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Last week I finaly got me grubby mits on Wheels Of The World Vol 1 & 2 but after listening to them I then learned that there is a heap of old 78’s of the era and lots of great playing - although the liner notes to some of these CD’s are grudging ..but IMHO utterly off the mark.
None are more wanting that the works of Frank Quinn, a multifaceted talent!, who’s records are among the most numerous and is reputed to have been a retiring individual. Indeed he was.
One of the few tunes he plays on Fiddle, Lawsons, is in O’Niells but with a simplifed setting and most of the charm knocked out of the tune. To be fair to the better known of the Irish fiddlers Frank is not that original for his time, but hey who today would have the foggiest idea of what the standard was in the preWW2 era? Not me to be sure.
There are several attempts to correct the imbalance with two CDs now offered on the net. Arholie has the better offer and Harry Bradshaw is supposed to be putting another together. I suspect that Frank does not fit the RTE profile for greatness in not being a Connaught man, indeed along with Packie Dolan he is from the backend of the midlands, Longford - probably near Leitrim … about which I may later offer some insights but nonetheless one of the fountains of great Irtrad on Flute. ( Mc Kenna, to those into it, was from the county and OC Matt Moloy from near enough the next one east of it, Roscommon )Today Leitrim still retains its magic!
What is evident in these early players is a spontaneity and rhythm so lacking today. Indeed some of the Fiddlers spanning the end of that era and our own, Paddy Cronin for example, exhibit both the wet lively dance bowings and the later dry CCE competition style, sadly, so preferred today.
I suppose people playing the wind instruments needed to branch away and not be left breathless trying to keep up the hell for leather pace the old school used. If so, where are going now?