Track Listings                 1. The Steam Packet / Miss  McLeod's Reel                 2. The Drops of Brandy                 3. The Lark in the Strand                 4. The Humours of Ballyconnell / Toss the Feathers                 5. Dunphy's Hornpipe / The High Level                 6. Tarbolton / The Longford Collector                 7. Barbara Allen                 8. Coppers & Brass / The Rambling Pitchfork                 9. The Ace & Duce of Piping               10. The Blackbird               11. The Job of Journeywork               12. Farewell to Erin / The Youngest Daughter               13. Paddy Keenan's Jig               14. The Swallow's Tail               15. The Wild Irishman / The Sailor's  Bonnet               16. Colonel Frazer / My Love is in America Click on underscored titles to hear MP3 sound samples.

We are delighted to announce our release of this classic debut CD.

PADDY KEENAN
HCRCD 002
Paddy Keenan - Piob Uileann, whistle, and low whistle
John Keenan - Banjo
Thomas Keenan - Whistle on Tracks 2, 3 and 14
Paddy Glackin - Fiddle

At last Paddy's masterpiece is available on CD. Recorded for Gael Linn in 1975 when Paddy was in the forefront of the Irish music revival mainly generated by his seminal work with The Bothy Band. Here Paddy tackles all the major tunes in the piping cannon, and demonstrate his complete mastery of the pipes and his individual style of piping which has created many clones, but none can touch the master. This releases could be named after the great old reel. The Master's Return.

                               Sleeve Notes by Seamus Ennis

Two Reels: The Steam­Packet/McLeod's Reel
In the first rushing, I thought it was Doran who was playing! The style and 'dialect' are very close to him and this was a reel greatly favoured by Johnny himself. The version and harmony accompaniment are practically identical with what he used to have, but Keenan's personal style is noticeable throughout, especially in the tight fingering. As with Johnny, he is gentle and skilled in his harmony accompaniment. I am familiar with this reel as 'The Mountain Lark' (O'Neill No. 1244).
"McLeod's Reel" is well known, but here Paddy's piping is worth hearing and having to hand.

Slip Jig: Drops of Brandy
Solo piping opens this one, in the key of D. It rises a fourth later to G and banjo together with whistle join in from there on.
This is a lively, spirited track, a perquisite of the 9/8 measure.
 

Double Jig: The Lark in the Strand
This is not a commonly­heard jig and is played at his ease by Thomas on the whistle; the warbling of the lark is heard-above
the strand, presumably!

Two Reels: The Humours of Ballyconnell/Toss the Feathers
The fiddle blends beautifully with the uileann pipes, but more perfectly so in the hand of two who are skilled in harmonics, as can be heard from the two Paddys in this track. The throb of the reel runs tidily and spiritedly with both. As a reference to the second reel, it is not thus it is usually known, though I would immediately recognize the high (or 2nd) part of it despite its being played a full tone higher than customarily. In my opinion two reels are confused here, but who knows? (-e.g., "The Green Mountain" and "The Maid Behind the Bar," "The Geese in the Bog" and "The Lark's March," etc.). There is dialectical meaning in music as in speech terminology and one man will play in agreement with his companion in a duet. The first part here is a reel now named "Joe Cooley's" but which I heard identified as "The Burra Reel."

Two Hornpipes: Dunphy's Hornpipe/The High Level
This is a pleasant track of piping at ease, showing ability and producing sweetness coupled with skill. The third part in the
"High Level" is as Doran had it, purposely to show that as a tune it is not suited only to the button­box originally, if true!

Two Reels: Tarbolton/The Longford Collector
Banjo­'pickers' are plentiful, but mastering in 'picking' is not very general. It is rare here and also in America, what I heard of it. It would be a challenge to any to 'pick' two reels with the effortless ability John has in this track - a pair recorded by the Sligo super-fiddler Michael Coleman on a '78 long ago.

Slow Air: Barbara Allen
Yet another version of the tune of this compassion­inspiring epic song. As with most versions, it adheres to the Greek Hyperphyrgian mode: a mark of great antiquity, undoubtedly. Whistle opens, the flute joins company and as a tasty sequel Paddy takes it on the pipes, solo and tonefully rich.

Two Double Jigs: Coppers and Brass /The Rambling Pitchfork
Paddy gives us here an insight into Doran's way of playing double jigs, with the syncopation in his harmony accompaniment but that it is Keenan himself with his own musical taste and polish. The first tune is widely known as "The Humours of Ennistymon" and this version of the "Pitchfork" is alternating between the Dorian and Hyperdorian modes so much that one cannot relegate it, though there are two versions extant, one in each mode.

Long Dance or Set Dance: The Ace and Deuce of Piping
As though they had decided that nothing wonderful had been played or heard as yet, side two commences with this 'stalwart' of music played by Paddy and John on banjo in unison with him. Divers styles occur in the piping between . legato and staccato with sweetness and rhythm accompaniment out­doing each other while John is doing some mean picking with accuracy and taste. A feature pleases me-this is the correct tempo of the long dance as is that of the two tracks which follow, instead of conforming with the slow turgidity desired by some of the dancing schools of today.

