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The Music of Kevin Keegan
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.
www.irishmusicreview.com
“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
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Tim Dennehy – Between the Mountains and the Sea
Press Reviews
The Irish Post 4.06.05
THIS beautiful production has been in the making for 20 years and has put the enthralling words of one of Ireland’s most talented ballad poets to music.
Sigerson Clifford was born in 1913 and christened Edward Bernard Clifford. Aged six he went to live with his mother’s father Edward Sigerson and stayed for four years. He never forgot his grandfather’s fund of stories when the winter nights were gathering in he would sit with his cronies around the kitchen fire telling tales of weird and ghostly happenings.
Later Sigerson would remember them in a poem “Where the old men thatched their dreams with adjectives”.
At school with the Christian Brothers his essays and poems won praise. Schooldays over he joined the civil service where “they chained my bones
to an office stool and my soul to a clock”.
In 1985 some months after his death the good people of Cahersiveen decided to honour his memory with a monument built of local stone. The
inscription reads: “Whispering across the half-door of the mind, for always I am Kerry”
In 1973 Tim Dennehy encountered Tim Dwane who had met Sigerson Clifford on several occasions and then he discovered The Ballad Of The Tinker’s Daughter in an English book. He put a melody to it and sang it for the first time at the Goilin Singers Club in Dublin.
It was broadcast by Harry Bradshaw on a radio programme The Long Note and since then Between The Mountains And The Sea has been an ongoing project.
This 12-track CD is accompanied with a 48-page booklet giving extensive background on the composer Sigerson Clifford.
The Boys Of Barr na Staide is undoubtedly Singerson’s most popular composition and it captures beautifully the essence of Cahersiveen.
The Ballad Of The Tinker’s Daughter is a spellbinding story and in the best traditions of the ballad it allows the story to unfold.
I am Kerry is a fitting conclusion to the album as it touches on most of the poet’s favourite themes of stories and legends, the wild beauty of south Kerry, youth and old age, and the mental merging of music and rhythm of the place he loved.
This CD is guaranteed to soothe the troubled brow and should have a space on every Kerryman’s CD collection.
By any standards Tim Dennehy has done a beautiful presentation of the songs of Sigerson Clifford. MALCOLM ROGERS.
The Folk Diary
It quickly becomes obvious that here is one of the great west of Ireland voices with all the qualities that the high art of this tradition demands;
light, pure of tone and carefully and highly decorated.
Yet, these are not traditional songs that we are listening to; they are all the compositions of the late Sigerson Clifford of Caherisiveen on the Ring of Kerry. He was a poet, ballad and song writer who was rooted in the background and traditions but on this evidence, despite their local settings they have a great universality. From the careful observation of a light piece like “The Races” to the passion of “The Ballad of Johnny Golden” we hear a varied and high quality programme beautifully performed. The highlight of the album is the exquisite “The Boys of Barr Na Sr
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Tim Dennehy – Old Boots and Flying Sandals
Old Boots & Flying Sandals is the latest of six albums from renowned traditional singer songwriter Tim Dennehy. This unique album of original compositions and favourite poems set to music, marks another milestone in the evolution of Tim’s singing and songwriting career. ‘Old Boots and Flying Sandals’ from which the album gets its name, is a jaunty trip back to Tim’s childhood in South Kerry but overlies more sombre memories and influences that permeate the album.
Love, loss and separation, embedded in the many haunting lyrics, are rekindled through the poetry of Shelley, Fenton, Kavanagh and Kenneally among others. Tim’s soulful musical interpretation resonates a deep connection with the past, breathes new life into poems old and new, yet is never out of touch with the vicissitudes of modern life.
Old Boots and Flying Sandals is a repository of song. Some tracks are familiar, some are new while others are rearranged but the album is not without its surprises. The mix of accompanied and unaccompanied songs and poems gives a perfect balance and reflects a versatility and ease with the material from which the listener can draw both solace and hope.
Clare-based guitarist Garry O’Briain who has worked with Tim on previous albums, has contributed once again with varied musical arrangements and accompaniment. Other well-known artists include Nollaigh Ní Cathasaigh (fiddle), Josephine Marsh (accordion), Tommy Keane (flute) with Jesse Smith (fiddle), Liz Johnston (cello) and harmony vocals by Áine Derrane.
Songs in the Irish language find a natural home in Tim’s repetoire. Growing up in the Iveragh peninsula immersed in the lore and songs of the Gaeltacht, love of language was inescapable. Striking among his inspired choices for this album is the inclusion of Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill’s poem ‘Leaba Shíoda” beautifully set to music and sensitively sung by Tim. Others include a simple, ancient prayer, An Nollaig Theas and Scarúint, a poetic tribute to Junior Crehan, a father-figure of traditional music in Co. Clare and beyond.
According to Tim, ‘this album has created itself. Somehow it felt natural to bring my original songs and favourite poems into one space and make them accessible for those who already enjoy what I do and perhaps in the process reach a new and wider audience’.
Tim is widely acknowledged for his singing performances and song workshops at Arts & Traditional Festivals throughout Ireland, Europe and the United States.
‘Old Boots and Flying Sandals’ was produced by Garry O’Briain & Tim Dennehy
Press Reviews
“The land and lore of his native County Kerry and adopted County Clare predominate in songs that are powerfully rendered and intensely felt”. The Irish Times”
“An exceptionally beautiful and moving album. Highly recommended”. David Granville
Taplas The Welsh Folk Magazine 22.11.07
VETERAN singer Tim Dennehy has established quite a reputation for himself with his five albums to date. This sixth one is slightly different in that it is a compilation of original songs, many of them his own, and musical settings of poems such as Nuala Ni Dhomnaill’s Leaba Shioda.
Accompaniment is provided mainly by producer Garry O’Briain on guitar, mandocello and keyboards, with contributions from Josephine Marsh (accordion), Nollaigh Ni Chathasaigh (violin and viola), Jesse Smith (viola), Liz Johnstone (cello) and Tommy Keane (whistle and flute).
A number of the songs are about family members: his late brother Pat (Memorial), his late mother (The Parted Years), and his two sons Sean and Tadhg (The Deep End), forming an interesting tryptich.
Particularly impressive are Tim’s composition Sceilig Mhicil, about the distinctive rock off the coast of his native Kerry, and Cry of the Mountain, his song about the Burren in County Clare, where he now lives. His tribute to the late Junior Crehan Scaruint is solemnly intoned to the accompaniment of a slow air played by Tommy Keane on the flute, bringing the CD to an impressive close. KATE FLETCHER
The Living Tradition
I’ll spare you the precis of the usual promotional bumph, as readers of TLT don’t need telling who Tim Dennehy is. Suffice to say two things: that this is Tim’s sixth album, and more importantly, that those of us who feel that Mickey MacConnell’s The Tinkerman’s Daughter is a true masterpiece, should realise the huge debt owed to Tim who first adapted Sigerson Clifford’s The Tinker’s Daughter to music and whose song proved to be the inspiration for Mickey’s version.
This is an album that exudes artistic integrity. There are positively no gimmicks, and no concessions to the less-than-earnest listener. You need to concentrate on the lyric if you want to catch the story: and many of these stories are well-worth-the-catching. No concessions also to those of us who do not hail from the Gaeltacht: this son of Co. Kerry (now based in Co. Clare) delivers four tracks in the Irish language. However, there are English translations for duffers like me who don’t have a grasp of the lingo. That said, it is folk like me
he is clearly aiming the album at: he needs to make sales outside the Hibernian diaspora. And I have to say (in support of his Irish-language choices) that never has the Gaelic language sounded more mellifluous. And with the English lyric alongside, I was able to follow all four without a hiccough!
Although SEPIA is the colour that runs through most of the tracks – Dennehy is very strong on nostalgia – don’t get it into your head that this album is a hymn of praise to an Ireland and a type of Irishman long gone. (Strike that last sentence, because well, obviously it IS, in part. But only in part.) It also covers a surprising range of subject. One of the better tracks is Farewell to Pripyat, a moving song from Tim’s pen on the fate of village nearest the Chernobyl plant. There have been several songs on the plight of the people affected by the radioactivity, but this is the first I can recall that describes what happened to the Ukrainian village when it was deserted by its fleeing inhabitants. And golly, his images are razor-sharp.
And talking of his range: then there is a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley set (perhaps not altogether convincingly) by Tim’s producer and talented multi-instrumentalist, Garry O’Briain. And then there is another poem by James Fenton. Now, Fenton (Professor of Poetry at Oxford) is a poet that I – like Tim – have long admired. However, I Know What I Am Missing never struck me as that much of a poem. However, Tim believed in it sufficiently as to put music to it, and guess what?
The melody turns an indifferent poem into a fine song lyric! The tune serves as a magic catalyst for the words. And some sublime harmony singing from Aine Derrane added to Liz Johnston’s cello, Garry O’Briain’s guitar and Jesse Smith’s viola, turns it into the outstanding track on this handsomely Digipacked CD. In my book, “to listen” is always an active verb and not a passive one. Thus, whilst perhaps this CD is not for the casual listener, it will more than repay someone who is prepared to make the effort. Dai Woosnam
www.netrhythms.com
Tim’s sixth release continues the high standard set by the previous five, while marking another milestone in the evolution of his singing and songwriting career by the ever more creative combining of memories of his South Kerry childhood with altogether more sombre recollections and influences. The strong sense of artistic and musical unity with Tim’s previous work is emphasised by the redeployment of the Clare-based guitarist Garry O’Briain as producer: as before, Garry’s beautiful arrangements fully complement Tim’s sensitive singing and the abundant lyricism of the texts (Tim performs some of his own favourite poems, set to his own music, as well as providing plenty of his own song-compositions here). Some are sung in English, some in the Irish language – but this is a virtue not a barrier: the charm and impact of pieces such as An Nollaig Theas cannot be denied.
Just three of the songs are performed unaccompanied, and Tim’s lilting delivery is unsurpassable. In fact, it’s really difficult not to find myself repeating, verbatim, individual observations within my previous glowing and enthusiastic commentary on album number five, Between The Mountains And The Sea – such is the striking consistency and unity in Tim’s work. Stirring yet soothing, sensitive yet passionate, these combinations of qualities are found everywhere in Tim’s recordings, and Old Boots And Flying Sandals epitomises their expression and appeal. A very high proportion of the songs stand out for their highly memorable poetic sensibility and acute emotional impact, and I’d defy anyone not to respond to Memorial, The Deep End, Keep In Touch, or the chilling Chernobyl imagery of Farewell To Pripyat.
