There have been plenty of brilliant benchmark recordings of traditional music but how many of you can come up with some really awful examples of the music. Avoid contributing those cheap céilí compilation CDs and all of those "folk" albums. I'm referring to people that would appear to have made a proper attempt and might have even been good musicians but the recording was awful maybe because of a flaw with something else.
I'll start by throwing in: "Bee's Wing" by Michael Ryan.
It's a whistling album and when I say that, I mean Michael whistles the tunes as opposed to playing tin whistle. Now, he is quite a good whistler and has won a few All-Ireland titles in the competition but it is the piano accompaniment which is the problem. The accompanist is noted as Jason Spain. He doesn't know how to back Irish music. For example, on the opening track Michael whistles George White's Favourite to which Jason plays a G chord right the way through with some stupidly selected harmony notes and for the second tune, The Corner House (which is in A dor), Jason uses the same basic chord structure as the first tune even though there is a big key and mode change!!
The piano is really loud and off putting which makes the album very hard to listen to which is a shame because Michael's whistling is quite interesting and because of this Spain guy, I just can't listen to this album.
Andy Irvine, rainy sundays, windy dreams or something. Only *good* bit of a track is Frankie Gavin playing Christmas Eve, in C, after a song. One or two not bad songs, the rest unbearable nonsense. Then again, it might well be classed as "folk" anyway.
sorry Paddy, just reread your post - you wanted bad examples of *recording*. OK, I have an early album by one of my all-time favourite Flute players, Marcus Hernon, and he can hardly be heard because of the piano. An absolute shame as Hernon is a phenomenal player. Someone ought to get it remastered.
Come on, chaps. The Long Black Veil has to take the biscuit here. Surely there's no-one here who bought that and played it more than once before giving it to the boy scouts' jumble sale!
Geez Danny, Andy must have pi**ed you off something terrible. It's a theme of yours for a while back.
I loved the arrangement of the three emigration songs on Rainy Sundays, especially the one that started "Farewell to old Ireland..." Lovely interplay between Andy's mando and harmonica, Paul' s guitar, and the fiddle (was it Frankie?)
There was a nice jazzy arrangement of the title track too, if I remember right.
I remember liking that andy irvine record when I was a kid. I don't think I've listened to it 20 years, or since I didn't have a record player. I think the only thing I didn't like on it was the soprano saxophone solo. But the fiddle playing was great. (though wasn't x-mas eve on the viola?)
All right then. If not Long Black Veil (and I still agree with me!) then what about the abominable Van Morrison and The Chieftains! I hasten to add that I have a good few Chieftains albums that I actually quite like as well!
I agree Michael - it's what she plays on that particular recording and the way she plays it that I don't like. She has tremendous talent, but as I've said before, we shouldn't ever judge anyone solely by their recordings. You have to be a bit different and show a bit of originality to make a living, and that's what she's done. She could make a straight traditional album as well as anyone, but this is not it. Just too way out for my tastes, but I wish her nothing but the best in her musical career.
I find it amazing that some one could produce Andy Irvine's album as a 'least favoured recording'. True the title track isn't the best, the soft jazz thing doesn't do it for me, but there's some incredible music all over that album. Christmas Eve with Frankie G's definitive rendition on the viola being only one of the many highlights. It's brilliantly produced, played and conceived - I mean those first three songs, the emigrants, they're just fantastic. Paidushko Horo is so well put together, and regards playing, production and arrangement, I'd suggest it was ahead of it's time - though undoubtedly such a suggestion is courting controversy.
Cripes, I'd rather listen to Van and the Chieftains than any "new age" Celtic nonsense any freaking day of the week.
...and I'll take the Long Black Veil over that too. I mean, come on, how many acres of Celtic Women and Paddy Mac Stereotype sings The Wild Rover CD's do we possibly need...and we're worried about the Chieftains of all people? Sure, they may be horribly indescreet with the collaborations but at least know what's what.
...and yeah, I'll take Coleman and his wacked out piano player over Mickey O Greenbeer and the Drunken Paddies sing Whiskey in the Jar for the 47th time any day, ANY DAY OF THE WEEK, thank you very much.