Slow Air and Long Dance: The Blackbird
As was the custom of the old pipers' Paddy plays the slow air from which the long dance was evolved and continues from it into the long dance, itself, skillfully. He has a nice piping­version if it.

Long Dance: The Job of Journeywork
John carries cleverly on banjo a pleasant version of this tune which is in great favour generally.

Two Reels: Farewell to Erin/The Youngest Daughter
This is a light­hearted lively track in which piper Paddy is heard on the whistle. I take notice of the long breath in imitation of the bag and piping on the whistle where possible. I was not given a name for the second reel, but it is a version of "The Youngest Daughter" (O'Neill 1217, where it is noted a fourth lower).

Double Jig: Paddy Keenan's Jig
The piper gives us here a melody he himself composed and plays ably. Far be it from me to praise or criticize it as a piece but that I like it very much.

Reel: The Swallow's Tail
Thomas has this track, on the whistle. It is a very unusual version of a well known reel and Thomas is at his ease, playing it skillfully.

Two Reels: The Wild Irishman/The Sailor's Bonnet
As a novel enhancement, Paddy starts this track on chanter only. He establishes the drones at the start of Paddy Glackin's fiddling and full sail is up until John gives the throb with banjo announcing the "Sailor." This is a very polished track, it must be said.

Two Reels: Colonel Fraizer/My Love is in Amerikay
Here is a great track from the piper alone. There are plenty off intricate legato runs, there is rolling of sustained notes, varying of harmony accompaniment style, apart from staccato piping or the "nipping out" of notes here and there - as Johnny Doran used to have long ago, "showing off! This is powerful, as a parting shot!
 
 

Pay The Reckoning Web Site
Hot Conya's much-appreciated reissue of the 1975 Gael-Linn recording of Paddy plus brothers John (banjo) and Thomas (whistle) and Paddy Glackin (fiddle)) is both a fascinating piece of history and a treat for those who've been captivated by his pipering, both within the Bothy Band and as a solo performer.

The album has a rough and ready feel to it which, far from detracting from the overall musical experience, is a stamp of its authenticity. There's an air of intimacy that pervades all good traditional recordings. It's as if the listener has been invited into a private moment. You get the impression that the players aren't really overly concerned about the prospect of the music reaching an audience ... that they're playing to please themselves yet striving, as all good musicians do, for excellence and striving to find new ways of achieving excellence...

Congratulations are in order to Paddy and to Micháel O'Domhnaill, the album's producer, for giving Thomas, John and the other Paddy opportunities to showcase their own musical abilities. John takes a solo on The Tarbolton Reel/The Longford Collector and the set dance, The Job Of Journeywork. Thomas gives us The Lark In The Strand, a jig, and the Swallow's Tail Reel. Glackin doesn't play solo, but provides his usual tasteful support (later to re-emerge on the album "Doublin").

On the remaining tracks, Paddy Keenan is the focus of attention. The selection opens with a rousing set of reels, The Steampacket/Miss McLeod's. Then Paddy provides us with a version of the slip jig, The Drops of Brandy, played first in D then in G, with John providing a driving, percussive accompaniment on banjo. Pay The Reckoning's only beef with this cut is that it is too short. We could quite easily have sat through this for another five or six repeats.

The same is true of the jig set Coppers and Brass/The Rambling Pitchfork. The first of these jigs is associated with Felix Doran and although Keenan gives it one repeat, it could bear a few more. Same goes for The Rambling Pitchfork.

The two sets of reels which close the album are scorchers - The Wild Irishman/The Sailor's Bonnet and Colonel Frazier/My Love Is In America. Keenan opens the first set on chanter only before giving us the pipes in full voice and the effect is hair-raising.

However the album's highlights are the two set dances The Blackbird and The Ace And Deuce Of Pipering. Keenan plays the first as a slow air to begin with before stepping it up and playing it in hornpipe time. The moment when the tune changes is one of those which brings life into sharp focus, the transition contains the seed of every musical possibility!

The Ace And Deuce Of Pipering sees Paddy and John duetting to great effect. Pay The Reckoning was so impressed with John's performance of this tune that immediately we heard the track, down off the wall came the banjo and we set to work trying to learn the tune. We retired from the fray a while later ... to say that it is a difficult tune to play is a mammoth understatement. (And yet so easy to listen to!)

Finally, a brief mention of Seamus Ennis' sleeve notes. It's a mark of Keenan's importance that a musician of Ennis' stature would be asked to contribute to the album in this way. Ennis' notes are quirky and conversational, informed by his long years at the piping. His support for the young Paddy Keenan is obvious.

And Pay The Reckoning marvelled at the young piper's talents. He went on to perform with other musicians and to be recorded in circumstances which allowed for more sophisticated production, but the young man's approach to piping was already formed at this stage. A great album!