Paddy in the Smoke

Trad Irish Music
1

Well, I bought another old reissue, named in title. Its a recording from the 60s done in London pubs. I tried a search in the Forum to see if this was old ground but search never works well for me, so I apologize if this is old news.

Anyway, I bought it because it had Bobby Casey on it, who has been so recommended by Peter Laban, and who I had yet to hear. He (Casey) was very enjoyable to hear on that record.

So for those of you thinking about buying it sound unseen, you should know: its a real pub recording with talking, clinking glasses, and only decent sound quality, so if yer fussy, it might drive you a bit crazy. I have to hang in there but hearing the various fiddlers playing some sessiony tunes is worth it. A lot of em are tuned about a quarter tone flat, so its hard to play along with.

So far, the best thing I have learned from it, is hearing certain notes in a reel that the fiddler’s stress, or lean on, which gives shape to the tune, if you have only seen it in sheets. Of course, this is the general rule, but I really noticed it on this, including Casey’s playing.

For those of you interested in playing bones, there is some very good playing that you could learn from.

Another observation is more of a rhetorical question on my part…which is, just how many reels begin like Drowsy Maggie anyway? I swear, there are four on the cd but none have the turn of DM. I have decided that the all time generic reel would have DM for the tune, and Man of the House for the turn. Drowsy maggie ain’t a single tune, its a type of reel!!!

Finally, there is a lot of piano on there that is pretty annoying. The player on many reels, just goes from Am to G, or D to C over and over again, no matter where the fiddler is. I know its sacreligous to so state, but I swear they seemed to little care about the tunes. The more recent developments in harmonizing the trad tunes (like DADGAD guitars, bouzoukis etc) become appreciated when you consider that this must have the standard way, at least in pubs. You sorta want to sock the pianist after a while. The second half of Bank of Ireland is harmonized with mostly the tonic and the descending chord which just sounds off.

If yer really interested in hearing as many older legends and tune treatments as possible, I would recommend it. But if yer into 440 tuning, clean, harmony-rich stuff, maybe put it on the second tier of acquisitions. I’m posting this because everytime I go into the CD store, I end up with a re-issue and some don’t turn out to be all that enjoyable. I really was gonna buy Roisin somebody then I saw Bobby Casey and well..you get the picture.

2

This is a wonderful recording; also one of the few commercially released albums where you can hear the late East Galway fiddler Lucy Farr.

“The Smoke” or “The Big Smoke” was a term that Irish folk used to refer to London, as in “Paddy’s gone off to The Smoke.”

If you like Bobby Casey’s playing, I think “Casey in the Cowhouse” (recorded in Junior Crehan’s byre) may still be available…pure fiddle music and great stuff.

3

That album is one of my fav’s. I think the sound quality kind of adds a great touch to it. The piano style is a love it or hate it affair, the chords aren’t wrong, they’re just not what you think is right. Sure it’s not clean & polished, but clean & polished is not what trad music is about. To quote Kevin Burke while trying to get some hopeless musician to play a tune with some nyaa “Damn it, make it sound BARBARIC!”

4

‘Paddy in the smoke’ is next on my ‘must buy’ list. I should maybe wait a little while,as four trad. c.d.'s have just arrived this morning! :smiley:
They are; ‘Kerry fiddles’ by Padraig O’keeffe,Denis Murphy and Julia Clifford,
‘Noel Hill and Tony Linane’ Concertina and Fiddle + guests

‘MacMahon from Clare’- Accordionist Tony MacMahon’s retrospective album,and
‘Cooley’- accordion player Joe Cooley,some tracks recorded in a pub,just three weeks before his premature death,aged 49,in 1973.
I’ve only had time to listen to the first couple of tracks of the ‘Cooley’ album,-these are the ‘pub recordings’ and they are ‘alive alive’o’! (to quote a well known ballad!) :slight_smile:
Joe on Accordion,banjo by Des Mulkere,and Bodhran(with jingles attached) by Joe’s brother,Jack Cooley.
I imagine that ‘Paddy in the smoke’ is similar in ‘Pub ambience’ to this recording.
I think that I’m on the right track to ‘the Pure drop’ by listening to recordings such as these-please correct me,someone,if I’m wrong!

5

:laughing:

6

Yeah, this is a great CD… one of the disks I recommended a couple years ago along with a long list of ‘what to listen to’. I love feeling like I’m right there in that pub.
Chris

7

I don’t think it was particularly an Irish expression - it was common throughout the British Isles. I grew up knowing it anyway, long before Ireland and the Irish impinged on my consciousness. The reference is to atmospheric pollution, of course, the lethal smogs that plagued the city probably until the late 1950s.

Lucy Farr had a cassette album, Heart and Home, released by the English label Veteran. I just checked their web site and there is no mention of it, so it must be out of print or deleted. Pity - I have it and it is lovely shtoof.