Sorry Steve, Van Morrison is the most expressive singer about these days.
C.Moore's first offering, "Paddy on the Road" or something, is really dreadful. Mind you, his CDs didn't get much better. Great live though. It is his charisma.
I agree with Bliss about Christy, who's the best thing on the planet live but positively anodyne on CD. I also fully agree with Danny there. Jeez, I'm feeling all collaborative tonight. Give me something to agree on, Michael. Pass the Talisker!
Jayz, you wouldn't believe some of the 'vanity' albums I've been sent to review! The worst would unquestionably have been the US singer (who'd better remain nameless) who dragged the phrase 'sounding as though she's enjoying sexual congress with a porcupine' from my pen.
However, Dessie O'Halloran would definitely push her close, as would a US band called 5 Mile Chase, the fiddler PV O'Donnell, the German band Garifin, Last Night's Fun, Sharon Shannon's Big Band experience and, worst of all of the rest, a truly, gob-smackingly awful album by an Oirish singer-songwriter from Canada.
I can't entirely agree that Christy Moore is 'anodyne on CD' . That's certainly not true of the albums he made for Leader or Tara in the 1970s ('Prosperous', anyone?) or a couple that followed 'Ride On' in the 1980s. It's true, however, that apart from these it's the live recordings that survive repeated listening the best ('At the Point', for instance).
I think what you are asking PaddyC is ~ what has a musician recorded 'thinking' it was good but it was not.
I heard a very talented guy on flute. As far as I was concerned he could do no wrong. But . . . now & then he fancies himself a saxophonist. Well I have my doubts. Good musicians do not always make good choices.
Yes Geoff, I was being slightly too broad-brush in my criticism of Christy's CDs there. I think he started to go a bit anodyne (and I promise to banish henceforth that word from my vocabulary!) around the time of Smoke and Strong Whiskey, with the honourable exception of Live at The Point. My favourite of his (allowing for Prosperous of course) is definitely The Iron Behind The Velvet, on which he interspersed some damn good songs with some damn good instrumentals from some of his damn good mates!
Oh, damn, this thread got me reminiscing further. I'd suggest that Danny O'Donnell's 'The Donegal Fiddler' is possibly the worst example of a noted Irish musician releasing an album of utter garbage (even if the Donegal fiddler might have had little to do with its eventual sound). The album features woeful synth and guitar accompaniment (seemingly recorded at a different time in a different place, and possibly even in a different dimension) and could well vie for the most inappropriate backing of all time.
While I forget, it's unfair to tarnish all of those 'Champions of Ireland' releases with the same brush. True, most of them feature woeful backing and the whistle album could be used as a local deterrent to cats' sexual activities, but the accordion one (by Denise Shiels) is very good indeed - and one of the few (if not the only) album of unaccompanied accordion-playing released in Ireland in the last 25 years.
Prosperous is a ledgend only because it hasn't been widely heard.It was in Antwerp city library in the days of old.It's only noteable because it was the embryonic Planxty.I didn't even bother to tape it so that says it all.It sounds like it was recorded in an empty swimming pool,and it contains the dreaded Cliffs Of Dooneen and Spancill Hill.Only for rabid Christy Moore fans.
Maybe I'm beyond help. Sure, it's of hstorical value, and a couple of tracks were put together well. But mostly it's like listening to a rehearsal recorded on a bad tape recorder.
Prosperous was recorded in the basement of a house in Prosperous, Co Kildare. It also contains "Ludlow Massacre" "I wish that I was in England" "Dark Eyed Sailor" and "The Lock Hospital", in short it is a folk album, great songs, and adorned with a few gifted musicians as backers, which makes it a great "Folk" album.
And what about the mandolin on Rambling Robin, and I won't hear a word against Spancil Hill! Hackneyed it wasn't in those days! It was the start of everything colourful and wonderful and it had a great cover pic too. I've always wanted the front of my house to look like that.