I’ve struggled to find a caveat with this intensely beautiful CD, but I’d be neglectful in my critical duty if I didn’t point out here that anyone who’s familiar with Tim’s previous releases will need to know that all but five of the sixteen items on this new disc have appeared before on albums by Tim (three on A Winter’s Tear, two on A Thimbleful Of Song, three on Farewell To Milton Malbay and four on The Blue Green Door – and that includes Keep In Touch being already included on two different CDs), whereas the closing track, Scarúint, is a recited version of Parting, a poem printed in the booklet of The Blue Green Door. However, although Tim’s earlier recorded versions of those songs are just fine as they are, and his “first interpretations” aren’t necessarily markedly different per se, the new recordings are far better in terms of possessing a significant degree of additional depth, clarity in texture and extra glimmers of insight, that make them definitely preferable if a choice needs to be made. Having said that, after some careful comparison I’m led to suspect that a handful of the tracks (at least those from albums three and four) have just been remastered rather than completely re-recorded, whereas some of the earlier examples are very definitely blessed with different arrangements. But even bearing those points in mind, I’d still say that if you’d been tempted towards, and finally purchased, any of Tim’s previous releases, you’ll be well satisfied with Old Boots…, which comes with full lyrics and comprehensive booklet notes, also a short biographical essay setting Tim himself in context, and the disc is housed in a fulsome digipack. David Kidman
The Irish World
Tim Dennehy’s sixth album since 1989 sees the revered singer-songwriter partner up again with Clare-based musician and producer Garry O’Briain, for a radiant rendering of original songs as well as his favourite poems set to music. The track Old Boots and Flying Sandals of the album title, harks back to the happy memories of a childhood in the South of Kerry, but its upbeat tone is contrasted in many areas with darker reflections on the past, such as Memorial; “a celebration of our youth” and a poignant dedication to Dennehy’s brother Pat, who died of meningitis in 1968; or The Ballad of James Meere, for the emarginated of society. I Know I’m Missing You, about an absent friend, is a little gem. The Irish inclusions in this album, inspired by Dennehy’s great love of the language growing up in the Iveragh Peninsuala, include an evocative version of love poem Leaba Shioda, by Nuala Ni Dhomnaill, the beautifully uncomplicated prayer An Nollaig Theas and Scaruint, an ode to fiddler Junior Crehan.
Said Tim of the album: “It has created itself. Somehow it felt natural to bring my original Isongs and favourite poems into one space and make them accessible for those who already enjoy what I do, and perhaps in the process reach a new and wider audience.”
Adding to the talents of Garry O’Briain on the album are Nollaigh Ni Cathasaigh on fiddle, Josephine Marsh on accordion, Tommy Keane on flute, Jesse Smith on fiddle, Liz Johnston on cello and harmony vocals by Aine Derrane. Accompaniment is just right, never too much, allowing space for the quiet power of the verse. Detailed footnotes give us a fantastic insight into the origins of each poem and why Dennehy chose them. Old Boots… is a slow-burning pleasure for lovers of song, poetry and of Dennehy’s beloved land. Shelley Marsden
Irish Music Magazine
For Tim Dennehy, heretofore traditional ballads, original material and the poetic works of local and national muses always blended in glove-like harmony. Now his first collection of self-written songs puts him in a unique position. A singer bathed in traditional nuances blessed with the poetic eyes of a sage and the craftsmanship of a professional Tim Dennehy has let his written works escape rather than parade his works in public. One such example is ‘Farewell to Pripyat’ recorded by Christy Moore. Here he has gathered a collection of his poetic settings of words of others and his own musings in one publication. Some of the tracks are previously released including ‘A Winter’s Tear’ and ‘The Ballad of James Meere,’ although these are all new recordings.
Dennehy’s rich tenor voice versed in ballad singing exudes warmth and control that is as endearing as it is commanding. The backings from musicians like Gary O’Briain, Josephine Marsh and Nollaig Casey are suitably restrained sketching yet never overtaking Dennehy’s vocal performances. This is an album devoted to the power of words to evoke emotions and their articulation through one of the finest male voices of his generation. A rich harvest of evocative words delivered with poise and authority, ‘Old Boots and Flying Sandals’ celebrates Tim Dennehy’s position as a wordsmith and vocalist of great imagination and declamatory power. John O’Regan
The Irish Democrat 20.8.07
FOR THIS, his sixth album, highly respected Irish traditional singer songwriter Tim Dennehy has extended his partnership with Clare-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Garry O’Briain to create a delightful collection of original self-penned songs, interspersed with some of the musician’s favourite poems set to music.
Dennehy’s voice is superbly rich and mellow. Whether he singing unaccompanied or backed by O’Briain (guitar, mandocello, keyboards) and high calibree musicians such as Nollaigh Ní Cathasaigh (fiddle), Josephine Marsh (accordian), Tommy Keane (flute), Jesse Smith (fiddle), Liz Johnston (cello) and Áine Derrane (harmony vocals), the result is uniformly rewarding.
However, the album is not without its darker side, and while poetry, love, loss, longing and the memories of childhood and youth in Co. Kerry are the inspiration for many of Dennehy’s intensely personal songs, he is not afraid of embracing the wider concerns of humanity.
This is immediately evident on reading the accompanying liner notes, which include quotes from Michael Coady’s poem ‘There are also Musicians’ (Though there are torturers in the world/There are also musicians) and Bertolt Brecht’s ‘Motto’ (In the dark times/Will there also be singing? / Yes there will also be singing/About the dark times).
Dennehy’s unaccompanied rendition of ‘The Ballad of James Meere’ is exceptionally powerful and haunting. One of the undoubted highlights of the album, it is a tribute to the travelling singers and musicians of Co. Kerry in the 1950s and “dedicated to those who live on or outside the margins of society”.
Another Dennehy original, ‘Farewell to Pripyat’, recounts the fate of the abandoned town that was once home to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant workers. Both poignant and moving, the song reminds us of the town’s nightmare past and of the fragile nature of the world we live in.
As might be expected of a true son of the west who grew up in the Co. Kerry Gaeltacht, songs in the Irish language are a natural part of Dennehy’s repetoire. Old Boots and Flying Sandals includes two Dennehy originals (‘Sceilig Mhichíl’ and ‘Scarúint’), a simple ancient Irish prayer (An Nollaig Theas) and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill’s poem Leaba Shíoda (Labasheedy/The Silken Bed), which opens the album in fine style.
For those unfamiliar with the Irish language, an accompanying booklet helpfully includes translations of all the songs and poems written and performed in Irish.
An exceptionally beautiful and moving album. Highly recommended. David Granville
www.liveireland.com
Copperplate comes through again. The most reliable company in the world for Irish music quality is located in London. Under the directorship of Alan O’Leary, like Clo Iar-Chonnachta, Copperplate means quality. If it ain’t, O’Leary doesn’t handle them. So, here comes Tim Dennehy. “Old Boots and Flying Sandals” is the name of this stunner. On Sceilig Records, Tim Dennehy gives his latest take on the music with his incredible voice. There is nothing harder to review than a vocal album. How do you describe someone’s voice? It is either pleasing or not pleasing to each individual listener. But, there are these artists like Dennehy. OK. OK. He masters a song. Great phrasing. Nuance. He takes his time. You know the deal. “Master at work”. Yup. That good. It is hard for us to imagine you not loving his voice. Like the legendary Sean Tyrrell, Dennehy is not afraid to be lushly romantic, and to lose himself in a song. It is harder for male artists to do this, for some reason. But, the best do. And, so does Dennehy. This is a gorgeous album from a talented, gifted singer who “gets it”. You should get it, too. Rating: Strongly Recommended. Bill Margeson
The Irish Times
Contemplative and unhurried, Tim Dennehy trades in silence as much as he does music and words, wearing his south Kerry inheritance of traditional song lightly. Forensically researched and beautifully produced, this gathering of songs and poems old and new sheds a gracious light on a singer with a keen ear for the subtle touch, the haunting note and the well- chosen word. This fine collection scales glorious heights on To Jane, an adaptation of Shelley’s ode to his paramour, Jane Williams. Although at times weighed down by the unrelenting gravity of the repertoire, Old Boots is still a formidable calling card, bolstered by Áine Derrane’s judicious harmonies. SIOBHÁN LONG * * *
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Tim Dennehy – The Blue Green Door
Press Reviews
‘The land and lore of his native Kerry and adopted County Clare predominate in songs that are powerfully rendered and intensely felt’. (Irish Times)
‘Tim Dennehy’s rendering of any song would bring a chilling hush to the wildest session. A gem for song collectors everywhere’. (Irish Music)
‘Here is a voice as velvety as the best Irish stout. He produces some moments of breathtaking beauty, especially in his magnificent version of, Be Still as you are Beautiful ‘. (Rock N Reel)
‘There are few better singers than Tim Dennehy in Ireland today- a fine singer of splendid songs’. (Folk Roots)
‘These thoughtful and reflective songs help to contribute to an interesting and varied offering from one of the best traditional singer-songwriters of the present time’. (The Living Tradition)
‘Whether you are interested in learning some new songs or just want to hear one of the finest singers in Ireland today, don’t miss Farewell to Miltown Malbay ‘. (Dirty Linen)
Net Rhythms Web Site March 2003
For the reviewer who’s also a keen explorer, coming across any performer for the first time can be as worthwhile as welcome, and listening to Irish singer Tim’s four (to date) CDs has been one of the most pleasurable experiences of the past few months for me – so much so, in fact, that review of his latest, The Blue Green Door, has been delayed while I’ve continued to make fresh discoveries in Tim’s previous three releases.
The album’s rather wordy subtitle (Traditional And Original Songs Of Love, Loss And Longing, volume 3) is a most accurate depiction of its contents, in fact, though the apparent matter-of-fact driness of this erudite tag shouldn’t put you off, for this (like its predecessors) turns out to be a most appealing and stimulating collection of material, much of it completely new to me – indeed, I think it’s probably the best of the four.
Essentially a Kerryman, Tim was born Ballinskelligs; he lived in Dublin for a while, then in 1989 relocated to Co. Clare, releasing his first (then cassette) album, A Thimbleful Of Song. Tim’s one of those singers of quiet accomplishment, with a smooth tone and enthralling yet subtle delivery and a relaxed, though perennially sensitive approach to phrasing – a description which might well bring to mind Seán Keane
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Tim O’Shea & Friends – Lake of Learning
Press Reviews
The Stillwater Times Reviews Star Rating: ****
“When the summer has gone and autumn winds are threatening to blow our love away, it’s then our love will be tested. Arm in arm we’ll stand, side by side together, to face the common foe that will tear our love asunder…” From “Reconciliation”
Despite what’s inferred on the cover, this is a band album and not a solo project by Tim O’Shea. All the musicians get a chance to do their bit and I was particularly impressed with Matt Bashford’s Uilleann pipe work and Ger Culhane’s accordion playing. The album is a nice mix of songs, jigs, reels slides and polkas with something for everyone to enjoy…
· The album opens with a couple of slides both led by Paddy Jones’ fiddle and accompanied by Tim on acoustic guitar. Track 2, “Lake Of Learning”, was written by Tim and features him on lead vocals. The rhythm guitar part has the same insistent chugging feel as Dave Gilmour’s on Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick In The Wall Pt II”! This track also features some superlative pipe work from Matt…
· Tracks 3 & 4 are both instrumental. Barry and Ger lead the way on track 3 (a collection of jigs) with some jaunty concertina and accordion playing. It’s Paddy’s turn to shine on track 4 with some intricate fiddle work played over Tim’s rhythm guitar and Ger’s accordion…
· “Reconciliation” is a song about the struggle in Northern Ireland and is sung with some passion by Tim. Two more instrumental tracks follow “Reconciliation”, the hornpipe “Cronins” ~ which again features Barry on concertina and “Birdsong/The Butcher’s March”. “The Butcher’s March” has a section of melody line (played by Paddy) which I’m sure I’ve heard in a song by The Corrs, but can’t remember which one!
