| Top Traditional Music CDs
By Don Meade
Irish America has long exercised an outsized influence on Irish traditional
music. Massive Irish immigration to these shores and the concentration of
those immigrants in America’s large cities made New York and Chicago as
important, if not more important, than Dublin and Cork as incubators of
Irish music talent for many years. A 19th century fiddler or piper who stayed
home in Ireland might never hear a musician from farther away than the next
parish, but his cousin in New York would find himself rubbing shoulders
with players from all 32 counties.
The greatest collections of Irish traditional music ever compiled, Francis
O’Neill’s 1903 Music of Ireland and his 1907 Dance Music of Ireland, were
published in Chicago. When record companies started issuing ethnic music
in the early 20th century, the greatest number of cylinders and 78 rpm discs
by far were recorded in New York. The recordings of New York-based musicians
who included uilleann piper Patsy Touhey, fiddler Michael Coleman and flute
player John McKenna had a tremendous impact back home in Ireland, inspiring
generations of imitators and making the “New York style” a de facto Irish
national standard.
Nowadays, of course, the musical center of gravity has shifted back to
the shamrock shore, but Irish immigrant and American-born Irish traditonal
musicians are still among the best anywhere, as can easily be proved by
listening to these twenty choice recordings.
Bohola
Bohola
Shanachie
Named for a small town in Mayo, bohola is a Chicago-based group with
a sound so big that it’s hard to believe there are only three members. Led
by piano accordion great and many-time All-Ireland champion Jimmy Keane,
bohola also includes Chicago fiddler Sean Cleland and Dublin-born singer/
bouzouki player Pat Broaders. Most Irish traditional groups play simple
sets of reels or jigs interrupted by the occasional song. For their 2002
debut recording, however, bohola broke out of this dance-based format to
craft intricate arrangements that seamlessly blend instrumental and vocal
segments into lengthy, emotionally charged medleys.
Kevin Burke
If the Cap Fits
Green Linnet
Kevin Burke is a London native whose fiddle playing with the famous Bothy
Band made him the most influential and popular Irish musician of the 1970’s
traditional music revival. When the Bothies broke up, Burke relocated to
Portland, Oregon, where he still makes his home. His silky-smooth bowing
and snappy ornamentation can be heard on many recordings, including those
by the group Patrick Street and the Celtic Fiddle Festival, but this 1970s
solo record, with its uninterrupted, 16-minute
B-side medley, is the favorite of many long-time fans. Button accordion
ace Jackie Daly and ex-Bothy Band guitarist Micheál Ó Domhnaill are among
the many guest stars.
Liz Carroll, Billy McComiskey and Dáithí Sproule
Trian
Flying Fish
Chicago fiddler Liz Carroll and Brooklyn-born button accordionist Billy
McComiskey are renowned both for their instrumental virtuosity and their
original compositions, many of which have become standards of the traditional
repertoire in Ireland and America. For this 1992 recording, the two Yanks
teamed up with Derry-born guitarist and singer Dáithí Sproule to form a
true all-star trio, one that unfortunately only rarely reunites for special
occasions such as this year’s Catskills Irish Arts Week in East Durham,
New York. Their second effort, the 1992 Green Linnet disc Trian 2, was pretty
awesome as well, but first impressions count for a lot, so the original
outing gets the nod for our Irish America top twenty.
Cherish The Ladies
Irish Women Musicians in America
Shanachie
The all-female, Irish-American music and dance ensemble led by New York
flute and tin whistle great Joanie Madden has made many outstanding recordings
over the past twenty years. This recording documents the group’s roots in
a series of concerts organized in the mid-1980s by New York’s Ethnic Folk
Arts Center (now the Center for Traditional Music and Dance). Center organizer
Ethel Raim was intrigued by Mick Moloney’s observation that many of the
best young Irish-American traditional musicians of the day were, in a reversal
of the usual pattern, the daughters rather than the sons of Irish musician
fathers. Fiddlers Eileen Ivers and Rose Conway Flanagan, button accordionist
Patty Furlong, flute players Maureen Doherty and Mary Rafferty, and singers
Bridget Fitzgerald and Treasa O’Carroll were among the talented ladies who
joined Madden on this disc. More recent “Cherish” recordings are available
from www.cherishtheladies.com.
