Irish Fridays

[johncorrigan]

I hadn't heard 'The Banks of the Nile' for ages, but it popped into my head when I was listening to an old Irish singer yesterday and I recalled sean nos singer Tom Pháidín Tom's moving take on the song with De Danann back in the early eighties. I'm sure he was in his eighties when they recorded it. Gets me every time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTkVisIvfog

Had me wondering if there was anything else by him on youtube and here he is singing in 'Máire Ní Eidhin' in English. (Must be a field recording - pretty sure you can hear lambs bleating in the background ).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvzS5u2E6dY

Happy Irish Friday everybody

[Padraig]

I hadn't heard 'The Banks of the Nile' for ages, but it popped into my head when I was listening to an old Irish singer yesterday and I recalled sean nos singer Tom Pháidín Tom's moving take on the song with De Danann back in the early eighties. I'm sure he was in his eighties when they recorded it. Gets me every time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTkVisIvfog

Had me wondering if there was anything else by him on youtube and here he is singing in 'Máire Ní Eidhin' in English. (Must be a field recording - pretty sure you can hear lambs bleating in the background ).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvzS5u2E6dY

Happy Irish Friday everybody

I used to think these old boys were a crowd of eejits, John. I know better now after many a good Irish Friday. But, what do you think of this? :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDmNoCLnfMo

Here's a translation - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/R%C3%B3is%C3%ADn_Dubh

[johncorrigan]

But, what do you think of this? :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDmNoCLnfMo

Here's a translation - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/R%C3%B3is%C3%ADn_Dubh

Beautiful singer that there Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Padraig. Great setting for a concert...must look out some more from it.

[johncorrigan]

There can be few more effective musical collaborators over the years than The Chieftains. I read somewhere that there was a recording coming out of something they did in the early seventies with Jerry Garcia of Grateful Dead fame. In the process of looking for it, I found them doing 'Foggy Dew' with Sinead O'Connor. Easy to forget how terrific a singer she could be and Paddy and the boys brought out the best in her here, back in '95.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keWnPZOd2cw

Happy Irish Friday to one and all.

[Bryn]

There can be few more effective musical collaborators over the years than The Chieftains. I read somewhere that there was a recording coming out of something they did in the early seventies with Jerry Garcia of Grateful Dead fame. In the process of looking for it, I found them doing 'Foggy Dew' with Sinead O'Connor. Easy to forget how terrific a singer she could be and Paddy and the boys brought out the best in her here, back in '95.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keWnPZOd2cw

Happy Irish Friday to one and all.

I do so wish I could find the ad hoc cassette recording I made of the Midweek programme on Radio 4 with Frank Zappa and Paddy Maloney. They got on like a house on fire. I note that a review of John Glatt's official biofraph of The Chieftans opens with:

Among Frank Zappa's last public statements was this: "U2 is maybe the most popular and successful export coming from Ireland today, but there's no comparison between the musical quality of what they do and what the Chieftains do."

.

[johncorrigan]

I do so wish I could find the ad hoc cassette recording I made of the Midweek programme on Radio 4 with Frank Zappa and Paddy Maloney. They got on like a house on fire. I note that a review of John Glatt's official biofraph of The Chieftans opens with:

.

I imagine that Paddy would have been great company, Bryn. No competition on the U2 v Chieftains front in my book. I'm with Frank on that one.

Along the way I had somehow missed this through the years... The Chieftains and the Stones on the 'Rocky Road to Dublin'. Not much sign of Mick, except for his step dancing exploits, of course; but there's plenty Keef and Ron in there....and I'm pretty sure Charlie is driving them all along on his bodhran. Great stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFL03wMj8fo

[Bryn]

I imagine that Paddy would have been great company, Bryn. No competition on the U2 v Chieftains front in my book.
Along the way I had somehow missed this through the years... The Chieftains and the Stones on the 'Rocky Road to Dublin'. Not much sign of Mick, except for his step dancing exploits, of course; but there's plenty Keef and Ron in there....and I'm pretty sure Charlie is driving them all along on his bodhran. Great stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFL03wMj8fo

I had the very real pleasure of interviewing Paddy and the other Chieftans after an RFH concert of theirs, back in the early 1980s I can confirm that Paddy, and possibly even more so, Derek, offered the finest of craic.

[Globaltruth]

Here is a Youtube video of a party at Zappa's place with, amongst others, Johny 'Guitar Watson, Tuva throat singers and the Chieftains. 1993
Quality is low but it looks a lot of fun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZKXEvNhq-Q

You can catch them all going full blast around 25 mins. in...then a Chieftains session from about 1h 01m.

Would have liked to have been there.

[Bryn]

Here is a Youtube video of a party at Zappa's place with, amongst others, Johny 'Guitar Watson, Tuva throat singers and the Chieftains. 1993
Quality is low but it looks a lot of fun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZKXEvNhq-Q

You can catch them all going full blast around 25 mins. in...then a Chieftains session from about 1h 01m.

Would have liked to have been there.

Excellent. I have the broadcast edit from that on VHS, somewhere. Good to have the whole thing available.

[johncorrigan]

I did something I've never done before this week and thought I would share it with the Irish Fridays' aficionados. I watched the rather excellent doc about James Joyce's Ulysses on BBC4 this week. During it I heard what sounded a very interesting take on 'Rocky Road to Dublin'. Couldn't find the track on the programme playlist. One of my pals suggested I 'Shazam' it. I was vaguely aware of Shazam but had never used it. Downloaded it on my phone, trawled through the programme, found the clip and pointed the phone, pressed where it told me to press, and Bob's your Granny, there it was...Ailie Blunnie her name is, and a most unusual take it is on the old classic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL3EWR5gd-o

Happy Irish Friday.

[Globaltruth]

Cracking version JC - good detective work.
I always knew you were just a techie at heart...

[Padraig]

Cracking version JC - good detective work.
I always knew you were just a techie at heart...

Turns out the Rocky Road led to Leitrim, not Dublin. Ailie was going home. 'Lovely Leitrim' - I was down there on Monday. Here's a working fiddler with a Jig - The Leitrim Fancy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmGD6cFVwHI

[Padraig]

I have to post this song. Percy French wrote it - a song of farewell and emigration that puts Creeslough on the map in the old fashioned way. Nothing wrong with that. It's Bridie Gallagher paying tribute from beyond the grave to her home place. May she, and they, rest in peace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8jeEEgI9mY

[Globaltruth]

Well, you may have read on another thread of my visit to a violin shop. We spent some time looking at the owners collection.
This included a hardanger fiddle. I was delighted to tell him about Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh of whom he had never heard.
So here he is (but not playing a hardanger, that'd be too simple...) with Mick O'Brien on píb uilleann
playing Rath Amháin & The Hare in the Corn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1nNr1hY6MQ

[johncorrigan]

I was commenting elsewhere about how much I had enjoyed the film 'The Banshees of Inisherin' ; and Carter Burwell's soundtrack, which while not particularly Irish, seemed to fit the mood of the story and the glorious land/seascape. The film also opened with 'Polegnala e Todora' from Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir, never a bad thing in my book. However it was Brendan Gleeson's playing of the fiddle which was interesting, I thought. It looked and sounded like he knew his way around a fiddle and so I thought I'd have a look and he did indeed compose a couple of tunes for the film. So for this Irish Friday, here's Brendan on mandolin with his son playing guitar on RTE's 'Late Late Show' a couple of years back...no bad at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt4zppRbWTc