· Next up is Andy Stewart’s “Freedom Is Like Gold” which again has a passionate performance from Tim on lead vocals plus some melodic pipe lines from Matt. “Feartha Famine” is probably the most introspective tune on the album and features a fine solo acoustic guitar performance from Tim. Barry also gets a chance to shine with a solo concertina spot on “Mr O’Connor’s”, in which he shows a deft hand with this notoriously tricky instrument! Barry comes to the fore again on track 11, another collection of reels. Tim’s accompanying guitar has an almost jazzy feel to it on this up-tempo set of tunes…
· The album concludes with a song, “Willie Taylor” and a slow reel, “Roll In The Barrel”. “Willie Taylor” contains familiar traditional themes ~ love, the sea, betrayal and murder! The slow reel, “Roll In The Barrel” performed by Ger, Tim & Matt, is a fitting finale to this fine album…
· What I really liked about this recording was that although it stuck to a theme of (mainly) traditional songs and tunes, there was enough variation to stop the album becoming rather “samey”. I also liked the fact that despite Tim’s name being writ large and bold on the front cover that he took a back seat on many of the tracks and let the other musicians have their moments of glory! As I mentioned in my introduction, “Lake Of Learning” is a band album and not a solo effort… “Lake Of Learning” was reviewed by Dave
netrhythms.com
Tim’s second studio CD, like his first (Fair Dawning) and a 2001 live offering, draws ably from the deep well of music from Ireland’s south-western corner, his primary influences coming from the Sliabh Luachra in Co. Kerry and the tunes of Co. Clare.
It contains eight tune-sets and four songs, all bound together by the common thread of Tim’s nifty, driven guitar work. Although Tim has nine instruments in all at his disposal for the music-making this time round, they’re used selectively and rarely with more than three playing at any one time on any one track.
His “friends” (the supporting musicians) prove themselves a feisty unit, and they’ve worked hard touring the world to champion Irish music. The roster comprises Barry Magee (concertina), Paddy Jones (fiddle), Ger Culhane (accordion) and Matt Bashford (uilleann pipes, clarinet, low whistle), offering some interesting and rewarding, if sometimes unusual, textural possibilities – for instance the warm reedy timbre of multi-tracked clarinets providing a coda to Tim’s rendition of Ron Kavana’s Reconciliation. I also liked the concertina-accordion duet on the set of jigs (track 3).
The playing is sprightly and enjoyable on all the tune-sets, although on one or two occasions I felt a slight reserve, holding back. Then again, an out-of-tune fiddle on the first tune of track 7’s jig-set is all the more noticeable through being exposed carrying the entire melody part. Tim’s plaintive slow air Feartha Famine, played solo on guitar, paints a compelling portrait of abandoned homesteads, and stands proudly at the centre of the CD. The CD’s other solo item (a rendition of O’Carolan’s Mr. O’Connor) is given over to Barry’s concertina playing. It’s a minor shame, though, that Matt’s magnificent piping skills are utilised only on one of the songs (Andy M. Stewart’s Freedom Is Like Gold). This, along with the remaining vocal tracks, is managed credibly by Tim, his voice carrying shades of Denny Bartley in its overall tone and phrasing but without quite the same degree of searing intensity; best of the four songs, however, is probably the title track, one of Tim’s own compositions, which was partly inspired by a legend centred round Loch Léin, the largest of the Lakes of Killarney. An enjoyable collection altogether, and an attractive booklet to go with it too. David Kidman
Folk North West: June.05
Tim O’Shea is from Killarney in the south west of Ireland and has been working solo, and in several bands since the late 1980’s. He draws his influences from the dance music of his native Sliabh Luachra and West Kerry folk traditions and from the singing of Irish and Scottish performers like Jimmy McCarthy, Paul Brady, Dick Gaughan and Andy M. Stewart. Six years ago Tim brought out his first independent CD, “Fair Dawning – Tim O’Shea & Friends” and the follow up album, launched last year, features Uilleann pipes, accordion concertina and clarinet.
The new album features four songs and Tim demonstrates his excellent versatile musical ability on a range of polkas, jigs, slow airs and varied paced reels. He’s ably supported by Barry Magee (concertina), Paddy Jones (fiddle), Ger Culhane (accordion) and Matt Bashford (Uilleann pipes, clarinet and low whistle).
Tim is no mean slouch as a singer, performing the title track, Lake Of Learning’, and exuding a suitable sense of injustice on ‘Reconciliation’, Ron Kavana’s much travelled analogy for the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland, Andy M. Stewart’s “Freedom Is Like Gold” and the traditional tale of ‘Willy Taylor”.
“Lake of Learning” showcases the considerable talents of Tim and his talents friends. It will particularly appeal to those who love good Irish music played well with passion and fervour. For further information visit: www.timosheaadfriends.com Lewis Jones
Taplas, The Welsh Folk Magazine April/May 05 Adolygiadau o Reviews
Lake of Learning is Tim O’Shea’s second studio CD. The singer and guitarist from Killarney is ably supported by fiddler Paddy Jones and concertina player Barry Magee, along with new “friends” Ger Culhane on accordion and piper Matt Bashford, who also plays clarinets and low whistles.
The four songs include Tim’s own composition The Lake of Learning and a nice cover of Ron Kavana’s Reconciliation, on which the clarinet arrangement is particularly effective.
Some comparisons to Dick Gaughan are inevitable, but the vocals are confident and assured. The same can’t be said for the fiddling on the Birdsong Jigs, which gets off to rather a hesitant start. Also the guitar ends slightly behind the fiddle on the slides that open the CD.
Magee’s concertina playing, though, is very pleasing, particularly the three jigs and the virtuoso solo rendition of Carolan’s Mr O’Connor.
Tim’s own guitar composition Feartha Famine is another highlight on an impressive CD that is worth checking out. Nick Passmore
Live Ireland.Com
The Lake of Learning is by Tim O’Shea, and is out on Lackeen Records. Tim and his friends are from the Sliabh Luachra area of Kerry and also of the County Clare.
We love The Lake of Learning. The album headline is ” Tim O’Shea and Friends “. This is gloriously true. Tim is surrounded by some gifted musicians here, including Barry McGee on concertina, Paddy Jones on fiddle, Ger Culhane on accordion and Matt Bashford on pipes, low whistles and clarinet! Tim plays guitar beautifully, and has a wonderful, true and terrific voice. This is traditional music that makes a difference. A wonderful take on the tradition. And, yes, of course all the Sliabh Luachra and Clare swing is here, the lift, the intonation, phrasing and the soul.
There are trad song standards inducing one of our favorites, Willie Taylor, joined by Reconciliation (a beautiful bit of business by Ron Kavana), Freedom Is Like Gold from Andy Stewart and the title song. Lake of Learning by Tim himself. We really love this voice. Sure, confident and true. This album is the real deal. This would be impossible if the star, Tim, were not the deal himself. Album after album is put in front of us that tries to achieve what is easily offered here. This is are album by a singer and musicians who love and believe in what they-pi-e doing. Men about their business.
The instrumentals are varied and brill. These must truly be friends and long-time fellow players with Tim, as they all blend together so naturally and beautifully. This is an immediate contender for this year’s Vocal/Instrumental Album of the Year Award here on Livelreland
A wonderful voice joins with wondrously played polkas, beautiful airs, reels, slides, slow reels’-what more can we ask??
This is a winner all the way ’round!! The airs are especially
beautiful-one from Tim on solo guitar, one from Barry McGee on concertina. They are perfect, and really complete the album.
We have written in the past that one of the most disturbing trends in the tradition is that so many new players ( and some experienced ones whom we are tempted to name, but won’t ) apparently think that the tunes should be played at Mach 1 speed, all the tunes should be blisteringly fast, and we will all think, “Boy!!! Can these people play!! ” Nothing could be further from the truth.
This album is tastefully put together, balanced-and everything is presented at a tempo that suits trad to perfection. Music from Clare and the Sliabh Luachra is all about intonation, phrasing and the “swing”—-and these all are exactly what are left behind when this music is played too swiftly. Not here. These lads know what they are doing, and what’s what!
The more we listen to this album, the more and more and more we love it. Get this lovely thing. I’m listening to Willie Taylor as I write this.
Wow!! Get this album. Really! Bill Margeson
Pay The Reckoning.Com
With friends like these, who needs big-name guest musicians? 0’Shea (guitars, vocals, bodhran, bones) is joined by Barry Magee (concertina), Paddy Jones (fiddle), Ger Culhane (accordion) and Matt Bashford (pipes, clarinet and low whistle) for his third album of songs and tunes that linger in the memory.
The tunes are firmly rooted in the Sliabh Luachra tradition with slides and polkas taking centrestage; even the reels and jigs have the familiar Sliabh Luachra lift – that combination of “busyness” and effortless langour which the best musicians of this part of the world project. When accompanying tunes, O’Shea has all the muscularity of Steve Cooncy. When accompanying the songs he demonstrates a lightness of touch and a feel for the depths of his material which ensures that his material is beautifully backlit.
A cover of Ron Kavan’s “Reconciliation” brings out a whole new layer of meaning and poignancy.
His own “Lake Of Learning”, around which Bashford weaves snatches of O’Neill’s March”, is an odyssey through myth, legend and recorded history, centred on Loch Lein – the largest of the Lakes of Killamey.
Listen out for an absolutely cracking slow version of Cronin’s Hornpipe by Magee. The pace allows Magee to ornament the tune subtly and
masterfully and puts paid to the lie that the music needs a bit of speed to capture it’s pulse.
A subtle, restrained and deeply musical album from subtle, restrained and musical artists. Aidan Crossey.
Irish Examiner 13.5.04
It’s real music as it should be played
THIS is a studio album only in the sense that it was recorded in a studio.
In attitude, it is a relaxed session, a few tunes and the odd song in the front room. You can hear the musicians tap their feet, you can near them breathe, you can hear the groans’ and clicks and squeaks of their instruments. And the music is all the better for it.
Killarney’s Tim O’Shea plays guitar and sings. On this outing, he’s joined at various stages by Paddy Jones on fiddle, Barry Magee on concertina, Ger Culhane on accordion and Matt Bashford on uilleann pipes, whistle, and clarinet.
The opening slides, The Cat Jumped into the Mouse’s Hole/Going to the Well for Water, with Paddy taking the lead, have the necessary rough edge. Lake of Learning, written by Tim, takes its title from a slightly crooked translation of Loch Lein, the largest of Killarney’s lakes. Describing the song as “a mixture of fact and fiction and myth and legend”, 0’Shea builds a novel fantasy ranging from early Christian times to the Cromwellian Wars.
Reconciliation by Ron Kavanagh, and Freedom is Like Gold, by Andy M Stewart, are full of good intentions but tend towards over-earnestness.
Feartha Famine, a self-penned slow air taken on solo guitar, is a wonderfully atmospheric commemoration of the Great Hunger. The album closes with a fine version of the song Willie Taylor, segueing into a slow reel, Rolling in the Barrel.
Real music, played by real people. Pat Aherne
Irish Music Magazine 10.04
This is a condensed version of a Live Ireland review, I’ve been telling the cyber-world about this great t album for a long time, and now it’s your turn dear print reader. The album headline is “Tim O’Shea and Friends”.