Yes the albums where the Cheiftans play with various pop stars are crap, but the worst trad album I've ever bought is a solo uilleann pipe album (name withheld to protect the guilty). Sounds like a guy who has been playing maybe a couple months. Out of tune, out of time, horrid horrid horrid. And it seems to have sold fairly well.
Doubtless someone will shoot me down, but a really terrible album I once had the misfortune to possess was 'Stephen Baldwin, English Village Fiddler' who was an old boy apparently recorded in random snatches in 1954 in what sounded like his pantry. He's heard talking between tracks at times and this adds absolutely nothing except brief respites from his playing. The sound quality is awful but this is the least of the album's problems. You can still find out about it if you google but don't believe any of the hype!
OK, so maybe it's fun for the crack, but it's as un-traditional-sounding as you can get! They did another one too, called "Irish Night at the Pops"... <shudder>
Van Morrison singing Raglan Road
Sinead O'Connor singing anything
The worse recording of Trad I have ever heard of, and believe me I heard some rubbish over the years, is a recording I have in my record collection of two reels played by 'Flanagan's Folk 4' from 1967. Cooley's and The Mason's Apron. The bodhran player is using an empty Oil Drum and the race towards the end of The Mason's by all four is an unforgettable experience.
I have to agree with Free Reed about those two. I can see the attraction of Van the Man in other genres but I can't be doing with that wailing-stroke-whining thing he does. And can Sinead sing in tune I ask myself?
Anyone ever heard of a fiddle player called Florrie Brown? Sounds like a classical player turned Irish. She palyed most the notes alright, but no feeling or proper rhythm. And the notes on the cover were in German. Made me think it was someone cashing in on German interest in Irish trad music. So, her AND Irvine then.
Danny, all I know about Flor(r)ie Brown is that she began her studies of the fiddle at an early age and plays crossover styles, including Celtic, Bluegrass, Cajun, Country, Blues and Swing. I believe she plays in bands in the USA. Naxos have picked up on her "celtic" recordings. I bought one of her CDs of Irish music in a second-hand shop a few years ago (now why did it end up there?), but wasn't moved to listen to it again.
But Florie, with her Bluegrass, Cajun etc experience, is musically streets ahead of "Dreams of Old Ireland", definitely a coffee-table compilation of Irish tunes played in an ultra-classical style by one Christopher Hilton. I heard this at a B&B in Kilrush a few years ago, where it was being played quietly in the background during breakfast. I got to look at the CD notes and it seems that Christopher Hilton made the recording in the early '90s, and it looks as if that was just after he came out of music college (his technique and tone has conservatory graduate written all over it). Fair play to the guy - just out of college with a living to earn, so this nice opportunity must have arisen just at the right time. Since then I believe he has set up his own music business, providing music ensembles for business and society functions.
"Dreams of Old Ireland" came out as a double CD, but I checked it out last year on Amazon out of curiosity, and it's still available but now as a 3-CD compilation - with the same content spread over 3 discs instead of 2 (if my memory is correct) - all good business, of course
I can't understand why no-one's mentioned those Barney O'Shamrock cassettes that used to be on sale on an outdoor stall at Holsworthy market for £1.99. On second thoughts it's possible they were overlooked, as they were usually next to the Daniel O'Donegal cassettes that everyone was avoiding like the plague.
Well, Steve, they might have avoided the products of The Cardigan Kid in Holsworthy, but (and I kid you not) Daniel O'D is the biggest-selling artiste in terms of album fodder in the UK this decade. That means his albums can be found in more homes in Brum, Beaumaris or Bo'ness than those of U2, Madonna Beyoncé Spears, or any of those naff retro rock bands which The Guardian regularly raves about.
Van sings Raglan Road better than anyone, bar Luke of course.
And I hadn't heard much of Sinead O'Connor, but she is a powerful singer. Not too keen on the "Enya" effects in the background, but she does have a great voice. She even makes "Molly Malone" sound wonderful.
Are you suspecting me of being a Guardian reader, Geoff? I suppose we should take comfort from the fact that while all those people are listening to O'D's albums, at least they're not training to be suicide bombers.
