I am just watching the ace piping videos Kevin R. put up recently on YT, e.g. this long clip featuring Mick O’Brien and Tommy Reck as a duo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhiaUtfinAA&ebc=ANyPxKpWVFcYUqXB3gDB50Deq-dLbDhastGOfVt0Pw5VBAxvgUF1bCq6Bjoz5hX0oI73hgp88Uv1 .
It strikes me that many of the most influential pipers today name Tommy as one of their “heroes”. And the more I gather from this man, the more I realize that many tunes, techniques and styles I have adopted over the years are actually Tommy Reck versions handed down to me via the likes of Mick, Jimmy OBM and others. Amazing.
There were some great videos on NPU Source of Mick and Tommy together. My membership has currently lapsed but I used to watch them all the time. Video and audio were quite good.
Thanks as always to Kevin for uploading all this great stuff.
Video and audio were quite good.
This youtube copy is a really horrible one, a real shame.
It was a great occasion to have Tommy come out of ‘retirement’. I was in the ‘green room’ beside the stage and Tommy could barely speak because of the pre-concert nerves (much like myself, I was on just before them) . Mick gently carried him through and it was lovely. Tommy did a lunchtime on his own two days later, playing largely the same tunes. Brilliant.
There are some great videos of Tommy playing at the Dutch Tionol in 1989. I thought they were out in the open, but they appear to just be on the NPU site. I’m a huge fan of his style of playing.
There are some great videos of Tommy playing at the Dutch Tionol in 1989.
It’s a shame he was bit uncomfortable with the set up of his pipes at the time. During that tionol I was playing away with him listening until Geoff Wooff gave Tommy his own set, suggesting it would probably more interesting if he played as well. Tommy really took off on a set of pipes that was going well and he was all over the regulators and he knocked me of my perch when he played the First part of the Standing Abbey all triplets. Someone may have recorded that but I have never seen/heard it.
Some of us took Tommy up to Rob van Dijk’s house after the tionol and we had him playing in a more relaxed environment for hours, tape recorders running. Same again the next morning, with some music in C, before we parted company.
Ah, didn’t we look so young then ! Still you are not looking too bad these days Peter, considering the 26 years that have passed by.
Yes I agree that Tommy Reck has been a very considerable influence, at least as big as Clancy and Ennis for me. I feel it was a massive privilege to be able to play with Tommy. I’ve always said that listening to the recordings is lovely,watching him play live was just a whole other experience and Playing with him was to be transoprted into a very special musical place.
Tommy is not the only musician with whom I would have liked to spend a couple of hours playing with once a week at a session… with several others I did get the chance to absorb over a longer period… but in the end it is never enough. 
A shame in what way? Beats nothing at all.
I digified the old VHS tape I got from Mark W who got it from you (I’ve always assumed) for a terrific local piper who was really interested in my description of what was on it, seems a lot of others are enjoying it too. Yes, crap quality but again I just want to share things like this with people, as I’ve done with so many other odds and ends over the years. You plant seeds, might lead to nothing, or it might inspire greatness, and whatever else people will enjoy seeing these musicians play.
A shame in what way? Beats nothing at all.
I am sure you’d agree a half decent visual with good audio would do the duet more justice? It’s a shame the tape has deteriorated so much. I believe this footage is Ken McLeod’s handiwork and it was much better when I saw it twenty years ago. Even just better audio on its own would be much preferable?
I agree it’s probably better than nothing but still a shame it’s not a better representation of what was a memorable occasion.
Ah, didn’t we look so young then ! Still you are not looking too bad these days Peter,
Not sure that’s what I see in the mirror in the morning.
You’re right being with Tommy those few occasions was a memorable experience, as was staying at Rochford’s for a few days, barely a week after first running into Tommy Reck in the flesh. My eyes were opened to a few things that summer, musically speaking. A lot of stuff happened that year. Life changing stuff.
