"HOW do I do it? I show up for work on Monday morning. Your track record is nice and reaffirming, but it doesn't make you walk on water."

In typical Irish fashion, Phil Coulter downplays the success he's had in a career as songwriter, producer and singer these last 40 years. Now, he can add a new occupation to the list - musical director of Celtic Thunder, the big budget spectacle that has taken PBS by storm and is breaking attendance records onstage on a national tour that ends next month.

To fan the fires and to keep up with what has turned out to be an insatiable demand for these newly minted heartthrobs in the show, Coulter has packaged a second CD, Celtic Thunder: Act 2. Like the first collection, Act 2 has the same eccentric blend of pop, rock, trad and show tunes that made the first installment so popular.

"The whole ploy was not to do the predictable Irish thing," he explains when asked why he thinks melodies from the Eagles' "Desperado" and Dire Straits' "Brothers in Arms" fits into the brand of Celtic music he is trying to create.

"I wanted this to be a good showcase for good singers singing works from great songwriters. I consider myself a songwriter first and foremost.

"I wanted to put a Celtic feel on the songs that I felt were a lot more than just hits on the charts. These compositions make the soundtracks of people's lives. I knew if I put in a song like 'Puppy Love' there was a certain age of a woman that was gonna go 'ah,' and think of Donny Osmond. That's the point of entertainment, isn't it?"

Coulter is an expert at coaxing emotions from his audience, often times, against your own better judgment. The arrangement around Keith Harkin's read of Foreigners' "I Want to Know What Love Is" might be as sappy as the brown stuff running down your Belgian waffles, yet it still produces a lump in your throat. And yes, you hate yourself for it.

Of course, no Celtic collection would be complete without Irish tunes, and Act 2 offers a spine-tingling a capella treatment of "Danny Boy."

Though this is one of the most contrived songs in Irish culture, these performers breathe new warmth into the melody. The live show that I saw in Atlantic City over the weekend has frequent outbursts of fine fiddling from the band, and there's a nice read of "Raggle Taggle Gypsy" that is sure to go down well with Coulter's targeted public television viewership.

"You have to know your audience; you always look to who it was aimed at," reasons Coulter. "If you are an entertainer, you don't just create things in a vacuum that pleases you alone. This was put together to reach and energize the PBS audience that love Irish culture. If you look after them and continue to give them quality they will stick with you, and they are huge in number."

Unlike the cloying sentiments of Celtic Woman, the Celtic Thunder show is so much more than a big hollow production aimed at a nostalgic view of the motherland that Irish Americans have. The show is more of a vehicle for contemporary Irish songwriters like Jimmy McCarthy, whose song "Ride On" enjoyed modest success when sung by Christy Moore years ago. Coulter transforms this folk classic into a galloping, majestic tour de force.

Cast member Keith Harkin proves on the self-penned "Lauren and I" that his head is more than just the pretty soil that grows that luxuriant mane of blonde hair. Paul Brady, who enjoyed huge Irish success that was never matched on these shores, will have many more people know his music thanks to Coulter's decision to include "The Island" in the show and cast album. This reviewer submits a standing ovation to the creators for providing a vehicle for relatively unknown Irish songwriters to reach the masses.

Of course, this production also puts the spotlight on Coulter's amazing songbook as well. "'Twas Joey the weasel that gave us the wire/they were closing our factory down/Though we didn't believe him and we called him a liar/the redundancy letters came round/Farewell my companions, my friends and my workmates/Farewell to the paydays, the pints and the craic," go the lyrics on "Yesterday's Men," a poignant story of economic hardship written two decades ago that reads like this morning's headlines.

"For the good of the show we cut it from the list because of time constraints, though I wanted it on the album," says Coulter. "I wrote that back in the eighties, when I was producing the Furey Brothers.

"Ireland was going through a downturn at a time well before the Celtic Tiger and the factories that were shutting down all around us. You see the situation now, and the lyrics we wrote back then could have been penned yesterday. I love that song and the experience working with the Furey Brothers, who really taught me about the social consciousness in folk music."

Since Celtic Thunder is all about entertaining, there is plenty of frothy frivolity as well. The romantic tango of "That's a Woman," with its tense piano and verbal wordplay, is pure entertainment.

Paul Byrom sings, "Woman/such a delicate creature/every feature/needs to be loved from the start." Ryan Kelly, the resident rascal in the production, applies a wicked, sinister delivery that dispenses with the sweetness: "a delicate creature is something she ain't/this isn't an angel, this isn't a saint!"

Coulter wrote this track expressly for the show, and he sounds like a kid as he describes the fun he had applying his formidable songwriting skills for this project. That joy of creation still buzzes this legend. He is as shocked as anyone that he is enjoying his widest acceptance of his music in America as he enters his fifth decade in the business.

"It certainly has been up there with the first time I played Carnegie Hall and the White House," says Coulter. He claims he still has the applause of Radio City Music Hall ringing in his ears.

"I'd say that this is as gratifying as putting Classic Tranquility together. It's akin to that experience in that the music existed before and I just put a neat spin on it," he says.

"It's kind of alchemy. The fact that I've been around so long, you know what works and what does not. I have played Iowa and Washington State. You develop and inform your instincts along the way and using that to create a hit like this is gratifying."

Though his songs have been put into the spotlight, Coulter likes to joke that he has been kicked off the stage.

"I'm stuck in the orchestral pit instead of being in the limelight," he says, the complaint lodged with tongue pressed firmly in cheek. "Certainly being on stage and seeing how 'The Old Man' and 'Ireland's Call' was connecting and the emotional wave that went through the audience was actually fun to see from the vantage point of the orchestra."

Coulter has had to get used the big budget machinery that comes with a show like this, but reasons it is necessary if you are going to play places like Radio City Hall and be compared to legendary shows like Riverdance.

"There are three massive cabs with the Celtic Thunder logo on it. The band and crew on my last tour were on one bus and that was cozy and enough. It's the atmosphere that I want in my organization. This is a much bigger animal to feed. It's a living breathing thing that we need to refresh with a new show next year."

If the great music on Celtic Thunder: Act 2 is any indication, future incarnations of this production will rain down thunderous applause on Coulter and crew.