Hi don’t if this has been posted before, but I just found this site with a wealth of field recordings including quite a bit of Seamus Ennis singing and piping.
http://research.culturalequity.org/get-audio-ix.do?ix=recording&id=167&idType=sessionId&sortBy=abc
You could quite easily loose a day or two rummaging through this site.
Ah yes. A fair bit of that was done with his pal - and my best friend - the late lamented Peter Kennedy. He had a tale or two to tell, I can tell you.
Sadly,another Seamus has only just now left us. R.I.P. Seamus Heaney.
Bob
that looks fantastic, i’m going to have a good listen this weekend - if there’s anything similar about Clancy please could someone add links
thanks,
john
I didn’t expect much with this as in the past the Lomax Archives have only provided 30 second samples of their holdings, but now you can listen to tracks in full, so we can hear Seamus play the Drunken Landlady in its - her - entirety. Great to have - there are loads of wonderful recordings in there, famous fiddlers like Mickey Doherty (brother of the famous John D) and Michael Gorman, for instance.
Searching the site for “pipe tune” I only come across the Ennis tracks, Highland pipers John MacDonald and John Burgess, and Northumbrian Jack Armstrong, plus odds and ends from Spain and Italy.
comhaltasarchive.org has lots of tracks of Clancy and Ennis, if you want to hear more of them.
The Ennis tracks I believe Lomax recorded on his own, seem to recall Peter Kennedy being part of field work in Donegal though. Peter of course cheerfully sold all manner of others’ work without recognition, I bought a CD of Seamus Ennis music off him once that had 3 cuts from these Dublin recordings, a 20 minute long story PK presumably recorded himself, and then the “Masters of Irish Music” LP in full. No credit for Alan or Bill Leader to be seen. Oh well, you do what you gotta do. I fairly wore out that CD over the years, if such a thing is possible.
I don’t think you’re right about the Ennis tracks, Kevin, since all three worked for the BBC at the time. Peter and Seamus then went on to do a lot more work for the BBC separately from Lomax, so it’s not exactly easy to sort out what’s what and who did what here.
If you look at the notes for the Boyne Hunt they say “1 - Alan Lomax: “Morning dubbed tapes Radio Eireann, afternoon Donal O’Sullivan, evening Seamus’s pipes, Sorcha says no.” Editor’s note: Lomax labelled this box “Uillean pipes tests.” [Source: Alan Lomax’s journal]” No mention of Kennedy there. Lomax’s bio on that site mentions him doing broadcasting work with Peter on the BBC, but as I recall early on Lomax worked independently. Ennis joined the BBC in 1951 so perhaps they were in their employ at the time as you say. About the Columbia LPs:
Ireland 1951 and 1953
This first anthology of Irish traditional music
to be assembled on an LP record (as distinct from
LPs consisting of reissues of 78s and Irish
popular music) was drawn from these field
recordings made by Alan Lomax, Robin Roberts, and
Seamus Ennis, primarily in Cork, Kerry, Donegal,
and Galway; and by Brian George and Maurice Brown
for the BBC. Included are a young girl singing a
death lament; performances by the traveling
tinsmith and fiddle player Mickey Doherty;
radical author Brendan Behan; and Seamus Ennis
himself. The field recordings in Ireland were
made with the cooperation of the Irish Folklore
Commission, the BBC, and Radió Éireann; others
were made later in various locations in London.
Perhaps these Lomax recordings were handed over to the BBC, or recorded while Lomax was working for them, thus forming a justification in Kennedy’s mind for using them on a Folktrax release. You’d have to do a bit more detective work to get to the bottom of that one. It’s at any rate great to have all this music on tap, finally.
… or maybe have spent months sifting through and poring over Peter’s archive and the original source material before it was passed on, say.
Agreed.
I like that everything has been made available. Mr Ennis tuning up is just as fascinating as hearing him play.