A great record of Kerry music on box and fiddle - just the 2 of them, no accompaniment. All slides, polkas, 2 sets of jigs and NO REELS ! Very unusual, and possibly unique for a traditional Irish recording.
"ceolachan" recently posted a slide from this record, and tells me that the 2 musicians had no names for many of the tunes, so felt forced to make them up. Listings are more or less as on the sleeve notes, except I've put in "The" before a few names. "Murphy's" is actually a set of slides ,so I've put "slides" in the title otherwise it'll show up on umpteen recordings where the tunes don't actually appear. "ceolachan" reckons it might be Denis Murphy, and that seems a reasonable assumption to me.
"ceolachan" has the 1st polka on track 3 as "Bill Sullivan's".
Catalogue number is Shanachie 29007, and it was recorded in 1977.
Thanks for posting this Kenny, I hadn't my record here and appreciate this greatly. It has taken me a long pause to contribute. I love this recording, as I fell in love with the Doyle's and Dan O'Leary's playing too. There is some sadness attached to this for me, including a 'falling out' of sorts. This is one of my absolute favourite recordings, but there are 'attachments' too. I love the fact it is 'reel free'...not that I don't love reels too, but I sometimes get fed up with having them shoved down my gullet at a session, one after the other at neck break speeds and with little real lift other than manic out of control flow...and out of the 'groove'...
I loved the Doyles, dad Jimmy, the lads, the whole family. What a kick, and such an exuberant, hospitable, sweet bunch. They offered to put me up in the house but in my old stubborn way I insisted on the tent, no matter what the weather, out in the field, and I could write and play a little out on my lonesome ~ HA! His lads, then very young, were always my wake-up call, what a kick, and sometimes we'd picnic and chat out there in the rain under the cover of the tent.
Anyway, the falling out, one hopefully now settled, except for the ever present ache I feel in my heart. Jimmy only had one recording of his father on a cassette, also a button box musician, but someone had recorded a radio programme over it by mistake, maybe even more than once. I mentioned I’d known of some work to recover trace sounds in recordings and offered to take the cassette to Dublin, and to make other inquiries. So, they entrusted it to me. I did go to the folklore department and a friend there, but he said it was hopeless, recovery of trace sounds didn’t include things already wiped over in re-recording on magnetic tape, like reel-to-reel and cassette. I realized also I was thinking of the then early stages of digitization. I did contact some folks in North America too, including at the Smithsonian, same response. So, I packed the tape up and posted it back to the Doyles explaining my failure to make anything of it, and an apology that I wasn’t able to find a way to recover his father’s playing.
Guess what, all this was the same time as I was in a desperate fight with immigration about going to North America. Anyway, trust the post, it never got to them, and I never heard anything since, though I did write them once more when I got back to America, also evidently lost. Then, coming back here, when we were living up at the head of the Mealagh Valley, nine miles outside of Bantry, I chased Jimmy up playing in Killarney. He remembered me, but was reticent. I didn’t remember at first, when he said something about his dad’s recording, my flavour of dyslexia working its damnation on my memory, PAUSE ~ REWIND, and then, like a branch snapping in a woods at midnight, it came, and I felt like shight. He’d never gotten the tape back or any of my communications, so he hadn’t known, for years, what had come of his precious recording, the one someone in the family, I think one of the boys, had accidentally recorded over. I felt awful, did my best to remember and explain, feeling really bad and stumbling the whole time, bu I think we parted on reasonable terms, but I still feel that agony of having disappointed them and I will always feel badly about it.
Damn, guilt. Jimmy was and is a sweetheart and we had some good times together. When I first met him it was when Dan O’Leary had died, the fiddler that had always been the pair, Jimmy and Dan, inseperable, boon mates. Smoking again, that’s without a doubt what took Dan from us at least 20 years before he should have. It brought Jimmy’s music to a crashing halt, and for too long. That also lessened the craic and the dancing thereabouts. The music they made together was lively and spirited and you couldn't help but be moved by it. Looking him up in Killarney I was glad to find him back playing again, and it lifted my spirits. He is a damned fine musician in the Sliabh Luachra / Kerry style. Dan was too, and he’s one I would have liked to have learned the fiddle from.
I am better for having known their music, and any screw ups there or failures are totally my own fault. It is criminal that this recording is no longer available. Maybe if enough of us bother the folks at Shanachie we can get them to contact Jimmy and get this fine recording out again, and maybe even add a few more tracks to it for the CD release.
2.) "Music from Sliabh Luachra Volume 2: The Star of Munster Trio"
Julia (fiddle), John (piano accordion) & Billy Clifford (flute)
Topic 12TS310 - Ossian 45 http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/1427
4.) "Music from Sliabh Luachra Volume 4:
Irish Traditional Flute Solos and Band Music from Kerry and Tipperary"
Billy Clifford (flute), et. al.