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Maken
In Person at Carnegie Hall
Sony
When Pat and Tom Clancy left Tipperary for New York, they were hoping
to make it big in the theater. They got famous instead as the Irish stars
of the Greenwich Village folk scene. The group they formed with younger
brother Liam and northern pal Tommy Makem went on to launch the tremendous
international revival of interest in Irish traditional music that continues
to this day. This live 1960s concert disc is one of the best of the group’s
many recordings. A medley of Irish children’s songs, a plaintive rendition
of “The Parting Glass,” a dramatic recitation from Liam Clancy and an Irish-language
audience sing-along of “Óró, Sé Do Bheatha ‘Bhaile!” are highlights from
the show.
Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill
Live in Seattle
Green Linnet
Some years ago Kevin Burke was asked if there were other musicians who
might achieve the Irish traditional music stardom of 1970s Bothy Band veterans
like himself. The first name that came to his mind was Clare fiddler Martin
Hayes. Burke proved as good a prophet as a fiddler because Martin, a Chicago
resident and a son of Tulla Ceili Band leader P.J. Hayes, very soon became
the next big deal in Irish music. With his guitarist partner Dennis Cahill
picking out deftly spare accompaniment, Hayes has crafted a very personal
style that appeals to an audience that stretches from hard-core ceili enthusiasts
to jazz and “new age” music fans. The repertoire is strictly old-school,
but the the duo’s innovative expansion of the rhythmic and dynamic palette
of Irish fiddle music is impressively modern. This 1999 live concert recording
at Seattle’s Tractor Tavern finds them at their very best.
James Keane
Sweeter as the Years Roll By
Shanachie
In their youth in Dublin, button accordionist James Keane and his fiddling
brother Seán were the two hottest young players in traditional music. Unfortunately
for them, the early 1960s were not a time when many people in Dublin cared
much about “diddly-eye” music. Seán was recruited by Paddy Moloney for the
Chieftains, but that group had no room for an accordion player, however
gifted, and James emigrated to New York. His exciting, fast-paced and highly
ornamented playing has been recorded on several LPs and CDs, but this one,
which includes contributions from a new generation of young players (including
Seán and his sons), is among the best and still available.
Joe Derrane
The Tie That Binds
Shanachie
Boston button accordionist Joe Derrane’s recording career began in the
78 rpm era and is still going strong in the age of the iPod. His amazing
instrumental prowess was a word-of-mouth legend through decades when his
old discs were out of print and he was no longer active on the traditional
music scene. In 1994, however, Derrane made a triumphal return to traditional
music and the button accordion at a Washington, D.C. Irish Festival. He
has been a regular on the festival circuit and a busy recording artist ever
since, and in 2004 was honored with a National Heritage Fellowship as a
living national treasure. On this 1998 disc Joe was joined by musical friends
who included Galway fiddle star Frankie Gavin, flute and tenor banjo phenom
Séamus Egan and uilleann piper Jerry O’Sullivan in collaborations that seemed
to bring out the best from all concerned.
Brian Conway
First Through the Gate
Smithsonian Folkways
Bronx native Brian Conway is the current standard bearer of the long
tradition of County Sligo-style fiddling in New York City. He got his start
from his father Jim, a fiddler from Tyrone, but it was the late Sligo fiddle
legend Martin Wynne who tutored him in the intricacies of the Sligo style.
Brian went on to win All-Ireland championships in every age group and to
record a fine duet LP with fellow New York fiddler Tony DeMarco. This solo
recording, many years in the making, is his masterpiece – a stunning collection
of jigs, hornpipes, reels, slow airs and other tunes with varied piano,
guitar and cittern accompaniment. In addition to solos, Brian plays several
duets and trios with the late New York fiddle great Andy McGann and with
his own pupil Patrick Mangan, a teenage All-Ireland champ in his own right.