This is gloriously true. Tim is surrounded by some gifted musicians here, including Barry McGee on concertina, Paddy Jones on fiddle, Ger Culhane on accordion and Matt Bashford on pipes, low whistles and clarinet! Tim plays guitar beautifully, and has a wonderful, true and terrific voice.
This is traditional music that makes a difference. A wonderful take on the tradition. And, yes, of course all the Sliabh Luachra and Clare swing is here, the lift, the intonation, phrasing and the soul.
There are traditional song standards including one of my favourites, Willie Taylor, joined by Reconciliation (a beautiful bit of business by Ron Kavana), Freedom Is Like Gold from Andy Stewart and the title song, Lake of Learning by Tim himself. Tim’s voice is sure, confident and true.
This album is the real deal. This would be impossible if the star, Tim, were not the deal himself.
The instrumentals are varied and brill. These must truly be friends and long-time fellow players with Tim, as they all blend together so naturally and beautifully. The airs are especially beautiful, one from Tim on solo guitar, one from Barry McGee on concertina. They are perfect, and really complete the album.
One of the most disturbing trends in the tradition is that so many new players apparently think that the tunes should be played at Mach 1 speed, all the tunes should be blisteringly fast, and we will all think, “Boy!!! Can these people play!!” Nothing could be further from the truth.
This album is tastefully put together, balanced and everything is presented at a tempo that suits trad to perfection. Not here. These lads know what they are doing, and what’s what!
The more we listen to this album, the more and more we love it. Bill Margeson
Tim and friends are one of the hardest working units in Irish music. They have worked in USA, Australia, New Zealand and Europe. They annually tour Germany and have played many Irish festivals alongside bands like, Altan, De Danann, Dervish and Lunasa.
A unique mix of 4 reed instruments, uilleann pipes, clarinet, accordion and concertina, adds unique colour shadings to the songs and tunes on Lake of Learning.
Barry Magee from Ballybunion Co. Kerry is one the finest concertina players in Ireland today as displayed by his virtuoso solo on the O’Carolan
tune Mr. 0 ‘Connor.Very much in the Co Clare style of playing, Barry offers his own vibrant stamp on 4 selections of tunes on Lake of Learning.
Matt Bashford from Limerick city plays clarinet and uilleann pipes as well as low whistle with energetic and youthful vigour.
Ger Culhane a native of west Limerick, is now living in Castleisland Co. Kerry, contributes some fine accordion playing on four of the tracks.
Paddy Jones. The Kerry music on this CD is reinforced by some wonderful Sliabh Luachra fiddle playing courtesy of Paddy Jones, one of the few remaining students of fiddle master Padraig O’Keeffe who died in 1963.
Tim O’Shea plays guitar, bodhran and bones and sings all 4 songs. Reconciliation is a fine song from Ron Kavana benefits well from the Matt’s sensitive
layered clarinets. Freedom is like gold comes from the pen of Andy M. Stewart and speaks for itself. Willie Taylor is a fine traditional song very popular at Tim’s live gigs and flows nicely into the slow Clare reel Roll in the Barrel.
This CD offers the seasoned traditional fan and the contemporary folk fan plenty to enjoy. From the two solo voices of Mr. O’Connor and Feartha Famine to the full sound of the title track Lake of Learning and the use of 9 instruments in all offers the listener a unique sound of music from Kerry and Clare.
Dates: Check out www.timosheaandfriends.com for further details.
After a great summer, it’s Autumn once again and time to hit the roads, the rails, the seas & the skies. “Thank you” all for coming to our gigs and for buying the CDs, and for helping make 2010 another successful year. We toured at home and abroad. Highlights included several TV appearances in the USA as well as several live Radio & TV performances in Ireland & USA. Memorable gigs included 4 special performances with Circus Gerbola in Ireland and Puck Fair, Ireland’s oldest Fair. Introducing a new ‘old friend’ for the German Tour, please put your hands together for Rodney Cordner (Guitar/Vocal/Bodhrán) from Portadown Co. Armagh. Please welcome back Declan Buckley Killarney Co. Kerry (Uilleann Pipes), who was on last year’s German tour.
£14.99 -
Tony Kearns – Music and Light
This book is a hardback bound edition of 130 black & white photographs selected from the many images that Tony Kearns has taken of classes, sessions, recitals, ceilis and formal portraits at the renowned Willie Clancy Summer School from 1992 to 2007.
The Willie Clancy Summer School is one of the most important events in the traditional Irish music calendar anywhere in the world and attracts the best musicians, singers and dancers as well as thousands of enthusiasts to the small town of Miltown Malbay, County Clare, Ireland, for one heady week each July.
The book also features a foreword by Nicholas Carolan, the director of the Irish Traditional Music Archive in Dublin and writer & presenter of the RTE series ‘Come West Along The Road’, as well as an introduction by the directors of the Summer School, Muiris Ó Rócháin and Harry Hughes. This is a unique publication, possibly the first photographic study of an exclusively Irish traditional music subject and it has been generously supported by the Arts Council of Ireland under its Deis Traditional Arts Initiative.This book is a hardback bound edition of 130 black & white photographs selected from the many images that Tony Kearns has taken of classes, sessions, recitals, ceilis and formal portraits at the renowned Willie Clancy Summer School from 1992 to 2007.
This book is printed on the finest of paper and hence weighs 1032 grammes, so check out postage before ordering. A perfect for any lover of Irish traditional music.
Also checkout this double CD which features music and song from The Willie Clancy Summer School; a perfect companion to this book. RTE 280CD
Press Reviews
£24.99 -
Tony Reidy – A Rough Shot of Lipstick
Tony Reidy was born in Aughagower near Westport, Country Mayo in the wild west of Ireland. Aughagower is an historic village where Pagans walked and St Patrick followed on his way to climb Croagh Patrick. He was reared on a small farm and his songwriting is very close to the soil. Tony Reidy is a man who has spent his life close to the land and its nature. It documents the plight of the people who work the land in Ireland, and maybe the plight of those people all over the world.
“I can still remember when first I heard Bob Dylan’s “Like A rolling Stone”, I was cutting thistles that day on my father’s farm, and I couldn’t get over it! The words, the music, the power of it all”! “I also remember Sweeney’s Men who brought Irish, English and American old timey music together in one brilliant piece of vinyl”.
Tony has been writing songs and poems ever since. “Once I got the songwriting bug I found I couldn’t stop”.
Tony’s first CD, The Coldest Day in Winter (also available from Copperplate) was released in 2002, it featured many varied songs concerned with the land and the people. His classic song, Like A Wild Thing was taken from The CD to be the title track of another fine CD, by the Mayo based group, Ceide.
Now in 2006 Tony comes up with his second CD, A Rough Shot of Lipstick, more brilliant insightful songs about life in Mayo, the land, love, clowns, lipstick, an informer, a priest and himself.
The album was recorded in Paul Gurney’s studio in Longford and produced by ex Dervish member, brilliant musician and producer, Seamie O’Dowd.
Copperplate is very proud to have this title on our roster and to help it achieve its full potential will be supporting this release with a full-scale promotional mail out to media and retail.
Also available from Copperplate: TRCD 001 TONY REIDY: The Coldest Day in Winter
Press Reviews
MOJO April 2007 Album of the Month Essential Folk
Songs about love, lipstick and clowns from Co Mayo
Like an earthier, more rural version of Damien Dempsey, the Mayo singer-songwriter’s slightly wayward approach may grate with some. But on this second album- produced with striking intimacy by former Dervish multi-instrumentalist Seamie O’Dowd – he’s written a mighty selection of songs that he delivers with almost leisurely understatement. O’Dowd contributes a nimble variety of arrangemenmts and instruments to add relative sophistication to what’s essentially an old school singer-songwriter album.
It’s very Irish and it may even sound dated, except heartfelt story songs of the quality of The Boy in the Gap, Sean sa Saggart, God Knows and Seventh Son will never date, shrouded as they are in a compelling, oblique sense of history, mystery and menace that’s invariably offset by a keen ear for melody and chorus. Colin Irwin
Folk World #33
Tony Reidy, I do remember writing a review of his 2002 cd The Coldest Day in Winter. I liked that cd; it’s sober and pure sound in the best singer-songwriter tradition. Now, five years later I find his new cd on my desk ready to get reviewed. The opening song immediately reminded me why I liked his music so much. No intro, he just starts singing and catches my attention from the first second. The boy in the Gap, as the song is called, is a strong piece of music for a reason I can’t explain. I don’t really understand the lyrics, but they do intrigue me terribly. Besides this kind of powerful songs, Tony Reidy also recorded some easier songs to listen to without loosing any of the quality. Fool for You is one of my favourites in that style, a love song that gives me a happy feeling. Followed by God Knows, which shows his Dylan side, a bit more melancholic and darker. Besides his strong vocal work, this cd is well produced and the musicians (Seamie O’Dowd, Paul Gurney and Kevin Doherty) are of high quality and add many extras to Reidy’s songs. So Tony Reidy did it again, A Rough Shot of Lipstick is a great follow up on his earlier cd The Coldest Day in Winter and shows that he is ready for a much bigger international audience. Eelco Schilder
Irish Music Magazine May 07
I had the pleasure of reviewing Tony Reidy’s first CD, The Coldest Day in Winter, which I enjoyed a lot, and it’s great to see him back again with this new album, A Rough Shot of Lipstick. The songs are all his own, not only in words and music, but in their unique style of expression and music. If you are unfamiliar with Tony’s songwriting, well, you can get an idea of his distinctive way with words in what he says of himself and his music. “I gather the seeds of these songs close to home,” he says, “and around the West of Ireland. The sounds and words may fall on fertile
ground or on wasteland, it does not matter.”
Home for Tony is Aughagower near Westport, Co. Mayo. He writes about home in one of the numbers, I’m a Mayo Man. You will possibly note that the title is an echo of the self-deprecating line a lot of Mayo people use when asked where they’re from: “I’m from Mayo, God help us.” So, assuming one knows about this line, he has fun with the song words, using self-mocking put-down lines like the following: I’ve come from the bogs of north Mayo / I come with the turf between my toes / I’m as proud a man as you could meet / I’ve swept many a woman off her feet. So the Mayo bog man has the last laugh!
He says he doesn’t care on what sort of ground the seeds of his words may fall: “What matters is the continuation of the tradition of the bards, poets, storytellers and songwriters telling stories real and otherwise.”
Tony’s I’m a Mayo Man song is one of the ‘real’ songs he refers to, while the opening track, The Boy in the Gap, is an ‘otherwise’, a dreamlike and day-dreamy: She took to the bed / She’d given up the Ghost / Sayin’ novenas for us all / Now and at the hour and livin’ on toast. Of this song and some of the others, he says in his CD notes: “The boy in the gap still listens and waits. Sean na Sagart was an informer during penal times. The island boys come from Inisturk off the Mayo coast. The scarecrow and the wild goose are still around and still holding hands. The man with the soft heart is my friend. The fool, the clown and the seventh son are exchanging views and thankfully still doubting the truth.” The album was recorded in Paul Gurney’s studio in Longford and produced by Seamie O’Dowd, who, along with Paul, is also one of the session musicians. Kevin Doherty plays double bass. I wrote of Tony the songwriter in that first review: “He is a gifted painter of word pictures, and a dab hand at fitting lyrics to a well structured tune.” Well, he’s still at it, and like a good wine, improving with age. Aidan O’Hara
Froots April 07
Tony Reidy from Co Mayo is a highly promising singer-songwriter whose debut album The Coldest Day in Winter signified the arrival of a fine talent.Compositional kudos is bathed in an assured sense of delivery and timing with the lyrical emphasis on finely honed observations.