Topic 12TS312 - Ossian OSS 11 http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display.php/1286
5.) "Music from Sliabh Luachra Volume 5: Johnny O'Leary -
Music for the Set"
18 tracks - Topic /Ossian OSSCD 25
Recordings made 1976-77 -
" ~ this recording - also features his daughter Ellen on whistle
and fiddle players Mick Duggan and Maurice O'Keeffe ~ "... http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display.php/663
6.) "Music from Sliabh Luachra Volume 6: Jackie Daly -
Traditional Accordion and Concertina Music from Sliabh Luachra"
Topic 12TS358
Released on CD by Ossian: OSSCD 30 & Green Linnet: GLCD3065 http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/212
"The Rushy Mountain: Classic Music from Sliabh Luachra 1957-77"
- a compilation of tracks from the six albums in the Topic series "Music from Sliabh Luachra volumes 1-6"... http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display.php/1274
I was lucky enough to get a copy of the "Kingdom of Kerry" from my accordion teacher.
I have beening trying to learn tune#6 which is called 'Cronin's Jig' on the album art. I can't seem to find any real references to this jig. I'm am fairly new to this, and I've been struggling to learn it by ear. Any suggestions where I might find some sheet-music or ABCs to help me ??
Doyle & O'Leary
A great record of Kerry music on box and fiddle - just the 2 of them, no accompaniment. All slides, polkas, 2 sets of jigs and NO REELS ! Very unusual, and possibly unique for a traditional Irish recording.
"ceolachan" recently posted a slide from this record, and tells me that the 2 musicians had no names for many of the tunes, so felt forced to make them up. Listings are more or less as on the sleeve notes, except I've put in "The" before a few names. "Murphy's" is actually a set of slides ,so I've put "slides" in the title otherwise it'll show up on umpteen recordings where the tunes don't actually appear. "ceolachan" reckons it might be Denis Murphy, and that seems a reasonable assumption to me.
"ceolachan" has the 1st polka on track 3 as "Bill Sullivan's".
Catalogue number is Shanachie 29007, and it was recorded in 1977.
# Posted on October 23rd 2004 by Kenny
Great stuff!
Just listened to my ancient tape of this recording the other day. Wonderful music indeed.
# Posted on October 23rd 2004 by LongNote
Jimmy Doyle & Dan O'Leary ~ lifted by their music
Thanks for posting this Kenny, I hadn't my record here and appreciate this greatly. It has taken me a long pause to contribute. I love this recording, as I fell in love with the Doyle's and Dan O'Leary's playing too. There is some sadness attached to this for me, including a 'falling out' of sorts. This is one of my absolute favourite recordings, but there are 'attachments' too. I love the fact it is 'reel free'...not that I don't love reels too, but I sometimes get fed up with having them shoved down my gullet at a session, one after the other at neck break speeds and with little real lift other than manic out of control flow...and out of the 'groove'...
I loved the Doyles, dad Jimmy, the lads, the whole family. What a kick, and such an exuberant, hospitable, sweet bunch. They offered to put me up in the house but in my old stubborn way I insisted on the tent, no matter what the weather, out in the field, and I could write and play a little out on my lonesome ~ HA! His lads, then very young, were always my wake-up call, what a kick, and sometimes we'd picnic and chat out there in the rain under the cover of the tent.
Anyway, the falling out, one hopefully now settled, except for the ever present ache I feel in my heart. Jimmy only had one recording of his father on a cassette, also a button box musician, but someone had recorded a radio programme over it by mistake, maybe even more than once. I mentioned I’d known of some work to recover trace sounds in recordings and offered to take the cassette to Dublin, and to make other inquiries. So, they entrusted it to me. I did go to the folklore department and a friend there, but he said it was hopeless, recovery of trace sounds didn’t include things already wiped over in re-recording on magnetic tape, like reel-to-reel and cassette. I realized also I was thinking of the then early stages of digitization. I did contact some folks in North America too, including at the Smithsonian, same response. So, I packed the tape up and posted it back to the Doyles explaining my failure to make anything of it, and an apology that I wasn’t able to find a way to recover his father’s playing.
Guess what, all this was the same time as I was in a desperate fight with immigration about going to North America. Anyway, trust the post, it never got to them, and I never heard anything since, though I did write them once more when I got back to America, also evidently lost. Then, coming back here, when we were living up at the head of the Mealagh Valley, nine miles outside of Bantry, I chased Jimmy up playing in Killarney. He remembered me, but was reticent. I didn’t remember at first, when he said something about his dad’s recording, my flavour of dyslexia working its damnation on my memory, PAUSE ~ REWIND, and then, like a branch snapping in a woods at midnight, it came, and I felt like shight. He’d never gotten the tape back or any of my communications, so he hadn’t known, for years, what had come of his precious recording, the one someone in the family, I think one of the boys, had accidentally recorded over. I felt awful, did my best to remember and explain, feeling really bad and stumbling the whole time, bu I think we parted on reasonable terms, but I still feel that agony of having disappointed them and I will always feel badly about it.
