PADDY MURPHY: IN GOOD HANDS - FIELD RECORDINGS FROM A PIONEER OF THE IRISH CONCERTINA
Paddy Murphy: concertina, spoken
Peadar O'Loughlin: fiddle
Joe Ryan: fiddle
Jimmy Kennedy: flute
Paddy Murphy (1913-1992), from Kilmaley, Co. Clare, is one of the most revered players of the concertina from a county that has produced many. Although a modest, self-effacing man, Murphy was a brilliant player whose pioneering playing style had a lasting influence on the evolution of modern concertina technique. The twenty-eight tracks assembled here offer ample illustration of the Murphy's remarkable musicianship, developed, as Gearoid O'hAllmhurain points out in the extensive notes, in relative isolation in the rural Clare countryside of the 1940s-50s. An extraordinary document, in part because only very few recordings of Murphy's playing have been available previoulsy.
Rating: ****
Contents:
1. Reel: The Five Mile Chase / First House in Connaught / The Copper Plate
2. Reel: Sean sa Cheo
3. Jig: Kit O'Mahony's
4. Air: Coilsfield House
5. Reel: Trim the Velvet
5. Interview: Memories of the Fiach Roe Ceili Band in the 1940s
6. Set Dance: The Garden of Daisies
7. Reel: Colonel Fraser
8. Reels: The Limerick Lassies / The Ships are Sailing
9. Interview & Jig: Old German Concertinas / Paddy Fahy's Jig
10. Reels: The Flogging Reel / The Morning Star
11. Jigs: Apples in Winter / Contentment is Wealth
12. Reel: Bunker Hill
13: Hornpipes: The Laitrim Fancy / Off to California
14. Interview & Reels: Goin' on Cuaird to Hughdie's / The Teetotaler / The Skylark
15. Jig: The Frieze Breeches
16. Reels: The Chattering Magpie / The Flax in Bloom
17. Reel: The Dawn
18. Set Dance: Bonaparte's Retreat
19. Reel: The Duke of Leinster
20. Interview & Reel: A Good Dance Player / The Dublin Reel
21. Hornpipe: Sliabh na mBan
22. Reel: The Green Groves of Erin
23. Reels: The Dunmore Lassies / The Shaskeen
24. Interview: Memories of the All Ireland Fleadh Cheoil in Cavan in 1954
25. Set Dance: The Ace and Deuce of Pipering
26. Jig: The Carraroe Jig
27. Reels: My Love is in America / Hand Me Down the Tackle
28. Reels: Lawson's / Maud Miller / Cooley's Ivy Leaf / Rakish Paddy
