Press Reviews

Irish Music Magazine

Many musicians have come and gone with little trace of their music left behind them except their memory in folklore, story and sometimes in song. Kevin Keegan was one musician who shied away from commercial recording because he never wanted attention focussed on him. As a result the remaining recordings of his music are mainly those made privately.

On ‘The Music of Kevin Keegan’ we are allowed to glimpse the style and heart of this musician who enthralled and inspired so many during his relatively short life. Like his contemporaries Paddy O’Brien and Joe Cooley, he emigrated to the United States, staying on when the Aughrim Slopes Ceili Band toured there in 1956. He settled in Chicago and later moved to San Francisco where he made many broadcasts on Californian radio stations. Most of the recordings here were made in Chicago and San Francisco.

Kevin was also a singer and the two songs on this album were recorded in Ireland, Adeste Fideles’ might be considered an oddity on a traditional music album but carols, hymns and church songs were part of the routine musical fare in everyday Irish life one time.

This recording was made on a wire recorder in the wee small hours of Christmas Eve, 1954 in Boula Parish Church in Co. Galway. Later in 1962 an emotional rendition of ‘The Old Thatched Cabin’, the song most associated with Kevin, was recorded in the home of Eoin 0′ Kelly near Portumna accompanied by the late Aggie Whyte on fiddle and Jennie CCampbell on piano. Eoin is on of the voices we hear on this album along with that of Joe Cooley, Alien Patterson, Richard Lundy and Kevin himself whose voice introduces the album.

Kevin Keegan’s music is all heart and character. It is lively, sprightly and full of fun, a reflection of his own personality.

The tunes are mostly great standards of the tradition such as Off to California, Contentment is Wealth, The High Reel, The High Level Hornpipe, with the exception of ‘Kevin Keegan’s Waltz’ composed by himself.

Joe Burke who meticulously sifted through the many recordings provided by friends and acquaintances to put this CD together had enormous admiration for Kevin’s music and says “I just didn’t want it to happen that he would be forgotten.” This album is significant and invaluable in that it gives to the public and younger listeners a sample of the style and character of one of the

most renowned and influential accordion players in Irish traditional music.

We have the privilege of hearing a strong individual style of music that has thankfully been preserved and restored. It is a timely remembrance, a lasting document and a fitting tribute to a unique and stylish musician. Ita Kelly.

Pay The Reckoning September 2004

A master of the two row B/C accordion, Keegan – a former member of the famous Aughrim Slopes Ceili Band – remained behind in America after the band’s 1956 tour and there he lived and played his music until his untimely death at the age of only 54.

Initially settling in Chicago, Keegan teamed up with the wealth of the musically talented who had taken up residence there. His playing days were far from over!

CIC’s new CD of Keegan’s work has been compiled from cassette tapes and reel-to-reel recordings made by friends and musical acquaintances.

The sound quality is not always of the highest order. However Keegan’s playing cuts through the hiss and the background noise like a knife. With touching sleeve notes by Keegan’s long-time friend Joe Burke – no mean accordionist himself!- the CD is both celebratory and melancholy in equal measure. Celebratory of a mighty talent; melancholy in its reflections on a man taken from us too soon – a man whose music still had a way to go.

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“the sheer fun of his music and a resolute belief in letting the tune do the talking and you have an almost perfect release”.

Great stuff and thanks, Joe! Geoff Wallis