Listening to Shaun Davey’s St Brendan’s Voyage. Liam’s playing makes me dizzy. 
Utterly amazing.
???
think you mean Liam O’Flynn
What’s this got to do with Leo Rowsome, per the title of this thread?
djm
My bad. Corrected. What in the world was I thinking?
Anyways, great player! 
You should hear him without the orchestra 
Many pipers blame him in large part for why they still bother to strap on the evil octopus. Seeing him on tour with Arty McGlynn back in 1996 or 1997 has to be one of the best musical experiences of my entire life. Arty did a fantastic job of backing, too; I wish more accompanists tried to emulate him.
Get all of the Planxty CDs, some are better than others but all of them have at least some tasty piping on them. And see if you can get any private recordings of him at tionols. He still has to be one of the best even now, with more pipers playing at a high level than at almost any other time in the instrument’s history.
You will also want to get the video The Piper’s Call to see him in action. The backup band is not “quite” as intrusive on this as on some of his other albums. I see that the LP of his first solo LP is on eBay (Jim McGuire must be rich by now). It is also a great listen.
There are some here who poop on his style as being too smooth, too mellow. I would love to be able to play this well and so tastefully.
djm
I got the Cd the poet and the piper
on which Liam is playing excellent
There’s a live concert with Liam introduced by Martin Hayes, on Pat D’Arcy’s site you can listen to (radio). The Rowsome set is out of tune at least in the beginning on some notes, prehaps a bad reed day, humidity etc.. I haven’t had time to listen to the whole concert, but it’s worth a listen
Different strokes for different folks I suppose. I consider LOF among the mighty pipers out there, living or dead. And IMHO, any who would turn their nose up at his playing haven’t really listened to it closely enough.
Every time I hear the Brendan suite I think of the reviewer who described it as “The pipes…lost in a sea of orchestration”.
I’m quite fond of O’Flynn’s two (or maybe first two) solo recordings, Out to another Side and The Given Note. The second has Paul Brady delivering what IMO is his best trad preformance since Arthur McBride.
Hi JES
John Sheehan said that O’Flynn was incredibly easy to play along with as his timing is rock solid.
David
O’Flynn is without doubt a fantastic player. His timing is wonderful and his versions of many tunes, I feel, are definative, having come from Clancy and Ennis as well as Rowsome directly. He is quite stocatto which makes his control outstanding. For young players, he would be probably the best to study first, before moving on to examining the style of other great players.
Well, you know as well as I when he’s playing without the band, his sound has some toughness in it; he’s not shy about lifting the chanter and using some raunchy-sounding bottom hand notes in the first octave, nor is he particularly timid in his use of staccato triplets, crans, pops, etc., and he has this hypnotic, relentless groove. His use of the regulators tends to be on the conservative end of the spectrum but he still uses them, often doing some very subtle things that are quite difficult if you try them yourself.
I suspect many of these critics are basing their accusation solely on the basis of one or two overtly slick commercial recordings. I don’t like those recordings, either, FWIW.
Liam’s first solo album was self-titled and self-produced (LOF1). Sony now has the rights and has no interest in re-issuing it (my feelings about Sony in general are not a secret). His second album is The Fine Art of Piping published by Celtic Music (CMCD054). There is also a home-recording floating about of a concert he did circa 1981 at the Eagle Tavern in NYC.
Personally, I consider his piping with Planxty to be his best. His commercial albums, The Given Note, Out to Another Side, The Brendan Voyage, are probably his worst as far as sounding like muzak, and are probably the source of a lot of the criticism against him. The Piper’s Call was a return to his older piping-oriented style. The Poet & The Piper has some great playing on it - once you delete the Poet.
djm
Even if you are not a poetry fan, the Poet and the Piper features some great piping, and the visual (if you get the DVD version) have an intimacy lacking in most ‘concert footage’.
Bill
One of the biggest problems trying to copy Arty McGlynn is that he tunes his guitar in a unique way. TTBOMK no other professional guitarist uses the same tuning.
On the subject of LO’F, he’s a great piper but two things bother me: (1) I’ve never heard him play a bum note (drop an octave or something similar) and (2) I’ve never seen a photo of him smiling - he always looks very serious.
There’s but one, or two in the piping on the first Planxty album. No more than a momentary dropped octave. If I could play with only ten times the mistakes he makes, I’d have a hard time keeping the ego down (at least until She Who Must Be Obeyed set me back in place 
).
dave boling
I attended a concert with the esteemed Mr. O’Flynn and the Piper’s Call band in Flagstaff, Arizona (of all places) several years ago. The altitude and lack of humidity were playing hell with his pipes, but he simply played around the notes that were giving him trouble. It was an awesome display of musciality and chanter control. The non-pipers in the audience would never have guessed that his pipes were misbehaving.
Mr. O’Flynn was kind enough to meet with our small SCUPC contingent after the concert–a true gentleman, and yes, he did smile.
No E
There’s a few bum notes on the Eagle Tavern recording (made me feel much better), but he notes how hot and humid it is, and that he will probably melt away. There is a concert recording on RTÉ at Liberty Hall in Dublin - I think its was on The Late Session July 2004. Typical RTÉ, the end is clipped off. There’s one of him playing at the Bantry House on The Late Session Nov 2004. I think this is the one that is on Pat D’Arcy’s site at:
http://www.uilleannobsession.com/links_radio.html#latesession
djm
I suppose I must clarify that. I don’t care how he gets the right chord voicings out at the right time and with the right touch, only that he makes it a priority. I see too many other backers who don’t and I wonder why they think it’s appropriate.
back to topic. Liam rocks. He ROCKS! Heh heh heh hehe hehehhehe eh heheheh heh heh heheheheheheheh heh heh heh heheh heheheheh heh hehh heh heheh