What is it anyway about the term "O'D" that seems somehow so appropriate?
There are two things in life which should have been utterly final and never again tried by anyone else. The first is Jacqueline du Pré playing Elgar's Cello Concerto with Glorious John Barbirolli and the second is Luke Kelly singing Raglan Road. We have here two pieces of music which are pretty awful performed by absolutely anyone else except the two aforementioned.
And poor Sinéad's RFH gig was slated by The Guardian even though they gave it three stars out of five. Her attire, her mumbling stage ramblings, her insensitive band, the "cod reggae." The reviewer could see her talent through it all, hence the generous star-rating, and described her as a beacon of iconoclastic, if often self-defeating, self-will.
Steve, the Elgar Cello Concerto. I absolutely agree. It's been done to death over the last few years, if not by THAT recording on every possible opportunity on the radio, then it will be a live performance by any one of Jackie's numerous "sisters" (stupendous musicians, every one of course, sez he, hedging his bets ).
A 10-year complete moratorium on all public performances and broadcasts of that particular cello concerto would be in order, imho. And remove it from the examination syllabuses as well, while we're about it. Dammit, I can think of at least 20 excellent cello concertos that could well do with the exposure instead.
Your least favoured recording
Your least favoured recording
There have been plenty of brilliant benchmark recordings of traditional music but how many of you can come up with some really awful examples of the music. Avoid contributing those cheap céilí compilation CDs and all of those "folk" albums. I'm referring to people that would appear to have made a proper attempt and might have even been good musicians but the recording was awful maybe because of a flaw with something else.
I'll start by throwing in: "Bee's Wing" by Michael Ryan.
It's a whistling album and when I say that, I mean Michael whistles the tunes as opposed to playing tin whistle. Now, he is quite a good whistler and has won a few All-Ireland titles in the competition but it is the piano accompaniment which is the problem. The accompanist is noted as Jason Spain. He doesn't know how to back Irish music. For example, on the opening track Michael whistles George White's Favourite to which Jason plays a G chord right the way through with some stupidly selected harmony notes and for the second tune, The Corner House (which is in A dor), Jason uses the same basic chord structure as the first tune even though there is a big key and mode change!!
The piano is really loud and off putting which makes the album very hard to listen to which is a shame because Michael's whistling is quite interesting and because of this Spain guy, I just can't listen to this album.
Your turn...
# Posted on November 11th 2007 by 52Paddy
Re: Your least favoured recording
Was this pianist a pupil of Michael Coleman's pianist, by any chance?
# Posted on November 11th 2007 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Your least favoured recording
The Champions of Ireland.All of them are awful.
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by dinn2
Re: Your least favoured recording
Andy Irvine, rainy sundays, windy dreams or something. Only *good* bit of a track is Frankie Gavin playing Christmas Eve, in C, after a song. One or two not bad songs, the rest unbearable nonsense. Then again, it might well be classed as "folk" anyway.
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by Rudall the time
Re: Your least favoured recording
sorry Paddy, just reread your post - you wanted bad examples of *recording*. OK, I have an early album by one of my all-time favourite Flute players, Marcus Hernon, and he can hardly be heard because of the piano. An absolute shame as Hernon is a phenomenal player. Someone ought to get it remastered.
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by Rudall the time
Re: Your least favoured recording
Those Michael Coleman recordings are pretty bad. The piano player is what's bad. Here's an example.
http://www.archive.org/details/MichaelColemanKidontheMountain
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by sbhikes
Re: Your least favoured recording
Come on, chaps. The Long Black Veil has to take the biscuit here. Surely there's no-one here who bought that and played it more than once before giving it to the boy scouts' jumble sale!
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Your least favoured recording
There's some great bits on there Steve - Marianne Faithfull's turn for one
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by Bren
Re: Your least favoured recording
Geez Danny, Andy must have pi**ed you off something terrible. It's a theme of yours for a while back.
