BILLY McCOMISKEY: MAKIN' THE ROUNDS

Billy McComiskey: accordion

Sean McGlynn: accordion

Pat Keogh: fiddle

Andy O'Brien: guitar

Danny Golden: dancing

A classic of Irish-American music first released on LP in 1981. This was the first solo album by the talented Brooklyn-born B/C accordion player Billy McComiskey, who also made a number of other important recordings as a member of the Washington DC based band The Irish Tradition, of which singer and guitar player Andy O'Brien provides the accompaniments on this album, and later as a member of Trian, with Chicago fiddle player Liz Carroll. Besides McComiskey's superior playing, this album is made even more special by the appearance on a couple of tracks of the great East Galway box player Sean McGlynn, whose music had a profound influence on McComiskey, and who unfortunately died tragically in New York a few years later. From the opening medley of John Nolan's "Boogie Reel" and McComiskey's own "Controversial Reel," to the McGlynn-McComiskey duet on "Johnny Allen's" and "Sporting Nell," to the closing "Chicago Reel," played with what Mick Moloney describes as that touch of reckless abandon, pretty much every track here is a classic.

Rating: **** 1/2

Price: $16.99Recommended

Our Catalogue 

Contents:

1. Reels: The Boogie Reel / The Controversial Reel

2. Jigs: The Independent / Rabbit in the Field

3. Reels: Bill Hoare's / Mick Flaherty's

4. Hornpipes: O'Donnell's / Spellan the Fiddler

5. Jigs: Eddie Kelly's / Miss Casey's

6. Set Dance: Wood's Lamentation

7. Reels: The Flower of Brooklyn / The Palm Tree

8. Jigs: Peter Murphy's / Mick Flaherty's

9. Reels: Johnny Allen's / Sporting Nell

10. Set Dance: Planxty Davis

11. Hornpipes: Windsor Terrace / Sault's Own Hornpipe

12. Reels: Dinny Delaney's / Set the Clock

13. Jigs: The Wandering Minstrel / The Millpond

14. Reels: Leave my Way / The Chicago Reel

See also:

Outside the Box

Billy McComiskey & Brendan Mulvihill: One More Time

The Green Fields of America