I was listening to Willie Clancy’s recording of a reel. Sean Reed was playing the Regs. The playing was remakable but the regs were horrendously out of tune. I wondered if this recording held the record for the most out of tune regulators? 
lol, could be. ,lol,
Yeah, maybe they were out of tune, but does it MATTER? Listen to his chanter work. There are times when I’m just in awe of Willie.
I am in total agreement with you. I am in awe of Willies piping myself. I just find it difficult to listen to the tracks that Sean Reid is chuffing away on those regs that are so out of tune.
I’d get a bit mad if someone played just regs along with me.
Perhaps someone else could blow their drones?
I must say Vol 1 was a bigger hit with me for leisure listening.
I know there are better recordings of willie in private collections. Any “in the know” tell us of any releases pending? Or want to offer them up for my bootleg collection?
Alan
I’ve just ordered an album called ‘The West Wind’ by Willie,featuring Bobby Casey on fiddle, on the ‘Folktrax’ label.
Check out their great catalogue on www. Folktrax.org
I’ve also ordered an album by Felix Doran.Folktrax looks to be a treasure trove of historic field recordings.
There are issues about Peter Kenendey and his recordings, how he got them, how he manages them and who owns them. Read up in the archives of the Irtrad list.
Quite right Peter. They are basically the BBC field recording made in the 50s, recorded by a number of collectors including Seamus Ennis. Some of them appear on the Topic Folksongs of Great Britain series (Ennis himself, Paddy Taylor, the Dohertys etc from Ireland). Just because Kennedy sometimes wielded the microphone doesn’t mean he owns the copyright to the whole archive.
The dilemma is if you want to hear the music, how do you circumvent somebody regarded in some circles as nothing more than a bootlegger. I have some of the recordings which a friend copied many years ago in Cecil Sharp House from the BBC copies lodged there. He broke the rules by hot wiring the reel to reel and casette decks in the listening booth. This is not the best way to acquire music but at least the copies are better quality than Kennedy’s.
Maybe some not-for-profit copying is in order here!
Ken
BBC archives at C# House also cover some of R L O’Mealy recorded in 1943 - be nice if these plus any others were put together on a CD.
NPU have made some enquiries regarding permission to do just this but the problem is a lack of funds
[quote=“kenr”]Quite right Peter. They are basically the BBC field recording made in the 50s, recorded by a number of collectors including Seamus Ennis. Some of them appear on the Topic Folksongs of Great Britain series (Ennis himself, Paddy Taylor, the Dohertys etc from Ireland). Just because Kennedy sometimes wielded the microphone doesn’t mean he owns the copyright to the whole archive.
The dilemma is if you want to hear the music, how do you circumvent somebody regarded in some circles as nothing more than a bootlegger.
Gosh, Peter and Ken- you almost make me feel like an accessory to a crime!
Honest Guv- I didn’t know the tunes were dodgy!
I ordered four albums yesterday from Folktrax,after purchasing the John and Simon Docherty album ‘Fiddle Tunes and Stories’ (Folktrax 273) from a local independent record shop,last week.I thought that the shop was ‘Legit.’- I hadn’t realised that they were really ‘Fences’!
And here’s Me thinking that I was getting myself some good ‘pure drop’ Itrad. and supporting an independent small label into the bargain!
P.S. Ken,I recieved my copy of the book ‘Between the Jigs and the Reels’ that you recommended to me,and have read the first few chapters so far. It’s a marvelous read!! Cheers for pointing me to it.
“Between The Jigs and Reels” as well as many other books of a good calibre, is easily available via my website on Amazon.
http://www.concentric.net/~pdarcy/page1/store.shtml
Gluck,
Patrick.
Kevin,
To some extent we are all accessories. I am willing to bet most of us with a few years of playing and listening behind us have bought several of these tapes. I’ve got over a dozen of them.
While the Irtrad list reveals all the gory details from some highly regarded writers and players, it’s not all black and white. A lot of trad players have had little or nothing for their music over the years. I remember reading that Josie McDermott got £200 for the LP he made for Topic. At the time he thought he’d got a fair deal. Most of the “big” names have been burned one time or another, De Danann’s first LP, most of the early Planxty & Bothy LPs made money for the labels not the artists. Tommy Peoples felt so shafted by some of these labels he wrote tunes with names like “The Cosa Mulligan” and “Don’t Touch that Green Linnet”.
Maybe Kennedy is just an extreme case of exploiting somebody else’s talent for personal profit. Let’s hope his attitude is a thing of the past, with so many developments in recording & printing CDs that players feel confident in making their own records on their own label and handling the distribution themselves.
Ken