I loved the arrangement of the three emigration songs on Rainy Sundays, especially the one that started "Farewell to old Ireland..." Lovely interplay between Andy's mando and harmonica, Paul' s guitar, and the fiddle (was it Frankie?)
There was a nice jazzy arrangement of the title track too, if I remember right.
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by grego
Re: Your least favoured recording
Bren, I rest my case!
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Your least favoured recording
OK, so I enjoy wheezy old tarts!
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by Bren
Re: Your least favoured recording
I remember liking that andy irvine record when I was a kid. I don't think I've listened to it 20 years, or since I didn't have a record player. I think the only thing I didn't like on it was the soprano saxophone solo. But the fiddle playing was great. (though wasn't x-mas eve on the viola?)
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Your least favoured recording (yeah right)
And I love the way that any thread that starts with the premise of slagging stuff off never ends up that way
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Your least favoured recording
Hey, ease off of "The Long Black Veil". Ry Cooder is pretty interesting and Sinead O'Conner's version of The Foggy Dew is cool.
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by whistler gan ainm
Re: Your least favoured recording
And Mick Jagger?
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by strayaway
Re: Your least favoured recording
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/357
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by Kenny
Re: Your least favoured recording
You can say what you lie about Eileen Ivers, love her or loath her. But you cannot deny that she's one hell of a terrific fiddle player
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Your least favoured recording
"You can say what you lie"
Excellent typo ! Or was it ?
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by BegF
Re: Your least favoured recording
All right then. If not Long Black Veil (and I still agree with me!) then what about the abominable Van Morrison and The Chieftains! I hasten to add that I have a good few Chieftains albums that I actually quite like as well!
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Your least favoured recording
I agree Michael - it's what she plays on that particular recording and the way she plays it that I don't like. She has tremendous talent, but as I've said before, we shouldn't ever judge anyone solely by their recordings. You have to be a bit different and show a bit of originality to make a living, and that's what she's done. She could make a straight traditional album as well as anyone, but this is not it. Just too way out for my tastes, but I wish her nothing but the best in her musical career.
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by Kenny
Re: Your least favoured recording
I find it amazing that some one could produce Andy Irvine's album as a 'least favoured recording'. True the title track isn't the best, the soft jazz thing doesn't do it for me, but there's some incredible music all over that album. Christmas Eve with Frankie G's definitive rendition on the viola being only one of the many highlights. It's brilliantly produced, played and conceived - I mean those first three songs, the emigrants, they're just fantastic. Paidushko Horo is so well put together, and regards playing, production and arrangement, I'd suggest it was ahead of it's time - though undoubtedly such a suggestion is courting controversy.
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by pavlf
Re: Your least favoured recording
Doh, I'm gonna have to go and buy a record player
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Your least favoured recording
Yeah, well there ye go. Song about King Bore... yeah, well, aptly titled if nothing else.
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by Rudall the time
Re: Your least favoured recording
Cripes, I'd rather listen to Van and the Chieftains than any "new age" Celtic nonsense any freaking day of the week.
...and I'll take the Long Black Veil over that too. I mean, come on, how many acres of Celtic Women and Paddy Mac Stereotype sings The Wild Rover CD's do we possibly need...and we're worried about the Chieftains of all people? Sure, they may be horribly indescreet with the collaborations but at least know what's what.
...and yeah, I'll take Coleman and his wacked out piano player over Mickey O Greenbeer and the Drunken Paddies sing Whiskey in the Jar for the 47th time any day, ANY DAY OF THE WEEK, thank you very much.
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Your least favoured recording
And I'm going to have to stuff the Rainy Sundays tape back in the cassette after a machine gobbled it up fifteen years ago.
I remember laughing at King Bore and the Sandman, but I was younger then...
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by grego
Re: Your least favoured recording
so will I, see if I've mellowed over the years....
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by Rudall the time
Re: Your least favoured recording
Sorry Steve, Van Morrison is the most expressive singer about these days.
C.Moore's first offering, "Paddy on the Road" or something, is really dreadful. Mind you, his CDs didn't get much better. Great live though. It is his charisma.