A Rough Shot of Lipstick, Reidy’s second album, is shot through with his particular sense of vision. I’m A Mayo Man is an anthem for his locality as well as personal statement of ethnic pride. Island Boys recalls the local emigrants dislocated from home in the search of work abroad and If This Is Progress captures the instance of a maverick who is not afraid to stand up and be counted. Reidy’s gravely vocals and seasoned delivery are framed in a sympathetic canvas from producer Seamus O’Dowd.
A lyricist of power and diversity – Tony Reidy stands out from the pack with another quality effort. John O’Regan
The Irish Democrat
TONY REIDY’S second album is packed full of well-crafted, perceptive songs of Mayo life, work, exile, love and betrayal, delivered in a style which, while unmistakably rooted in Irish folk traditions, displays a host wider musical influences, ranging from Dylan to Tex Mex and bluegrass.
Recorded in Paul Gurney’s studio in Longford, the album is produced by ex-Dervish multi-instrumentalist and producer Seamie O’Dowd. Gurney (keyboards/piano/accordian) and O’Dowd (guitars/harmonica/mandolin/fiddle/bassvocals) accompany Reidy throughout as does Kevin Doherty (double bass).
He may not thank me for it, but there’s much in Reidy’s vocal and lyrical style which reminds me of Christy Moore.
By that, I do not mean that Reidy is in any way derivative or a pale imitation of the great man. His warm west-of-Ireland vocal sound is most definitely his own, while the songs, many of which display a bitter-sweet quality, represent as fine and original a collection as this reviewer has heard in a good while.
‘Island Boys’, for example, captures the mixed emotions born of feelings of inevitability and loss, tinged with transformation, brought about by the need of a small and remote island community to send its young across to the Irish mainland for schooling.
And there’s something distinctly sinister about the priest in ‘Seventh Son’ with his “direct line to the man above” and claims to be able to “heal” all manner of ills while at the same time ‘preying’ on his flock’s weaknesses and laying hands on their pockets as well as their ailing bodies and souls.
By way of contrast, the priest in Sean na Sagart, a song about spying and betrayal at the times of the penal laws, is treated with less ambiguity. But, while he is able to forgive the murdered traitor, those around him “the people” continue to reek their vengeance by digging up the the betrayer’s bones and throwing them into the river.
In ‘If This is Progress’, Reidy is at his most caustic. The song is a indictment of the hypocrisy, greed and betrayal of politicians and church in modern Ireland, “… a nation that has nothing to say”.
Tinged in the faded hopes of 60s radicalism the song points to the growing divisions between rich and poor and laments the bland corporate takeover which has accompanied the era of the so-called Celtic Tiger.
Yet it’s not all doom and gloom and the love songs ‘Fool For You’ and the album’s title track ‘Rough Shot of Lipstick’ are full of tenderness, humanity and subtle imagery.
Then there’s the tragic-comic humour of ‘Job as a Clown’, where the subject gets turned down for the job despite having gone to circus school and being able to eat fire, walk on stilts, juggle and dance. “They could see it in my face/There’s more to being a clown than clownin’ around”.
As with his debut album, The Coldest Day in Winter, several of the songs refer affectionately to his roots and life in Co. Mayo. The boys in ‘Island Boys’, come from Inisturk, off Ireland’s west coast, Reidy informs in his liner notes, and you can almost feel the rain in the air and smell the peat bogs in ‘The Boy in the Gap’ and ‘I’m a Mayo Man’.
This is a beautifully produced album from a fine songwriter who deserves to be better known. If he continues to produce albums of the quality of this, he surely will be. David Granville
Rock’n’Reel
For his second album, the Mayo singer-songwriter carries on singing about what he knows, and like fellow countrymen The Saw Doctors he makes no apologies for his rural background, instead rejoicing in the imagery and idiosyncrasies of rural living. His earthy vocals, and the rhythmic drive of his guitar on the statement-of-intent ‘Mayo Man’ supplement the warmth of his delivery and lyrical content: ‘I’ve come from work in Ceide fields, I come with Michael Davitt ‘s dream’.
This is unmistakably the work of a singer-songwriter from Ireland, as the title track, a Gallic accordion-flavoured grower demonstrates, rather than something from the Irish tradition. His influences offer a nod Stateside in the direction of Mr Zimmerman on the appealing ‘God Knows1 while he!s darker and accusatory on the insistent ‘If This Is Progress’ which goes hunting that mythical Celtic Tiger with a vengeance.
He sings in praise of the other side of Ireland’s ‘economic miracle1 on the nimbly picked grower, ‘Hard Hat Soft Heart’, and closes with the decidedly odd Job As A Clown’ on which a grumbling double bass and mandolin vie for your attention over Reidy’s doleful delivery. A refreshing take on the singer-songwriter genre. Danny Moore
Taplas, The Welsh Folk Magazine
A slightly more contemporary feel to Tony Reidy’s second CD, A Rough Shot of Lipstick: this time only Ceide’s double bass player Kevin Doherty is in evidence; otherwise instrumental duties are mainly fulfilled by producer and ex Dervish man Seamie O’Dowd and sound recordist Paul Gurney (both of whom were responsible for Ceide’s recent Out of their Shell). Many of the songs here are destined to be covered by others.
The Living Tradition Jan/Feb 07
The follow-up to 2002’s ‘The Coldest Day In Winter by this distinctive Co Mayo singer and guitar/mandolin player, Reidy’s damascene moment came on hearing Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone. There’s no doubt he’s also heard ‘Girl From The North Country and Not Dark Yet’ but he’s nothing to fear from such influences; his take on matters singer/songwriterly is twisted and left field enough to make everyone sit up and take notice.
Produced by Seamie O’Dowd with a sure touch that playing with Dervish and Mary McPartlan has honed. Lipstick is an album to spark the imagination and says a lot about the time and space its creator comes from. A windswept, desolate north-west coast of Ireland is reflected in this CD- it’s dark hours and small triumphs. The view from Reidy’s window is surely a bleak one at times.
With emotive phrasing, and an affecting lyricism the album gives voice to a series of personal narratives that are at once unsettling and insightful. His grounding provides a potent base of traditional sounds, highlighted in these intense, almost claustophobic tales of informers, small town romance, dreamers, losers and yes, a failed clown!
Music for a messed-up Celtic Tiger then? Well at the very least, a lesson in the power of sincerity and one for all those who have a weakness for beauty when it’s bruised. Clive Pownceby
Irish Dancing & Culture Feb 07
The thing that strikes you most about this CD is the presentation.The CD itself is designed like an LP, It’s a great design!Tony Reidy was born in the North West of Ireland In County Mayo. This CD is insightful in the way it has been composed, the album evokes emotion: Tony clearly writes his songs from the heart about his homeland and people he has met along the way. The songs are lyrical, poetic; ultimately they are different. This is the kind of music that will be cherished by those who know Tony, along with those who don’t- For the people of Mayo this compilation tells a story of an ordinary lad from their county, it will be around for years. Worth a listen! Leanne Nelson Fab Rating * * * *
The Irish World 24th Dec 06
REIDY WITH A ROUGH SHOT OF LIPSTICK
DESCRIBING his second offering, singer-songwriter Tony Reidy from Westport, Co Mayo says: “I gathered the seeds of these songs close to
home and the West of Ireland.
The sounds and words may fall on fertile ground or on wasteland, it does not matter. What matters is the continuation of the tradition of the
bards, pilots, storytellers and songwriters telling stories, real and otherwise.”
A Rough Shot of Lipstick’ was recorded in Longford, in the studio of Paul Gurney and, savs Reidy, “has songs about Mayo, an informer, love,
lipstick, clowns and myself”. Produced by ex Dervish member Shamie O’Dowd, the album contains arrangements and vocal’s that echo Tom
Waits, Dylan (in fact the first piece of music that moved Reidy was ‘Like A Rolling Stone’).
These songs don’t fit neatly onto the ‘fiddly-dee’ shelf and reveal not only Reidy’s diverse influences but his musical spirit of adventure.
A lyrical and expansive collection by an accomplished storyteller.
www.netrhythms.com
Born in a small village near Westport, Co Mayo, Tony’s introduction to songwriting came on hearing Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone and he’s been writing ever since!
But his first CD didn’t appear until 2002; The Coldest Day In Winter was an impressive debut by any account, featuring an attractive body of work that focused thoughtfully and compellingly on human interaction with country life.
Album number two here continues that strand of writing, with if anything a little more in the way of contemporary edge, on 11 brand new typically insightful songs. Tony’s particularly strong suit is the heartfelt, as on Seventh Son and Hard Hat Soft Heart, both of which in subtly different ways explore and lay bare the emotions that hide not far beneath the surface of an outwardly strong character, and the touching (if ultimately ambiguous) quasi-love-song Fool For You.
Perhaps Tony’s darkest thoughts on this disc come with the desperate meditations of If This Is Progress and God Knows. But he’s also a master of quiet observation, as Sean Na Sagart, the tale of an informer against priests (with an apt and appealingly modal setting) and Island Boys, which simply yet sensitively examines the emotional situation of local lads sent to school on the mainland, both prove. Tony can let his hair down too though, as on the delicious “bog bayou” of I’m A Mayo Man, which takes a different (more humorously self-deprecating) slant on his sense of local pride.
Tony’s got a distinct talent for finding a natural musical rhythm in his lyrics (does this emanate from his gaining inspiration from Dylan I wonder? – the title track sounds a bit like His Bobness essaying a Parisian chanson style), but I also hear shades of Al Stewart in Tony’s facility with melody and overall approach to phrasing, as on The Boy In The Gap. Not only is Tony’s way with words very attractive, but his fluid and conversational expression of those words (he has a naturally musical singing voice) will instantly win him admirers I’m sure.
Instrumental support for Tony is extremely effective, albeit from just three fine musicians: the multi-skilled Seamie O’Dowd (guitars, mandolin, fiddles, harmonica), Kevin Doherty (double bass) and keyboardist Paul Gurney (who’s also responsible for the wonderfully clean production). This is another of those CDs whose easy appeal is deceptive and belies the depth of the craftsmanship within; it’s also a very satisfying disc to revisit, which I’ve done often in spite of more pressing engagements! David Kidman
WWW.IRISHMUSICREVIEW.COM
this new album is still underpinned by heartfelt moments of existential angst (and nobody in Ireland writes these better than Reidy), Geoff Wallis
HOT PRESS
“If at least one of these thoughtful, well-crafted original songs doesn’t take root and grow into lasting life, there’s no justice”. Sarah McQuaid Eight/Ten
The Irish Times
“Songwriting with “attention to detail that hints at a task lovingly undertaken” Siobhán Long
The Mayo News
“Tony Reidy knows his roots
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Tony Reidy – The Coldest Day in Winter
- The Country Man
- Like A Wild Thing
- Draiodoir Dubh
- Kitonga
- Sometimes
- The Coldest Day in Winter
- Black Pudding Music
- The Mountainy Man
- Woman Sitting in a Dark Café
- Cul an ti
- Aphrodite
Press Reviews
Taplas June/July The Welsh Folk Magazine
Tony Reidy’s debut CD is definitely one that grows on you.