I remember going through all the tapes we made and having a go at his version of t_he King of the Clans_. I thought on hearing it it was a typical Reck setting. Once I wrote down the notes I realised he played pretty much a standard setting and it was all in the rhythm and what was between the notes. I had to let how he did that stew for a while.
[edited to reconstruct a sentence that didn’t go anywhere]
Hello
There was a small Tionol in Ring, Co. Waterford in the late eighties. Alan Froment did the reed making and there were a slew of local teenagers there (including David Power) who were really excellent.
Tommy Reck and Mick O’Brien spent Saturday afternoon playing in the snug in Mooney’s pub. It is still very fresh in my memory. I will have to get around to digitising that tape one of these days. They breathed new life into a lot of the old tunes. Their playing of the Fermoy Lassies sticks out in my mind.
I managed to get a few tunes with Tommy in Miltown around that time as well. A thorough gentleman.
Thanks for reminding me.
John
Maybe you can see it here, forget, but on the NPU Source videos of Tommy and Mick you can really see how Tommy made the Fnat in the Bunch of Keys - he kind of “crinked” his middle finger out. That was something that really stood out for me watching those vids, he played Fnat right and left in his tunes, maybe this is how we should all be doing it?
As a Basic subscriber you can watch just two of the videos at Source now, I first subscribed last year thinking that I’d be able to watch everything, which you could at first, then they locked it all down. As time goes by the access is more and more limited, I’ve never been able to watch the tutor or pipe/reedmaking stuff from them, used to be it was all free.
It’d be ideal if someone in Ireland who knows how to digify all this stuff would just gather tapes from interested parties and put them on the web for any and all. I’ve learned about no end of info about music from what’s been put up on YouTube, and not just Irish music too; can’t imagine getting more than a cursory understanding of Scottish or French button accordions with just finding LPs in shops, for instance. Information wants to be free! Like the man said.
Of the three, Tommy Reck is definitely underestimated; perhaps because he made but one album. He was a reticent fellow. I met him once and heard him play. That was an honour, indeed, to touch his mantle. Now, if you spend your time trying to imitate Ennis, you’ll just sound like a bad copy of Séamus Ennis. You could try to imitate Clancy, but you will get nowhere near the wild, sad, happy twists Willie could put into a tune. But you can’t go wrong trying to imitate Tommy Reck. You’ll never sound like him, but it will do your pipering no end of good. There is something instantly approachable in his playing. And you listen closely and it gets deeper and deeper. Sometimes it’s just a few notes swapped places. Othertimes, it’s the stunningly unexpected Bach-like quality we hear in his playing of The Scholar.
Of the three, he is my favourite. Ní bheidh a leithéid arís ann.
Thanks for your contributions, people. PCL, now that is a great statement. I can instantly relate to that.
Oh, and I dig your photos, Peter. Doesn’t Geoff look uber-cool, with fag and slipover…
Doesn’t Geoff look uber-cool, with fag and slipover…
Geoff with the Fr Doughal tanktop and myself with the Harry Potter specs, the eighties were full of great fashion statements weren’t they?
perhaps because he made but one album.
Not if you take the Moore street studio 78s, the Gael Linn 78s, his recordings for O’Riada’s Musical Heritage and the contributions to Drones & Chanters into account, and perhaps the odd bit for the Abbey Tavern (group) recordings. First I came across him was playing the Cook in the Kitchen with the Dubliners by the way, it just took me years to realise it was him`on that recording. And there’s the classic and highly influential Peter O’Loughlin home recording that is widely distributed among pipers and other tapes floating about as well.
Here’s an image from the cover of one of the Abbey Tavern’s lps, Reck as part of the group, Geoff will remember our encounters with the spoons player:
Thank you so much for this post and bringing up Tommy Reck’s influence. Thanks, too for pointing out the Source’s archived video recordings of him and Mick O’Brien. I didn’t know about these at all, and am really happy I have some more recordings to listen to!