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: Your least favoured recording
Can't stand Van. Yet I love Christie.
Funny ole world innit?
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by Rudall the time
Re: Your least favoured recording
That's why God made them both. Keeps everyone happy.
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by grego
Re: Your least favoured recording
I agree with Bliss about Christy, who's the best thing on the planet live but positively anodyne on CD. I also fully agree with Danny there. Jeez, I'm feeling all collaborative tonight. Give me something to agree on, Michael. Pass the Talisker!
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Your least favoured recording
Jayz, you wouldn't believe some of the 'vanity' albums I've been sent to review! The worst would unquestionably have been the US singer (who'd better remain nameless) who dragged the phrase 'sounding as though she's enjoying sexual congress with a porcupine' from my pen.
However, Dessie O'Halloran would definitely push her close, as would a US band called 5 Mile Chase, the fiddler PV O'Donnell, the German band Garifin, Last Night's Fun, Sharon Shannon's Big Band experience and, worst of all of the rest, a truly, gob-smackingly awful album by an Oirish singer-songwriter from Canada.
I can't entirely agree that Christy Moore is 'anodyne on CD' . That's certainly not true of the albums he made for Leader or Tara in the 1970s ('Prosperous', anyone?) or a couple that followed 'Ride On' in the 1980s. It's true, however, that apart from these it's the live recordings that survive repeated listening the best ('At the Point', for instance).
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Your least favoured recording
I think what you are asking PaddyC is ~ what has a musician recorded 'thinking' it was good but it was not.
I heard a very talented guy on flute. As far as I was concerned he could do no wrong. But . . . now & then he fancies himself a saxophonist. Well I have my doubts. Good musicians do not always make good choices.
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by Ben Steen
Re: Your least favoured recording
Yes Geoff, I was being slightly too broad-brush in my criticism of Christy's CDs there. I think he started to go a bit anodyne (and I promise to banish henceforth that word from my vocabulary!) around the time of Smoke and Strong Whiskey, with the honourable exception of Live at The Point. My favourite of his (allowing for Prosperous of course) is definitely The Iron Behind The Velvet, on which he interspersed some damn good songs with some damn good instrumentals from some of his damn good mates!
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Your least favoured recording
Oh, damn, this thread got me reminiscing further. I'd suggest that Danny O'Donnell's 'The Donegal Fiddler' is possibly the worst example of a noted Irish musician releasing an album of utter garbage (even if the Donegal fiddler might have had little to do with its eventual sound). The album features woeful synth and guitar accompaniment (seemingly recorded at a different time in a different place, and possibly even in a different dimension) and could well vie for the most inappropriate backing of all time.
While I forget, it's unfair to tarnish all of those 'Champions of Ireland' releases with the same brush. True, most of them feature woeful backing and the whistle album could be used as a local deterrent to cats' sexual activities, but the accordion one (by Denise Shiels) is very good indeed - and one of the few (if not the only) album of unaccompanied accordion-playing released in Ireland in the last 25 years.
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Your least favoured recording
Well, if we're continuing down this road, what about that Michael Flatulence one with Barbados Blue on it?
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by Rudall the time
Re: Your least favoured recording
Prosperous is a ledgend only because it hasn't been widely heard.It was in Antwerp city library in the days of old.It's only noteable because it was the embryonic Planxty.I didn't even bother to tape it so that says it all.It sounds like it was recorded in an empty swimming pool,and it contains the dreaded Cliffs Of Dooneen and Spancill Hill.Only for rabid Christy Moore fans.
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by dafydd
Re: Your least favoured recording
Prosperous was a bit rough all right. The Hackler from Grouse Hall still haunts my nightmares with it's hellish bodhran.
MacCruiskeen: you must be a Discovery Channel subscriber with all of that animal romance: porcupines, cats, and what have you.
# Posted on November 12th 2007 by grego
Re: Your least favoured recording
Good grief. If you can't see what Prosperous was all about you're beyond help!
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Your least favoured recording
Maybe I'm beyond help. Sure, it's of hstorical value, and a couple of tracks were put together well. But mostly it's like listening to a rehearsal recorded on a bad tape recorder.