Having heard his song, Like A Wild Thing on Ceide’s album of the same name,
I was interested to see what his other songs are like.
There’s certainly a great variety. He introduces us to a gallery of characters like,
The Mountainy Man, Kitonga Mwanzia from Keyna and the Latin crooner on Black Pudding Music.
His guitar playing is reminiscent of Nic Jones in places. On some tracks he’s helped out by members of Ceide, while Pat Early Quartet provide string arrangements on a couple of tracks and co-producer David Munnelly, whose own CD is well worth checking out, adds accordion and keyboards. Nick Passmore
Pay The Reckoning April 2002
Pay The Reckoning first became aware of Tony Reidy via Ceide whose first album, Like A Wild Thing, derived its name from their version of Reidy’s starkly beautiful song. We raved about it then (see here) and therefore when we learned that Reidy had brought out an album, we wasted no time in getting our hands on a copy.
This is not an easy album! It’s a bloody good album, by a songwriter on top of his craft. A unique vision, a unique voice. But the album is no breezy listen. No middle-of-the-road. It’s challenging. Moody. Brooding. Not all the time. But an air of melancholy informs the album’s key moments.
And before friends of Pay The Reckoning start making assumptions that “The Coldest Day In Winter” is a traditional album, then we have to warn you. Irish it most certainly is! Traditional it most certainly isn’t. Musically there are a lot of reference points on the album – trad is one of them, of course. But there are echoes of Nick Drake, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, John Martyn, John Prine, Guy Clark. There are ghostly echoes of other songwriters who are able to capture, with a few words and a decent tune, some of the essence of their, our, someone’s or everyone’s life experience. These are Reidy’s peers. He can write songs with the best of them!
The fact is that Reidy has such a way with words that we wondered how he could craft tunes to do them justice. Before we had a chance to play the CD, Pay The Reckoning sat down, read the lyric sheet and revelled in Reidy’s attention to detail. We pondered how he reveals the whole picture through focusing on the fine images that the unobservant might miss. For example, a verse from the album’s opener, “The Country Man”. “The country man is happy/With the dew on the top of his boots/And the stems of last year’s thistles/Crunching beneath his steps/The country man is happy/He can jump over the gate/He can kneel down and smell primroses/He is not minding his clothes”
“The Country Man” leads into the exquisite “Like A Wild Thing”. In a great album, this song nevertheless shines like a beacon. The lyrics are quite different from those on Ceide’s album, the imagery even more intense, with even more of the high lonesome quality which stirs Pay The Reckoning’s soul. For example “Farewell to sheep’s wool on barbed wire fences/To the blackthorn, the whitethorn, the frogs in the ditches/Farewell to my jumper that has the blue stain/I now wear a suit, I sit at a chair”. Reidy’s delivery is easy, conversational, though there’s little doubt that he feels intensely the pain of separation that he describes. The listener can only agree that this suburbanisation, this divorce between people and the land, between people and their islands and their inland fishing areas, is one of the tragedies of the Irish experience. A tragedy which wasn’t confined to the post-Independence years when the Blaskets and the Mayo Islands and other west coast islands were cleared, but which is a process which continues in the present.
Draiodoir Dubh, Reidy’s hymn to a wide-eyed, credulous childhood, is followed by Kitonga – a song to a young Kenyan lad whose photo adorns Reidy’s wall. It exposes the gulf between a rose-tinted image of wild Africa and the harsh reality. Reidy asks naive questions on all our behalfs. Kitonga answers – matter of factly – “I can’t hear birds when my stomach’s empty/I can’t see beauty when the crops are ruined/I can only hear my brother crying/I see my family search for food”.
“Sometimes” – a piano-driven vignette which features restrained clarinet courtesy of Kevin Walsh- contains the superb image “Sometimes the world spins at the right speed/And I’m at the same speed too”.
Which leads us to the title track. A Cohenesque ballad whose bedrock of straightforward acoustic guitar is enlivened by Reidy’s mandolin playing and accordion wizardry courtesy of either David Munnelly or Tom Doherty. The song opens at Old Joe’s funeral where two lovers meet. Drinks are taken, “Our shopping bags fell drunk on the floor” and an old spark is rekindled.
Black Pudding Music is a wry tale of a musician whose dream is to play swing or bossanova, who “… prefers Andy to Hank”. (NB Pay The Reckoning prefer Hank to Andy … but we sympathise with the lad’s plight!) Instead he wastes his life playing “black pudding music”. But when the night’s over he “… has a few beers and he hums his way back into his dreams.”
The revelation of the album is “The Mountainy Man”. This is a song whose insights are on a par with those of “Like A Wild Thing”. Here, Reidy demonstrates his deep affection for, and understanding of, the wild characters who (thank Christ!) still abound in the bleak and hilly hinterlands. “He had his own outlook on life/It wasn’t always right/Sean nos mixed with alcohol/Bruce Springsteen and Tom Waits”. And then later “Sometimes he was beautiful/In the bogs on heathery days”. And the song’s clincher (and a distillation of Reidy’s sensibilities) “Sometimes love comes down the hill/When he allows it in/And he prays to God or something/And the mountains are at peace”.
Woman Sitting In A Dark Cafe – a song inspired, it would appear, by a painting or photograph which Reidy glimpsed in a visit to Amsterdam is followed by the plaintive Cul An Ti.
The album closes with the gentle, elegant “Aphrodite”, whose last verse is a fitting farewell from the man himself “Soon we’ll fly away/From this burning sun o’er the waves/On Mweelrea hills/The clouds will fill with grey”.
Reidy has assembled an exceptional cast of fellow-musicians to help him out with “The Coldest Day In Winter”. As well as those mentioned above are Brian Lennon (low whistle/vocals), Kevin Doherty (double bass), Pat Gaughan (percussion) and the Pat Early Quartet (strings). Expect to see some of these songs make their way into the repertoires of big-name artists in the near future.
John ORegan’s Review.
Tony Reidy’s name first came to notice from Like a Wild Thing the title track of north Leitrim band; Ceide’s debut album reviewed enthusiastically in these pages, some time ago.
Coming from a farming background in Co.Sligo, Tony Reidy is well acquainted with rural life, and a strong sense of communal experience emerges from his material.
His second album, The Coldest Day in Winter reveals a sharp concise lyrical talent with a nose for detail and a forthright vocal delivery.
The Country Man and Like A Wild Thing offer two diverse accounts of rural life the former a vivid word picture depicting a farmer content in his role as provider and man of the earth while the latter depicts a common scene in recent Irish life with small farms closing down forcing many young farmers to make their life working in cities. Like A Wild Thing captures a computer programmer whose heart is elsewhere and the helplessness of his condition I feel like a wild thing trapped in a snare.
Otherwise, Kitonga a pen to an adopted child in Africa and Woman Sitting in a Dark Café haunt different inspirational boats while the humerous, Black Pudding Music depicts the pub and wedding musician’s lot.
The ghosts of fellow Irish songwriters Mick Hanley and Mickey McConnell occasionally scurry through Tony Reidy’s vocabulary, but the results are finely wrought songs of substance and life experience.
The Coldest Day in Winter is a pleasant aural surprise unveiling a highly promising Irish songwriting talent. John O’Regan
Aidan O’Hara, Irish Music Mag
“He had his own outlook on life/ It wasn’t always right/ Sean nos mixed with alcohol/ Bruce Springstein and Tom Waits.” Well, whatever about the alcohol and the mix he refers to in his song, The Mountainy Man, singer/songwriter Tony Reidy’s own general mix of material and music styles is a wonderful assortment altogether. Indeed, those lines quoted might just be about himself – he is the mountainy man, observing the quirky world from his hillside cottage.
Speaking of quirky – the songs listed on the back cover and in the CD notes are not in the usual order from 1 to 11, but are scattered around the pagein a random, shuffled order. Perhaps he’s saying, “Here’s a few ould songs I put together. You can listen to them in any order you want.” Most of Tony Reidy’s song/poems are a quiet meandering through ‘life’s rich tapestry’, with here and there a sharp comment on some of the harsher realities of life.
In his song, The Country Man, the first line of every verse is “The country man is happy,” and the pictures are of lambs racing round the walls, and the smell of whins in the nostrils; but in the following song Like a Wild Thing he parodies the subject of the title – the country man’s new state — which sadly is worse than the first; he has gone to the big smoke where he gets a job sitting in front of a computer: “Farewell to the land where I grappled with stones/ Farewell to the hills (where) I got soaked to the bone …” And
having second thoughts, he realises that maybe he has sold his birthright for a mess of pottage: “…farewell to my place/ To make a living I must sit at a chair.”
All the songs but one (Seán Ó Ríordáin’s “Cúl a’ Tí) are Tony’s. He is a gifted painter of word pictures, and a dab hand at fitting lyrics to a well structured tune; his guitar playing style is uniquely his own, and his playing weaves around word and melody as effortlessly as Mississippi blues singer’s – most appealing. He is well served by his backing musicians, Brian Lennon, David Munnelly, and not least, by the Pat Early quartet. Looking for a song to sing on your next album? You could find a gem or two on Tony’s new CD. Aidan O’Hara His songs have been likened to “Paddy Kavanagh, embellished with stark guitar arrangements” by The Irish Times. His work first came to our notice when his classic song “Like A Wild Thing” was used by the Mayo group, Ceide as their title track of their Copperplate album. The band and many local musicians have helped Tony in the recording of this his first recording. We would ask you to please listen to the sound bites on this page, just click on the underlined titles in the track listing section.
Tony Reidy was born in Aughagower near Westport, Country Mayo in the wild west of Ireland. Aughagower is an historic village where Pagans walked and St Patrick followed on his way to climb Croagh Patrick.
He was reared on a small farm and his songwriting is very close to the soil.
He still remembers when he first heard Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone; he was the boy in the gap on his father’s farm.
He also remembers Sweeney’s Men who brought Irish, English and American old timey music together in one brilliant piece of vinyl.
Tony was always interested in writing and bits his own poetry were always making their way onto his maths copybook.
Later as an engineering student in Galway in the early seventies he met up with Johnny Mulherne (songs, Mattie/ Hard Cases/ Continental Ceili were recorded by Christy Moore and Mary Coughlan) and Tommy Healy both musicians and songwriters.
But, it was not until on a holiday with fellow musician and writer, John Hoban in Istanbul in 89, that Reidy met Mulherne again and his muses were awakened. He’s been writing songs ever since then.
Recently his classic song, Like A Wild Thing was used as the title for the debut recording of the amazing Ceide, a group of musicians who came together as the house band in Matt Molly’s bar in Westport.
This finally lit the Reidy fuse and with the lads, Tony went into the studio to record this his first CD.
Now dear listener, you have the fruits of the mans work in your hands. We feel sure you will enjoy it, and we all look forward to more of his works.