Damn, guilt. Jimmy was and is a sweetheart and we had some good times together. When I first met him it was when Dan O’Leary had died, the fiddler that had always been the pair, Jimmy and Dan, inseperable, boon mates. Smoking again, that’s without a doubt what took Dan from us at least 20 years before he should have. It brought Jimmy’s music to a crashing halt, and for too long. That also lessened the craic and the dancing thereabouts. The music they made together was lively and spirited and you couldn't help but be moved by it. Looking him up in Killarney I was glad to find him back playing again, and it lifted my spirits. He is a damned fine musician in the Sliabh Luachra / Kerry style. Dan was too, and he’s one I would have liked to have learned the fiddle from.
I am better for having known their music, and any screw ups there or failures are totally my own fault. It is criminal that this recording is no longer available. Maybe if enough of us bother the folks at Shanachie we can get them to contact Jimmy and get this fine recording out again, and maybe even add a few more tracks to it for the CD release.
# Posted on December 18th 2005 by ceolachan
Sliabh Luachra gems ~
1.) "Music from Sliabh Luachra Volume 1: Kerry Fiddles"
Padraig O'Keefe with Denis & Julia (Clifford) Murphy
Topic 12T 309 / TSCD309 - Ossian OSSCD10
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display.php/519
2.) "Music from Sliabh Luachra Volume 2: The Star of Munster Trio"
Julia (fiddle), John (piano accordion) & Billy Clifford (flute)
Topic 12TS310 - Ossian 45
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/1427
3.) "Music from Sliabh Luachra Volume 3: The Humours of Lisheen"
John (piano accordion) & Julia Clifford (fiddle)
Topic 12TS311 - Ossian OSS 14
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display.php/1433
4.) "Music from Sliabh Luachra Volume 4:
Irish Traditional Flute Solos and Band Music from Kerry and Tipperary"
Billy Clifford (flute), et. al.
Topic 12TS312 - Ossian OSS 11
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display.php/1286
5.) "Music from Sliabh Luachra Volume 5: Johnny O'Leary -
Music for the Set"
18 tracks - Topic /Ossian OSSCD 25
Recordings made 1976-77 -
" ~ this recording - also features his daughter Ellen on whistle
and fiddle players Mick Duggan and Maurice O'Keeffe ~ "...
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display.php/663
6.) "Music from Sliabh Luachra Volume 6: Jackie Daly -
Traditional Accordion and Concertina Music from Sliabh Luachra"
Topic 12TS358
Released on CD by Ossian: OSSCD 30 & Green Linnet: GLCD3065
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/212
"The Rushy Mountain: Classic Music from Sliabh Luachra 1957-77"
- a compilation of tracks from the six albums in the Topic series "Music from Sliabh Luachra volumes 1-6"...
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display.php/1274
"Padraig O'Keefe: The Sliabh Luachra Fiddle Master"
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display.php/738
"Denis Murphy: Music from Sliabh Luachra"
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display.php/164
"The Star Above the Garter"
Denis (fiddle) & Julia Murphy/Clifford (fiddle)
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display.php/1073
"Ceol As Sliabh Luachra"
Julia (fiddle) & Billy (flute) Clifford
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display.php/1291
"An Calmfhear/The Trooper" - Johnny O'Leary"
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display.php/1282
17 tracks - Gael Linn CEFC 132 / CEFCD 132, 1989
"Johnny O'Leary of Sliabh Luachra: Dance Music from the Cork-Kerry Border"
Craft Recordings, Dublin - CRCS01
28 tracks - Craft Recordings - (CD) CRCD01, 1995
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/1284
"Denis Doody Plays Kerry Music"
Mulligan - LUN 019, 1978
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/1309
# Posted on April 16th 2006 by ceolachan
The Kingdom Of Kerry - Cronin's Jig ?? (tune #6)
Hello -
I was lucky enough to get a copy of the "Kingdom of Kerry" from my accordion teacher.
I have beening trying to learn tune#6 which is called 'Cronin's Jig' on the album art. I can't seem to find any real references to this jig. I'm am fairly new to this, and I've been struggling to learn it by ear. Any suggestions where I might find some sheet-music or ABCs to help me ??
thanks
Scot
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by scotrans
6.) "Cronin's Jig" = "My Love in the Morning"
Key signature: A Dorian
Submitted on May 20th 2003 by gian marco.
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/1680
# Posted on January 29th 2009 by ceolachan
6.) ~ & also here in various permutations ~
"Bundle And Go"
Key signature: E Dorian
Submitted on May 17th 2001 by Jeremy
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/6
"This Is My Love, Do You Like Her?"
Key signature: A Dorian
Submitted on June 30th 2003 by nobu.
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/1791
"She Never Would Leave Me"
Key signature: E Dorian
Submitted on July 23rd 2008 by crazy_fingerz.
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/8734
# Posted on January 29th 2009 by ceolachan
& ~ transcriptions added here:
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/6/comments
# Posted on January 29th 2009 by ceolachan
There is a piano accompaniment on track 12, backing an accordion solo. Any idea who it is?
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by 52Paddy
Album available from Ceol Álainn:
http://ceolalainn.blogspot.com/2009/09/denis-murphy-music-from-sliabh-luachra.html
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Whoops!
http://ceolalainn.blogspot.com/2009/09/jimmie-doyle-dan-oleary-traditional.html
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by Dragut Reis