Sleepless (1999)

"Her 1998 debut "Hourglass" was a huge hit in her native Britain, and with good reason: her voice is a sweet but slightly rough mezzo, she sings and plays guitar with equal plainspoken skill, and she picks great songs. So you can't blame her for sticking with a winning strategy on her follow-up. With the help of young producer and fiddler John McCusker (of the Battlefield Band), Rusby serves up a generous program of minimally arranged traditional songs, as well as a few originals; there are more guest musicians this time out, including American folkies Tim O'Brien and Darrell Scott. There's also an Iris DeMent cover, the sweetly affecting "Our Town"-a song whose distinctly middle American overtones are a little strange in this context. But "Botany Bay" certainly does, and so does "The Fairest of All Yarrow," and if on "The Cobbler's Daughter" Rusby drops grisly details with a disquietingly off-hand grace, well, welcome to the wonderful world of traditional music. Highly recommended." (Rick Anderson, Allmusic)