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Various – Within a Mile of Kilty
Ben Lennon & Seamus Quinn: The Girl Who Broke My Heart / Billy Bocker (reels)
Brian Rooney: Rooney’s Favourites. (jigs)
John Gordon: The Enchanted Lady / The Maids of Castlebar. (reels)
Maurice Lennon: The Lark in the Morning. (jig)
Seamus Quinn: Morrison’s Barndance.
Ben Lennon & Seamus Quinn: The Lonesome Jig / The Tenpenny Bit (jigs)
Charlie Lennon: The Edenderry / The Flowery Fields of Scotland (reels)
Ben Lennon: The Dances at Kinvara. (barndance)
Maurice Lennon: Larry Redican’s / The Dairy Maid (reels)
John Gordon: The Wandering Minstrel / Fasten the Leg in Her / Road to Kesh
Ben Lennon: The Sailor’s Cravat / Lady Gordon (reels)
Seamus Quinn: In Memory of Morrison. (jigs)
Brian Rooney: Lad O’Beirne’s Hornpipe
Charlie Lennon: Up Sligo / The Hearty Boys of Ballymote (jigs)
Press Reviews
The Irish Echo, CEOL COLUMN By Earle Hitchner
Fiddling of the Best Kind!
Within a Mile of Kilty
If the music sounds like it was all recorded yesterday, in a sense it was, for great music both reflects its time and breaks free of it.. .The Irish music heard on this recording relies on heart, respect, memory, talent, tradition, friendship, family, home town and regional pride, and the sheer, unalloyed joy of playing.
What this album does is rare: putting the listener not just within a mile of Kilty, but right beside the chairs of the musicians themselves.
Earle Hitchner
Irish Music Magazine 8.05
And to think it all came from within a mile of Kilty is cause for contemplation, so many treasures from such a small jewel box. Sean Laffey
The Irish Echo,
“This is the pure drop by the bucketful, music to sip and savor, a can’t-miss candidate for my year-end top ten”. Earl Hitchner
The Irish Echo, CEOL COLUMN By Earle Hitchner
Shortly after coming to the Irish Echo in 1991, I decided to compile an annual top 10 list of Irish traditional recordings that would stubbornly resist the trend to place albums in several, often arbitrary categories. I felt then, as I do now, that such category-crammed lists were thinly veiled attempts to pacify as many musicians, publicists, and record labels as possible by spreading acclaim like cheap margarine.
Critics, if they really are critics, should have the courage of their convictions and rank the recordings, no matter how difficult the process and unwieldy the challenge. To me, it’s a matter of put up or shut up, and each year I choose to put up for “Ceol” readers.
Every one of these standout albums from 2005, unflinchingly ranked 1 to 10, belongs in your listening library.
(1) WITHIN A MILE OF KILTY, by Ben, Charlie, and Maurice Lennon, Brian Rooney, Seamus Quinn, and John Gordon (Clo Iar-Chonnachta CICD 159)
With a lineup boasting of those six fiddlers as well as Ciaran Curran, Noel O’Grady, Frank Kilkelly, and Gabriel McArdle as accompanists, you’d expect the result to be impressive. But an all-star crew (paging Patrick Street) doesn’t always create something special, despite the best of intentions. “Within a Mile of Kilty,” for which I wrote an essay gratis, exceeds expectations. Beautifully conceived, crafted, and executed, the music spans four decades and taps into the rich loam of tradition in or near the tiny North Leitrim village of Kiltyclogher, nicknamed Kilty. Four of these musicians–Quinn, Curran, McArdle, and Ben Lennon–collaborated 17 years ago on another superb album, “Dog Big and Dog Little,” which took its title from the local names for two hills between Kiltyclogher and Fermanagh’s Derrygonnelly, where Quinn was born. Hearing that quartet, supplemented by Charlie Lennon on piano, perform “The Girl Who Broke My Heart/Billy Bocker” reels and “The Lonesome Jig/The Tenpenny Bit” recalls the brilliance of the earlier recording. Other tracks showcasing more of the soloing skill of Quinn, Ben and Charlie Lennon, Ben Lennon’s 1977 All-Ireland fiddle champion son Maurice (on viola), Brian Rooney, and John Gordon (1928-2002), who’s heard on two medleys to which Charlie Lennon tastefully added piano, make this CD something very special. Kilty clout reigned supreme in 2005.
[Published on January 25, 2006, in the IRISH ECHO newspaper, New York City. Copyright (c) Earle Hitchner. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of author.]
The Folk Diary
The reviewer notes the record label and sees that the musicians include the Lennon family. His expectations are immediately raised in expectation of the very finest in Irish traditional dance tune playing…. he is not to be disappointed.
Kiltyclogher is where the brothers Ben and Charlie were brought up and the other musicians also have an association with the town. The fourteen tracks here have been drawn from around 40 years of recordings of these outstanding musicians, though the tracks are not dated and it is not possible to detect a difference in sound quality by listening. If the ear does not tell you, then clues like tunes composed by Ed Reavy and titles like “In Memory of Morrison” should tell you that the playing style and repertoire of the early Irish American 78rpm records continue to have an influence on these musicians, whilst it is less with the younger generation of Irish musicians.
This gives the album a slightly old-fashioned feel to it. The playing in entirely delightful. Vic Smith
Kiltyclogher Clout Creates a Superb CD
CEOL Column, The Irish Echo.
By Earle Hitchner
[Published on September 7, 2005, in the IRISH ECHO newspaper, New York City. Copyright (c) Earle Hitchner. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of author.]
Hands down, or actually up, “Within a Mile of Kilty” on Cló Iar-Chonnachta, the Connemara label, is one of the best fiddle and overall Irish traditional recordings issued so far this year.
Rosin-raising talents like Ben, Charlie, and Maurice Lennon, Séamus Quinn, Brian Rooney, and John Gordon (1928-2002), a monumental rediscovery, immediately stamp this CD as something rare and extraordinary. Add in the accompaniment of Altan’s Ciarán Curran on cittern, Beginish’s Noel O’Grady on bouzouki, Frank Kilkelly on guitar, and Gabriel McArdle on concertina, and the recording only gains luster.
It was a privilege for me to write gratis the opening essay for this project, a labor of love for its co-producers, Charlie Lennon and Ben Lennon’s son David. In and near Kilty, short for Kiltyclogher, a village with a population of about 150 in northeast Leitrim near the Fermanagh border, emerged such fine fiddlers as John Quinn (Séamus’s grandfather), John Eddie Gordon (John Gordon’s father), John Timoney, and John McGovern, among many others.
Four musicians on this album–Ben Lennon, Séamus Quinn, Gabriel McArdle, and Ciarán Curran–collaborated 16 years ago on another splendid recording, “Dog Big and Dog Little,” titled after the local names for two hills situated between Kiltyclogher and Derrygonnelly, where Quinn was born. (“Dog Big and Dog Little” is also the name of a reel composed by Charlie Lennon.) Affectionately nicknamed the Dogs, the quartet made quite a stir with their downstairs concert in Morans Hotel during the 1990 Dublin Traditional Music Festival, which I attended.
The music performed in “Within a Mile of Kilty” spans more than four decades, with two tracks of fiddling by John Gordon in 1956 representing the oldest recordings. Charlie Lennon, who tastefully added piano to those two tracks not long ago, calls Gordon “the sweetest and finest player you could ever hear.” Older brother Ben Lennon describes him this way: “If he had gone to America, his major talent would have received instant recognition…. His intonation was perfect, rolls heard as clear as a bell. He had beautifully shaped hands with fingers dancing on the strings.
The bow trebles were crisp, round, and very distinct.” In “The Enchanted Lady/The Maids of Castlebar” reels and “The Wandering Minstrel/Fasten the Leg in Her/Road to Kesh” jigs, Gordon’s bowing is everything Charlie and Ben Lennon claim it was. This Drumcully, Fermanagh-born fiddler’s ornamentation is incisive and inventive at the same time. It is a powerful example of how a prodigious individual style can completely serve the melody–a paradox only the greatest players can achieve.
Gordon never loses command or wavers in interpretation. The notes flow out with seeming ease, yet the ideas teem and bubble beneath, indicating
a fiddler who draws equally on tuneful intelligence and almost preternatural instinct, or what Ben Lennon referred to as playing “from the subconscious.” Whatever inspired and shaped John Gordon’s musical gift, Ben, Charlie, and David Lennon have allowed us to reappreciate it through their careful archival work and caring recollections here and on another CD, “The Humours of Glendart,” that I’ll be reviewing in the near future.
Those Gordon tracks are two highlights among several others in “Within a Mile of Kilty.” In “The Girl Who Broke My Heart/Billy Bocker” reels and “The Lonesome Jig/The Tenpenny Bit,” Ben Lennon, Séamus Quinn, Ciarán Curran, and Gabriel McArdle revive the brilliance of their “Dog Big and Dog Little” days with some riveting ensemble work, abetted by the piano backing of Charlie Lennon. Much to our delight, those four Dogs can learn new tricks, and one can only hope they’ll consider making another full recording together.
If Charlie Lennon were not so celebrated as a piano accompanist, he would be properly touted as one of Ireland’s most adept fiddlers. He doubles on fiddle and piano in two tracks, “The Edenderry/The Flowery Fields of Scotland” reels and “Up Sligo/The Hearty Boys of Ballymote” jigs. Rooted in a marvelous meld of Leitrim, Fermanagh, and Sligo styles, his fiddling comes across with energetic elegance in each medley.
With a measured jaunt, Ben Lennon plays “The Dances at Kinvara” barndance, composed by Ed Reavy and covered by the band Providence on their new CD “III,” which I reviewed last week. It is in Ben Lennon’s rendition of “The Sailor’s Cravat/Lady Gordon” reels, however, where his bowing ability truly shines. He surely provided Clare-born fiddler Séamus Connolly with more than just tips in tailoring, his trade by day, when the latter apprenticed to him in Ireland.
Maurice Lennon, another of Ben’s sons and a founding fiddler with Stocktons Wing, opts not for the violin but the lower-pitched viola in “The Lark in the Morning” jig and “Larry Redican’s/The Dairy Maid” reels. Though the viola is more limited in projection for these traditional dance tunes, Maurice’s playing is tautly expressive and quite moving.
Like Charlie Lennon, Séamus Quinn is a dual threat on fiddle and piano, and like Charlie, he expertly doubles on these instruments for “Strike the Gay Harp/The Legacy” jigs. Quinn also plays fiddle with Charlie’s piano backing in “Morrison’s Barndance.”
From Derragoon, North Leitrim, fiddler Brian Rooney has resided since the 1960s in London, where he remains a fixture in the Big Smoke’s vibrant Irish music scene. In 1999 he released an outstanding solo album, “The Godfather,” that finished second in the Irish Echo’s top ten for that year, and in the two tracks he performs here, “Rooney’s Favourites” jigs and “Lad O’Beirne’s Hornpipe,” another Reavy melody, Rooney clearly hasn’t lost a whit of what he delivered in “The Godfather.”