Joe Heaney
The Road from Connemara
Topic / Cló Iar-Chonnachta
The late Joe Heaney is widely regarded as Ireland’s greatest traditional
singer, a master of the unaccompanied and highly ornamented sean-nós style
he learned in his youth in Irish-speaking Connemara. For much of his life,
however, Joe was a Brooklyn resident who worked on the staff of a ritzy
Manhattan apartment building. He was fond of relating how TV producer Merv
Griffin was startled to find a picture of “his doorman” on the wall of the
famously musical O’Donghues’s pub in Dublin’s Merrion Row. Late in life,
Heaney received some of the overdue recognition he deserved in the form
of an NEA National Heritage fellowship and a teaching post at the University
of Washington. This CD, which includes much of his best repertoire in English
and Irish, was recorded in Joe’s prime when his voice was at its most powerful.
Martin Mulhaire, Séamus Connolly and Jack Coen with Felix Dolan
Warming Up
Green Linnet
If you’re into musical time travel, this recording will swiftly transport
you to the heyday of the Irish ceili bands, circa 1960, when Martin Mulhaire
was the button accordion star of the Tulla Ceili Band, his fellow Galwayman
Jack Coen was playing flute with the New York Ceili Band with pianist Felix
Dolan, and Clare fiddle great Séamus Connolly was winning every musical
competition in Ireland. Mulhaire came to the Big Apple with the Tulla that
year and never went home. Connolly followed some years later, settling in
Boston where he now has a chair in music at Boston College. In 1993 they
all got together to record this delightful homage to the unpretentious but
solidly traditional music of the ’50s and ’60s, including a good number
of Mulhaire’s original compositions.
Various
The Wheels if the World: Early Irish American Music
Yazoo
In the mid-1970’s Shanachie Records helped launch a revival of interest
in old-time Irish music with an LP of 78-rpm recordings called The Wheels
of the World, after the title of an old Irish reel. This updated, two-CD
collection on Shanachie subsidiary Yazoo expanded on the original with dozens
of classic sides from the “golden age” of Irish traditional music in America.
Recorded for the most part in New York and Chicago, these discs were cut
by musicians who include uilleann piper and vaudeville star Patsy Touhey,
Chicago-born piper Tom Ennis, the County Sligo fiddlers Michael Coleman,
James Morrison and Paddy Killoran, button accordion great PJ Conlon, flute
player John McKenna and Frank Quinn, a New York traffic cop whose singing,
fiddling and button accordion playing made him one of the biggest names
in Irish music in the 1920s.
James Kelly, Paddy O’Brien and Dáithí Sproule
Traditional Music of Ireland
Shanachie
Dublin fiddler James Kelly is one of the fiddling sons of the late Clare
fiddler and concertina player John Kelly. His own style is a unique blend
of his dad’s Clare influence with that of the Sligo fiddle greats. When
he moved to the U.S. in the 1970s, Kelly teamed up with County Offaly button
accordionist Paddy O’Brien and Derry guitarist/singer Dáithí Sproule to
form one of the great trios in the history of Irish traditional music. Together,
the group made two fantastic LPs, Is It Yourself? and Spring in the Air,
for Shanachie, which has since reissued 20 tracks from those discs on a
single CD. There’s never been a better blend of fiddle and box, and Sproule’s
style of backing helped convince a whole generation of Irish guitarists
to tune their instruments in his DADGAD style.
Susan McKeown
Lowlands
Green Linnet
Dublin-born New Yorker Susan McKeown possesses one of the most powerful
and distinctive voices in Irish music, one that has drawn comparisions to
folk legend Sandy Denny and rocker Natalie Merchant (with whom McKeown has
recorded). She combines an adventurous modern approach with a deep respect
for the old tradition, but this 2000 recording is from the more traditional
end of her catalog (for the modern stuff, check out her work with the Chanting
House band). The songs include a truly haunting rendition of Dublin singer
Liam Weldon’s “Dark Horse on the Wind,” a melancholy take on “The Snows
They Melt the Soonest” and the classic ballad “Lord Baker.” The late Scottish
fiddler Johnny Cunningham, McKeown’s long-time collaborator, also contributes
to the album.
