classics include the talking blues of "Lisdoonvarna" (about the now-defunct music festival) and "The City of Chicago." And yes, "Back Home in Derry" is set to the tune of Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" -- with lyrics by none other than Bobby Sands.