At the end of my essay for the CD booklet, I wrote, “What this album does is rare: putting listeners not just within a mile of Kilty but right beside the chairs of the musicians themselves.” The album has that effect. It is the pure drop by the bucketful, music to sip and savor, a can’t-miss candidate for my year-end top ten. Earl Hitchner
The Living Tradition 9/10.05
Kilty is short for Kiltyclogher, a village in North Leitrim that is something of a breeding ground for traditional fiddle players, many of whom are captured on this recording. Selected from a collection made by David Lennon over a forty-year period, this CD showcases the fiddling of the late John Gordon, Ben, Charlie, and Maurice Lennon, Brian Rooney, and Seamus Quinn.
Charlie Lennon and Seamus Quinn also contribute some sprightly piano
accompaniments on several tracks, and for a little variety Noel O’Grady (bouzouki), Ciaron Curran (cittern), Gabriel McArdle (concertina) and Frank Kilkelly (guitar) make appearances.
This is an intimate, homely recording; you feel as if you’re sitting in on a particularly fine session. The tunes are mostly jigs and reels with the odd hornpipe and barn dance set, all played at judicious speeds without any pyrotechnics or over the top arrangements.
An unexpected delight is Maurice Lennon’s viola playing. His rendition of ‘Lark in the Morning’ is a revelation. Viola, because of its awkward
size and muted tone, is often relegated to slow tunes. But here he treats it like another fiddle and plays it with all the drive and lilt
characteristic of the style.
The combination of lively, well played tunes; the relaxed, spontaneous ambience, and the stylistic continuity over several decades of North Leitrim fiddle playing paint a vivid portrait of this vibrant tradition.
This album is a real treat for anyone who enjoys music in its natural habitat. E. Bradtke
The Irish Echo
For anyone who loves Irish traditional music in its pure drop state, unvarnished and unflashily virtuosic, there are two new, can’t-miss
albums from Galway’s Cló Iar-Chonnachta label: “Fortune Favours the Merry” by Sligo flutist Peter Horan and Kerry fiddler Gerry Harrington,
with piano accompaniment from Ollie Ross (his father was Wexford’s 1956 All-Ireland senior button accordion champion George Ross), and “Within a Mile of Kilty” by John Gordon, Brian Rooney, Séamus Quinn, and Ben, Charlie, and Maurice Lennon, with backing from Altan’s Ciarán Curran on cittern, Beginish’s Noel O’Grady on bouzouki, Frank Kilkelly on guitar, and Gabriel McArdle on concertina.
“Within a Mile of Kilty” offers rich traditional music from North Leitrim, specifically the area in and around the small village (population: about 150) of Kiltyclogher near the Leitrim-Fermanagh border. I had the pleasure of writing an essay for the CD, which offers some scintillating music by the previously named 10 instrumentalists, including two tracks from the late Cashel-born fiddler John Gordon. Earle HItchner
Irish Music Magazine 8.05
There was a time in Ireland when places where synonymous with families, Murphys, Barrys and Driscolls in Cork, Sullivans in Caherciveen, Staunton’s in Mayo, Sinnot’s in Waterford, you know how it goes. Along with that went townscapes populated by dynastic commercial premises, giving each town a distinctive character, local shop fronts gave an immediate sense of a peopled place.
Now regrettably, modern Ireland has changed, in a chain reaction, national and multi- national companies are gradually dominating Irish high streets and the serious papers are warning of the “cloned town”; where those idiosyncratic shop fronts are being taken over by the centralised brand images of McDonalds, Boots, Extravision, Spar and the like, their corporate facades another step towards the
blandness of the new century.
So where do you go for local flavour, in Italy or France it would be the butchers, but in Ireland it has to be to the established families of musicians who have kept the spirit of the home place alive in their playing.
And that is exactly what we get on this album from Clo lar Chonnachta, a collection of music associated with the Lennon family of North Leitrim and the musical legacy of the area around Kiltyclogher.
It is no museum piece, sure there’s a rich store of old values pulsing through every track, but there’s also bouzouki work and cittern playing from Noel O’Grady and Ciaran Curran, their accompaniment sticks to the lines laid down by generations of piano players, there’s no attempt to “rock and roll it”, no there’s plenty of swing in the music thank you very much. And if it’s piano backing you’re into then no better man than Charlie Lennon to hit the ivories in all the right places.
The liner notes begin with a short essay from Earle Hitchner who builds the context for us, the notes on the individual tunes are rather short, which is a shame because it would be interesting to know when each individual recording was made, especially as John Gordon passed away in 2002, his first track on the album (The Enchanted Lady/The Maids Of Castlebar) has a slightly more modern sound and recorded quality than the second selection (The Wandering Minstrel/ Fasten The Legin On Her/ Road to Kesh).
But maybe they came from the same recording session? There is also a feeling that the tunes don’t need a catalogue date as they are essentially timeless.
With the Lennon family there’s no question that the music would be authentic and on the money, Charlie and Ben Lennon as the senior players are surprisingly not recorded as a duet, the album being essentially of solo fiddlers and their accompanists, with the opening track The Girl Who Broke My Heart/Billy Bocker and track six The Lonesome Jig/The Tenpenny Bit being the big ensemble pieces.
Maurice Lennon’s contribution is to add some strong flavours on the viola, notably on an earthy recording of The Lark in The Morning .
Seamus Quin gives us a jaunty Morrsions’s Barndance and Strike the Gay Harp/The Legacy , both associated with Morrison.
Verdict: its like a walk in a real old Irish town, the names over the doors might seem largely the same but each combination has it’s own distinctive character.
And to think it all came from within a mile of Kilty is cause for contemplation, so many treasures from such a small jewel box.
Sean LaffeKiltyclogher is a small village that lies on the Leitrim/Fermanagh border, with a population of about 150 people. From this area, a unique cluster of traditional Irish fiddle players has emerged over the last 80 years. Within a Mile of Kilty is a collection of recordings by these musicians from the past 40 years, collected by David Lennon.
The musicians on this album are six exceptionally talented fiddle players, and include three members of the well-known Lennon family, Ben, Charlie and Maurice. Ben and Charlie, brothers, were brought up in Kiltyclogher, and their names are known far and wide in traditional music circles.
They have both recorded several albums, and in addition Charlie has received widespread critical acclaim as a composer. Maurice is Ben’s son, and he was a founder member of Stockton’s Wing in 1977.
Seamus Quinn is from Derrygonnelly, in Co. Fermanagh, and both his father and grandfather came from Kiltyclogher. Seamus’ grandfather was a
well-known fiddler and was regarded by many as the most outstanding of his time.
Brian Rooney was born near Kiltyclogher, and his father played fiddle and flute. He emigrated to London in the 1940s, where he became deeply involved in the traditional Irish music scene, playing with the group Sliabh Luachra.
John Gordon was from Cashel, Co. Fermanagh. He was a very well-known musician, and featured in broadcasts on both BBC and RTE Radio.
Sadly, John passed away in 2002.
There is accompaniment on the album from Altan’s Ciaran Curran on cittern, Beginish’s Noel 0′ Grady on bouzouki, Frank Kilkelly on guitar and Gabriel McArdle on concertina.
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Various Artists – Caise Ceoil
- Johnny Og Connolly & Brian McGrath: The Carraroe Jig /Homage to Rooney.
- Marcas O’Murchu: The Coalminer’s Reel.
- Paddy Canny: The Gallowglass /The Rakes of Clonmel.
- Marcus & PJ Hernon: The Golden Plover /The Bobbing Sandpiper.
- Gabriel McArdle: Flora.
- Catherine McEvoy: The Haunted House /The Banshee’s Wail.
- Johnny Connolly: The Swallow’s Tail.
- Joe Ryan: The Old Torn Petticoat/Rakish Paddy.
- Charlie Piggott & Gerry Harrington: James McMahon /Paddy Mullin’s.
- Eilis Ni Shuilleabhain: Hide & Go Seek.
- Sean Hernon: Dwyer’s / Billy Bocker’s Reels.
- Johnny Og Connolly & Brian McGrath: The Happy Hornpipe / The Souvenier.
- Marcas O’Murchu: Farewell to Kennedy / The Man in the Bog / Johnny Henry’s.
- Ben Lennon & Friends: Mick McNamara’s /Touch Me If You Dare.
- Peadar O’Ceannabhain: An Rogaire Dubh / Na Ceannabhain Bhaina / Paidin O’Raifeartaigh.
- Johnny Connolly: That’s Right Too /The LeadingRole.
- Paddy Canny: The Daisy Field / Molly Bawn.
- Marcus & PJ Hernon: The Linnet’s Chorus / The Beautiful Goldfinch.
- Catherine McEvoy: The Duke of Leinster /The Ladie’s Pantalettes.
- Charlie Piggott & Gerry Harrington: The Rakish Highlander / Toss the Feathers.
- Gearoidin Breathnach: An Drioghnean Donn.
- The Bridge Ceili Band: The Gravel Walks / Jackson’s / Martin Fallon’s First Night in America.
Brace yourself for a feast of musical styles, all decidedly traditional, as well as sean nos songs from Connemara, Donegal and Cork, and an English song by Gabriel McArdle. The Clare fiddling styles are well represented as well as the dance driven sound of the Connemara accordion. You get a taste of the Sliabh Luarchra style, and the North Connaught style of flute playing, all well rounded off by the Bridge Ceili Band’s set of reels.The bronze figure on the cover, entitled Fiddling in Spiddal, is by Westport artist, Anthony McNamara. Each trach abounds with musical genious, something which is a definite hallmark of Clo Iar Chonnachta’s music. Caise Ceoil will have you calling for MORE!
Press Reviews
Irish Music Review.com Established in 1985 as a cottage industry in the Connemara gaeltacht (Irish-speaking area), Cló Iar-Chonnachta has developed into one of Ireland’s most prolific music publishing houses, issuing more than 200 books and almost 150 albums. Initially, CIC drew upon Connemara’s strong musical traditions and most of its early releases were recordings of sean-nós (literally, ‘old style’), unaccompanied singing in Irish, including classic albums by Seán ‘ac Dhonncha and Johnny Mháirtín Learaí. However, its output over the years has diversified to include other regional singing and musical styles.. Caise Ceoil (‘Cascading Music’) is a glorious reflection of this development, covering the years from 1995 to 2000. Lovers of sean-nós will be surprised to see only two examples of the art included, though both are sublime, especially the Donegal singer Gearóidín Breathnach’s heart-rending rendition of An Droighneán Donn (‘The Brown Cow’). Nevertheless, the breadth of the rest encompasses musicians as diverse as fiddlers from West Clare (Joe Ryan), Leitrim (Ben Lennon) and Kerry (Gerry Harrington), while differing flute styles are represented by the dynamic Marcas Ó Murchú (from Belfast) and the lyrical Catherine McEvoy, exemplifying the North Connaught style. The spirit of Connemara is present too, most notably in the masterful melodeon-playing of Johnny Connolly, one of Ireland’s best dance accompanists. All told, this is a mouth-watering taster of the treats on offer from CIC.
Musical Traditions Web Site
One of the perks of this job is that I get to review, and keep most of the English and all the Italian CDs which come in for review. I also tend to hang on to those Irish records which take my fancy, and about which I can find something worthwhile (in my opinion) to say. No small number of these have been on Connemara’s Clo Iar Chonnachta label, and this compilation of their finest I’m pleased to see that a number of my selections have turned up as house choices. This excellent record, is available from Copperplate Distribution/ Mail Order. Rod Stradling
£14.99