Andy McGann and Paddy Reynolds
Shanachie
Bronx native Andy McGann and Longford man Paddy Reynolds, both of whom
passed away in the past two years, were the most celebrated Irish fiddle
duet of modern times. They met in the Bronx in the late 1940s as protegés
of the great Sligo fiddler James “Lad” O’Beirne. Playing together at hundreds
of dances, parties and concerts, Andy and Paddy perfected a polished and
urbane New York interpretation of Sligo fiddle music. Though their heyday
was in decades when few traditional recordings were made, they finally got
their chance to record together in the late 1970s. The accompaniment for
this classic album was provided by guitarist Paul Brady, who had not yet
become well known for his work with Planxty or for his later career as a
singer and songwriter.
Eileen Ivers
So Far
Green Linnet
If Brian Conway represents fidelity to the old New York fiddle tradition,
his fellow Bronx native and fellow All-Ireland winner Eileen Ivers champions
fearless exploration and innovation. Eileen became a celebrity as the original
fiddle soloist with Riverdance, dazzling international audiences as she
skipped across the stage sawing on her electric blue fiddle. Her current
band, Immigrant Soul, blends Irish with “world music” and blues sounds,
but she can still tread the straight and narrow when whe feels like it.
This compilation covers the some of the best of her solo fiddling, as well
as top-notch collaborations with flute player Séamus Egan, guitarist John
Doyle and other traditional music luminaries.
Solas
Solas
Shanachie
Flute and tenor banjo great Séamus Egan divided his youth between Philadelphia
and Foxford, County Mayo. Already an internationally renowned musician as
a teenager, he founded the group Solas in 1995 with New York fiddler Winnie
Horan, Chicago button accordionist John Williams, Dublin guitar god John
Doyle and Waterford singer Karan Casey. The band is still going strong ten
years later with a different lineup that still includes Egan and Horan,
but the impact of the group’s debut recording, which featured Casey’s achingly
gorgeous vocals, has never been surpassed.
Mick Moloney
Far From the Shamrock Shore
Shanachie
Limerick native Mick Moloney is the true Renaissance Man of Irish music
in America, not only because he’s a multi-talented musician, singer and
scholar but because he personally helped launch a great rebirth of Irish
traditional music in America as a record producer, performer, festival orgnizer,
writer and teacher. The CD, issued to accompany Moloney’s book of the same
name, is a highly enjoyable musical history of the Irish in America told
through songs that include “Pat Murphy of the Irish Brigade,” “Muldoon,
the Solid Man.” “Maloney, the Rolling Mill Man” and “No Irish Need Apply.”
Fiddlers Eileen Ivers and Marie Reilly as well as American “old-timey” musician
Bruce Molsky join Moloney on the recording.
Jerry O’Sullivan
O’Sullivan Meets O’Farrell
Independent
You can count the number of top-notch, American-born uilleann pipers
on the fingers of one hand, and Jerry O’Sullivan’s name usually comes up
on the first finger. The Irish pipes are a fiendishly difficult instrument
to master, but Jerry, who spent long periods in Dublin as a young man, was
equal to the task, and this recording displays his exceptionally nimble
melody playing on the chanter and tasteful use of accompanying drones and
“regulator” chords. For this archival project, Jerry polished up some musical
gems he dug out of the pages of a pioneering collection of uilleann piping
tunes published over 200 years ago by a London stage piper named O’Farrell,
of whom we know very little, not even his first name. But if O’Farrell were
to meet O’Sullivan after hearing this disc, I’m sure he’d be more than happy
to introduce himself.
Mike and Mary Rafferty
The Dangerous Reel
Independent
78-year-old flute player and uilleann piper Mike Rafferty still plays
in the same style he learned from his father Tom “Barrel” Rafferty in his
youth in east County Galway, one of the most musical districts of Ireland.
The long-time New Jersey resident passed this style and repertoire on in
turn to his daughter Mary, who played his daughter Mary, who played flute
and button accordion for many years with the group Cherish the Ladies. After
he retired from his day job, Mike launched a marvelous series of recordings
with Mary, of which this was the first. This is simply beautiful music played
at the relaxed pace and with the gentle rhythmic pulse for which east Galway
music is famous. It is available, as are Mike and Mary’s other recordings,
from www.raffertymusic.com.
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