Are there any other recordingsof Tommy other than The Stone in the Field and part of the album The Humours of Holland that I might be able to listen to?
Thanks.
K
Are there any other recordingsof Tommy other than The Stone in the Field and part of the album The Humours of Holland that I might be able to listen to?
Didn’t read the previous post, did you?
Don’t know if I recall the Spoons basher. Interesting picture, makes one wonder if the banjo player was tuned down to those B Pipes.
Nice to know I look ‘uber-cool’… all the clothes came from a charity shop… my hair is currently a little paler but also twice as long. That poping strap looks nice and clean… I still have it… it is my second one since 1978… not quite so clean these days though!
No I didn’t. Der! Thanks.
K
The Gael Linn ones, or at least some are on this one (which is all good stuff anyway):
The earlier Bill Stapleton recordings are on one of the compilation albums but not sure which one, I can’t stick them briefly on-line if you have trouble finding them. There’s a recording from 1957 that came from TR himself, by a Fr Clancy that I have digitised I can put a few bits of that up as well.
Then you have a few tracks of Reck playing with Joe Ryan at the Rupert Guinness Hall that were broadcast on RTE radio, I have those but not digitised. Kevin will have those too. Joe and Tommy went particularly well together.
I have hours and hours of not digitised tapes from 1989, Miltown, Dutch tionol stuff and and the post tionol nights, the Ace and Deuce concert tracks with Peter O Loughlin. There were also broadcasts after Tommy died some pof those programmes had recordings of him, other that the usual but I don’t recall exactly what,. Should have those tapes somewhere too somewhere, I remember someone gave them to me anyway. There’s some stuff from the Ring tionol John mentioned above, I have heard some but I am not sure I have it myself.
Don’t know if I recall the Spoons basher.
I am sure you do, he was PJ Downes. And I have a vivid memory of him joining you. I don’t blame you if it turns out you suppressed the memory of it.
[added:]
This is the 78rpm, two sides, that was recorded by Bill Stapleton in the Moore st studios in (I believe) 1948. Tommy told us he just went in when he was asked, played his tunes, got £25 and never heard anything more about it.
On the monday morning after the Dutch tionol of 1989 we all were at Robert van Dijk’s house after a long night of listening to Tommy, chatting and picking his brain for more tunes (and trying,successfully, to coax him away from his regular ‘safe’ tunes). Some of us got up early (I slept on the floor, not too comfortable) and we were listening to some discs from Robert’s collection of piping 78rpms. While we were listening to this one Tommy came in, looking for a breakfast. He was delighted hearing the recording as he had never heard it before, or so he said.
Anyhow, this is the one (the very same disc, actually):
And here: https://archive.org/details/TommyReckTheScholarTheSalamancaTomSteele
Slightly disgressing, some snippets from reviews of Abbey Tavern Singers’ concerts in Canada:
“The Ilian (sic), a two-octave bagpipe affair, did well on solos, but … suffered from Canadian central heating … .” The Windsor Star, 8 Feb 1967.
“Among the unusual talents the Abbey Tavern Singers have gathered to themselves … another musician who plays a 150-year-old set of Aeolian (sic) pipes: and, of course, the astonishing sleight-of-hand which P. J. Downs (sic) employs in his spoon-playing.” Ottawa Citizen, 4 Nov 1968.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_Tavern_Singers for links, etc.
It’s no better on the liner notes of the ATS album We’re Off to Dublin in the Green: “TOMMY RECK, who plays the Illin (sic) pipes, which is an improved bagpipe … .”
There are some tune tracks on their album You Don’t Have to Be Irish …, but no pipes that I can hear behind the awful racket of the spoons. If my car sounded like those spoons, I’d roll it off a cliff.
Can any South Australian confirm that Margaret Monks, singer, living in Adelaide, is the one and the same who sang with the Abbey Tavern Singers?