This version of Softly and Tenderly is by Cynthia Clawson and is from the 1985 movie "Trip to Bountiful" with Geraldine Page as an elderly woman striking out on her own to take one last trip home before she dies. It's a sad and lovely movie and this is Sheila's favorite version of this song.
We were introduced to Connie Dover's music back during my wife's Irish phase where she dug deeply into Irish music and Irish history. Her family, the Keens have a deep Irish past going back to the Kings of Tara. Connie does a lot of Irish music and cowboy music. The two types of music are deeply kin with a lot of Irish ballads being morphed into cowboy songs by the thousands of Irish cowboys that helped settle the west.
I heard Connie do this song at the North Texas Irish Festival. The longing for some kind of sense of home in this song is very similar to the longing in songs like "The Leaving of Liverpool". Sailors and Cowboys have a lot in common, they just sail over different seas.
Connie does some lovely music. During the summers she works with her husband on cattle drives for tourists. Connie manages the chuck wagon, cooks and sings cowboy music over the campfire. I really love her music.
