A new album of flute and whistle duets by John Skelton and Kieran O’Hare, entitled “Double Barrelled,” will be available from Kieran and John at of the summer schools that they are doing (individually and collectively) this year: Swannanoa, East Durham, Augusta, and Lark in the Morning. People can also order it through their website, which should be up and running by next week:
John Skelton is also releasing a CD and booklet set called ‘A Few More Tunes’ (a follow up to his earlier CD and booklet ‘A Few Tunes,’ originally released as a teaching tool but made more widely available after receiving critical acclaim), which will also be available at these schools, and then in about three weeks directly from John (don’t want to post his e-mail here, but I suspect you’ll be able to order it from the website above, and also from distributors such as Ossian and Celtic Grooves.
Brad, many thanks for keeping your website up to date with news and events. It’s an invaluable resource and I imagine you go through a lot of thankless trouble to keep it going.
I wasn’t familiar with John Skelton till I saw him perform last summer in the Catskills and was completely blown away by him. I bought all of the House Band cd’s and his book/cd set of tunes right away. I can’t wait for both new discs and for the chance to take a class with him.
Does anyone know if his older solo CD is still for sale anywhere? I’ve not come across it.
I’m pretty sure that CD is out of print, and I don’t think he plans to re-release it, as it really doesn’t represent the way he plays now. It’s a nice CD, but I think these new ones will be in a different league altogether.
I just ordered the Skelton/O’Hare CD from CD Baby–I got directed to it following one link or another from C&F. I just received the order confirmation, which included this little section:
Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with
sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure
it was in the best possible condition before mailing.
Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over
the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money
can buy.
We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party
marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of
Portland waved ‘Bon Voyage!’ to your package, on its way to you, in
our private CD Baby jet on this day, Thursday, July 17th.
I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did.
Your picture is on our wall as ‘Customer of the Year’. We’re all
exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!
Oops; probably should have posted this here, as well as on the whistle board, as I did a few days ago. Sorry!
I’ve seen some mention of this on the flute board, but not over here, so FYI:
John Skelton and Kieran O’Hare have recorded a CD of whistle and flute duets; I don’t know much about O’Hare, but I’m a great admirer of Skelton’s playing from his days in The House Band and from other tracks on which I’ve heard him play. The CD description makes it sound like great stuff, and although it mentions only flute, I understand there are whistle tracks, as well:
"In the summer of 2002, the two of us sat down for a few tunes in McKenna’s of East Durham, New York. We really enjoyed ourselves that night. Two flutes together can create a musical spontaneity and a rhythmic back-and-forth that is about as wild as you can get in Irish music. We wanted the music on this recording to sound as much like the way we played that night as possible.
The flutes were recorded over a couple of afternoons, with no edits, no overdubs, and no prisoners taken! Here is the full package, with flutes going, feet pounding, and air breathed. We hope you enjoy listening."
which was where my browser was directed when I typed in the web address provided in the flute forum (www.barrelmusic.com). Sounds like great stuff, so I’m going to order a copy, and will post a review if I’m not beaten to it by someone else.
I just ordered some CDs from CD Baby and they told me I was the customer of the year!! Well, nuts to them. Actually CD Baby seems like a good place to buy stuff. I got good prompt service and their funny emails.
I just listened to the CD and thought it was great. If Patrick Olwell ever needs an advert for his flutes, he’s got it right here - a great, buzzy and powerful sound from both players. It’s nice to hear two flutes with sparse or no accompaniment, like the McGrattan/Molloy duet on the former’s album “The Frost Is All Over” - stirring stuff.
Same here, I just got the CD last night. Great stuff.
I really need to spend some time working on my tone. I would love to be able to get that nice powerful sound.
And speaking of Olwell’s, I finally had the chance to play one a week ago. Very nice feel to it, I liked the flat’ish top to the bottom joint. Is this standard on all his keyless flutes?
I own that Cd and it is really good. Although i am mainly a tin whistle player the flutes on this cd are some of the most beautiful i have heard. John S. is also a great teacher, he taught me at irish arts week in East duhram.
-andrew cassidy
