John Skelton videos

Irish Flute
1

Go to YouTube and search for “John Skelton” and you will find some nice videos of him playing flute and pipes (including one of him playing on one of my Bb flutes in Mopane. The D flute is one of Pat Olwell’s). These are some nice recordings! Just not long enough!

Casey

2

Thanks, great videos!

3

Thanks, Casey! I’ve had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Skelton’s Weapon of Mass Terror :slight_smile: on several occasions, and it’s invariably gorgeous. Oooh, I hope he’s playing The Sheep in the Boat in one of the videos; that’s one of my favorites he does on your flute!

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link to bflatness:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtbKZ830yEE&feature=related

5

Thanks, lovely. Here’s a link to Olwellness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr-qOnu1M-4&feature=related

That’s an amazing sound, yes?

6

a mighty blow from a great solo performance. hoorah!

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YAAAAAH! The Sheep! The Sheep! Happiness.

8

How did you find out about Fluffy?

9

Vee haf vays … :smiley:

Speaking of, don’t know where I heard him tell this but it’s a sad story … the tune comes from a tale of islanders who tried to bring their sheep to the mainland (can’t remember whether they were evacuating the island during the Famine or taking the sheep to market, sorry). The seas were heavy, the sheep panicked … and the boat, being a curragh made of basically shellacked canvas stretched on a frame, was punched full of holes from their hooves. All were lost.

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It behooves them to be more careful next time.

11

Oh that was so, so baaaaaaa-d. :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks again for the hookup, Casey!

12

Thanks for posting Casey. I had the pleasure of learning from John in a few classes. Love his playing and was waiting for his playing to get onto YouTube. Awesome! I listen to his version of Craig’s Pipes everyday.

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The “Sheep in the Boat” jig is attributed to Junior Crehan and is derived from the air / lament “Anach Cuain”. For more background on the tragedy, here is a good summary: http://www.angelfire.com/wi/shamrockclubwisc/Reflections/page123.html . A very nice recording of the air and the jig is on Kevin Crehan’s CD An Bhabog sa Bhadog.

Dave Copley
Loveland, Ohio

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Thank you, David! I did a cursory search on it last night before posting what I remembered of it, but didn’t turn up anything – I’m glad you have more patience (and better search skills). :slight_smile: This is great. Thanks again!

15

Aha. A lake, calm weather, a fair/market, and a misguided attempt to stop a leak. Yup, details I sort missed, there … :blush: Thanks once more, and my apologies for any misleading. :blush:

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Hi Cathy! It wasn’t really my patience or my ability with Google. Just that it was a very cold morning so I had to find something to do for an hour while the heater got the workshop warm enough for me to start work. So I managed to find out a little more about the “Sheep in the Boat”. Also learned that a Galway Hooker is a kind of sailboat, though I don’t know if that piece of information will ever come in useful.

Dave Copley
Loveland, Ohio

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Seamus Tansey plays a nice version of Anach Chuin on “Music of the Coleman Country Revisited” and tells the story behind it as well. Gorgeous stuff worth having.

18

The names of the tunes aren’t given. Which is “Sheep in the Boat?”

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Sorry; didn’t exactly give any clues, there … The Sheep in the Boat is the slow jig John plays on the big Bb flute.

20

“Aye, Arabella’s a fine broad-bottomed Galway hooker …”

You never know, it could be VERY useful someday depending on the company you’re in; you could save someone’s honor!