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by grego
Re: Your least favoured recording
Prosperous was recorded in the basement of a house in Prosperous, Co Kildare. It also contains "Ludlow Massacre" "I wish that I was in England" "Dark Eyed Sailor" and "The Lock Hospital", in short it is a folk album, great songs, and adorned with a few gifted musicians as backers, which makes it a great "Folk" album.
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: Your least favoured recording
And what about the mandolin on Rambling Robin, and I won't hear a word against Spancil Hill! Hackneyed it wasn't in those days! It was the start of everything colourful and wonderful and it had a great cover pic too. I've always wanted the front of my house to look like that.
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Your least favoured recording
and you don't like andy irvine's record? How can you go on about 'the mandolin' and not at any point like rainy sundays? Bizarre.
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by pavlf
Re: Your least favoured recording
Hey, pavif, you have a case of mistaken identity! It wasn't me!! I love all things Irvine and always have!
Cheers
Steve
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Your least favoured recording
I don't like Irvine, too "jangly" for my liking.
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: Your least favoured recording
Grego put it very well and I don't need any help and i'm entitled to my opinion.
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by dafydd
Re: Your least favoured recording
Did you know that Andy irvine was an actor in his younger days?
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by dafydd
Re: Your least favoured recording
ooops ... sorry mr shaw! i was a bit under the wine at the time. sorry again.
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by pavlf
Re: Your least favoured recording
It's OK, old chap. It's a condition with which I'm not entirely unfamiliar meself!
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Your least favoured recording
Yes the albums where the Cheiftans play with various pop stars are crap, but the worst trad album I've ever bought is a solo uilleann pipe album (name withheld to protect the guilty). Sounds like a guy who has been playing maybe a couple months. Out of tune, out of time, horrid horrid horrid. And it seems to have sold fairly well.
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by Richard D Cook
Re: Your least favoured recording
Hey I didn't use the c-word in my post- the computer added it!!! Technology is amazing!
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by Richard D Cook
Re: Your least favoured recording
Doubtless someone will shoot me down, but a really terrible album I once had the misfortune to possess was 'Stephen Baldwin, English Village Fiddler' who was an old boy apparently recorded in random snatches in 1954 in what sounded like his pantry. He's heard talking between tracks at times and this adds absolutely nothing except brief respites from his playing. The sound quality is awful but this is the least of the album's problems. You can still find out about it if you google but don't believe any of the hype!
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Your least favoured recording
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/1243
OK, so maybe it's fun for the crack, but it's as un-traditional-sounding as you can get! They did another one too, called "Irish Night at the Pops"... <shudder>
Pete
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by Reverend
Re: Your least favoured recording
Van Morrison singing Raglan Road
Sinead O'Connor singing anything
The worse recording of Trad I have ever heard of, and believe me I heard some rubbish over the years, is a recording I have in my record collection of two reels played by 'Flanagan's Folk 4' from 1967. Cooley's and The Mason's Apron. The bodhran player is using an empty Oil Drum and the race towards the end of The Mason's by all four is an unforgettable experience.
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by Free Reed
Re: Your least favoured recording
"James Last Plays The Rose Of Tralee And Other Irish Favourites" or anything by The Grehan Sisters.
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by dafydd
Re: Your least favoured recording
I have to agree with Free Reed about those two. I can see the attraction of Van the Man in other genres but I can't be doing with that wailing-stroke-whining thing he does. And can Sinead sing in tune I ask myself?
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Your least favoured recording
Anyone ever heard of a fiddle player called Florrie Brown? Sounds like a classical player turned Irish. She palyed most the notes alright, but no feeling or proper rhythm. And the notes on the cover were in German. Made me think it was someone cashing in on German interest in Irish trad music. So, her AND Irvine then.
