If you're a folk music fan but you're unfamiliar with Gaelic music, you couldn't ask for a better starting point than the songs of Mary Jane Lamond.

Mary Jane Lamond sings the traditional songs of the Gaelic people of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia- some of which come from their ancestors in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, while others are local to Cape Breton Island.

There are haunting laments for husbands drowned at sea or lost in battles fought centuries ago, but there are also lullabies, work songs, love songs, and even “A Song to an Old Ford,” which is about a Model T once owned by the singer's grandfather.

There are fiddles, of course, and the Cape Breton piano, and there are bagpipes and other traditional Gaelic instruments. There are also plenty of sounds never heard before at a Cape Breton ceilidh, because Lamond presents her songs in a modern context- she's no folk-music purist.

Perhaps the most appealing aspect of her music is her crystal-clear, bell-like voice, which is not only extraordinarily pretty but also much more precisely articulated than many other Gaelic singers'. This makes it easy to sing along, which is half the fun- even if you don't speak any Gaelic yourself. The choruses to Gaelic songs are often nonsense syllables anyway, so you can always join in on the chorus even if you don't know what the lyrics mean. Some of her albums include both the Gaelic words and the English translation in the liner notes, and the poetry of the original lyrics adds a lot to the beauty of these songs.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vpvkE8i4dvE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>