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by Rudall the time
Re: Your least favoured recording
Danny, all I know about Flor(r)ie Brown is that she began her studies of the fiddle at an early age and plays crossover styles, including Celtic, Bluegrass, Cajun, Country, Blues and Swing. I believe she plays in bands in the USA. Naxos have picked up on her "celtic" recordings. I bought one of her CDs of Irish music in a second-hand shop a few years ago (now why did it end up there?), but wasn't moved to listen to it again.
But Florie, with her Bluegrass, Cajun etc experience, is musically streets ahead of "Dreams of Old Ireland", definitely a coffee-table compilation of Irish tunes played in an ultra-classical style by one Christopher Hilton. I heard this at a B&B in Kilrush a few years ago, where it was being played quietly in the background during breakfast. I got to look at the CD notes and it seems that Christopher Hilton made the recording in the early '90s, and it looks as if that was just after he came out of music college (his technique and tone has conservatory graduate written all over it). Fair play to the guy - just out of college with a living to earn, so this nice opportunity must have arisen just at the right time. Since then I believe he has set up his own music business, providing music ensembles for business and society functions.
"Dreams of Old Ireland" came out as a double CD, but I checked it out last year on Amazon out of curiosity, and it's still available but now as a 3-CD compilation - with the same content spread over 3 discs instead of 2 (if my memory is correct) - all good business, of course
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Your least favoured recording
I can't understand why no-one's mentioned those Barney O'Shamrock cassettes that used to be on sale on an outdoor stall at Holsworthy market for £1.99. On second thoughts it's possible they were overlooked, as they were usually next to the Daniel O'Donegal cassettes that everyone was avoiding like the plague.
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Your least favoured recording
Well, Steve, they might have avoided the products of The Cardigan Kid in Holsworthy, but (and I kid you not) Daniel O'D is the biggest-selling artiste in terms of album fodder in the UK this decade. That means his albums can be found in more homes in Brum, Beaumaris or Bo'ness than those of U2, Madonna Beyoncé Spears, or any of those naff retro rock bands which The Guardian regularly raves about.
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Your least favoured recording
Van sings Raglan Road better than anyone, bar Luke of course.
And I hadn't heard much of Sinead O'Connor, but she is a powerful singer. Not too keen on the "Enya" effects in the background, but she does have a great voice. She even makes "Molly Malone" sound wonderful.
Obviously that is just my opinion, and my taste.
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: Your least favoured recording
Are you suspecting me of being a Guardian reader, Geoff?
I suppose we should take comfort from the fact that while all those people are listening to O'D's albums, at least they're not training to be suicide bombers.
What is it anyway about the term "O'D" that seems somehow so appropriate?
# Posted on November 15th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Your least favoured recording
There are two things in life which should have been utterly final and never again tried by anyone else. The first is Jacqueline du Pré playing Elgar's Cello Concerto with Glorious John Barbirolli and the second is Luke Kelly singing Raglan Road. We have here two pieces of music which are pretty awful performed by absolutely anyone else except the two aforementioned.
# Posted on November 15th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Your least favoured recording
And poor Sinéad's RFH gig was slated by The Guardian even though they gave it three stars out of five. Her attire, her mumbling stage ramblings, her insensitive band, the "cod reggae." The reviewer could see her talent through it all, hence the generous star-rating, and described her as a beacon of iconoclastic, if often self-defeating, self-will.
# Posted on November 15th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Your least favoured recording
Steve, the Elgar Cello Concerto. I absolutely agree. It's been done to death over the last few years, if not by THAT recording on every possible opportunity on the radio, then it will be a live performance by any one of Jackie's numerous "sisters" (stupendous musicians, every one of course, sez he, hedging his bets
).
A 10-year complete moratorium on all public performances and broadcasts of that particular cello concerto would be in order, imho. And remove it from the examination syllabuses as well, while we're about it. Dammit, I can think of at least 20 excellent cello concertos that could well do with the exposure instead.
# Posted on November 15th 2007 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Your least favoured recording
Dvorak's. A divine masterpiece.
# Posted on November 15th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Your least favoured recording
Someone gave me the or a Riverdance CD thinking I'd like it.They couldn't have been more wrong. Never got past the first track.
# Posted on November 15th 2007 by Kheelch