Another of the players on Paddy in the Smoke is Martin Byrnes, whose classic record has recently made it to CD - http://www.custysmusic.com/mall/CustysTraditionalMusicShop/products/product-616745.stm.

I’d heartily recommend it, especially because it was one of the first Irish fiddle records I ever bought and played to death, so it looms very large in my ITM iconography. Of course you have to tune out Reg Hall’s piano if that’s not your cup of tea. I like it, actually, and I’m sure Martin Byrnes did, since the recording session was his idea it seems.

Another player on Paddy in the Smoke is Danny Meehan, a giant of a fiddler in every sense of the word, who came into his own a few years after that recording. He was another huge influence on me, but this time through personal contact. You can hear more of Danny on a recent CD - info. at http://www.dannymeehan.com.

I’m not sure, but I think the CD re-release of Paddy in the Smoke, at least the one on the Globestyle label, includes some songs from other Topic LPs, including some from our friend Packie Manus Byrne. A bad misjudgement in my view. Packie never hung out very much with “The Favourite” crowd and his studio-recorded ballads seem very incongruous alongside the pub recordings.

8

Thought of another that sits well in this “pure-drop in the pub” group:

Tony Mac Mahon & Noel Hill “In Knocknagree/I gCnoc na Grai”

Live unaccompanied box/concertina with a full set of dancers in Dan O Connell’s in Knocknagree; it’s hellacious.

9

I agree Chris,That’s a knock-out album-it really sounds like your sitting in that pub (it’s what put me on to Tony MacMahon’s playing) :smiley:

10

There are a couple of extra tracks on the CD that never made it onto the old LP (certainly Tommy McGuire is new) so even those with the LP get something extra. I used to play with John McLaughlin (spoons on the recordings). John -“Spooner” to his friends - was a heavy drinking Scotsman who played the fiddle left handed. I think he died about 1980 but he was great crack.

The Casey in the Cowhouse is very difficult to get hold of if not out of print. Since Tony Crehan died, I think it hasn’t had anybody to keeping the thing going. It was a home made product in every sense of the word. Casey’s playing on Ceolnet from the early 70s is mighty playing as well.

Steve, the copy I have is reissued by Topic TSCD603- don’t know the Globestyle version.

Ken

11

By coincidence, I was just this evening listening to an unissued concert CD of Kevin Crehan with his new partner Grey Larsen (flute/concertina/etc). Kevin has a beautiful essay about Bobby Casey on his site at http://www.kevincrehan.com/essay.asp

Also, Kevin’s “An Bhábóg sa Bhádóg” (roughly “The Baby in the Pram”) is a marvelous (unaccompanied) tribute to both his grand-da Junior Crehan, and to Bobby Casey.

12

I love Paddy in Smoke and am particularily interested in the fiddler Con Curtin. Does anyone know anything else about him? There doesn’t seem to be anything out there in terms of recordings (at least that I could find) or info on the web.

Thanks,

Mark

13

A year ago Crehans [www.crehans.com] had a few copies left, the last of the original batch, there may be a few left. Some shops, like Casey’s touristshop in Miltown Malbay, still stock some tapes otherwise very much out of print. When in Ireland it can be very worth checking the most unlikely outlets for old batches, I have found very rare, twenty year out of [print items on the shelf of small local shops.

Nobody said anything but don’t you think a major disadvantage on the smoke lp was having Reg Hall driving the piano?

Reg Hall by the way intended to do a solo lp of Casey’s fiddleplaying during the sixties hours and hours and hours again were recorded, loads casey on his own but also people dropping in like Tommy McCarthy, Paddy Breen Andy Boyle and others. There’s wopnderful stuf there . I always thought the PintheS album didn’t do Casey full justice and it’s very much worth trying to get the Cowhouse, his lp Taking Flight or better still some of the tapes in circulation, espacially stuff from the early 60s.

14

Mark,

Con Curtin was (is -don’t know if he’s still going) a Kerry man who ran a pub in Fulham which was apparently a bit of a mecca for irish music around the same time as the Favourite. Obviously he played a bit himself.

Ken

15

Wow. I wonder if he could be persuaded to do something about it now?

I recently bought Reg’s 2-CD and booklet compilation of Michael Gorman on Topic and it’s a mighty work.

http://www.mustrad.org.uk/reviews/gorman.htm

My main complaint concerns the size of the type in the 55-page booklet - about 6 pt Arial Narrow, it looks like, very hard to read in anything but bright daylight, and even then not easy. Printed in a more friendly format it would make a proper book of about 100 pages.

Athough - if you are not fond of Reg Hall’s piano, let me tell you it is the height of lyricism in comparison with Margaret Barry’s banjo plunking away behind many of the cuts on the Gorman compilation!

Obviously a huge amount of work involved in such a venture, and probably a dubious proposition commercially. But Casey, the genius, certainly deserves this kind of treatment too.

16

It is strange enough with Casey, there is really an abundance of material around and of unbelievable playing too but nobody really seems interested in doing work on it. Even ‘Taking Flight’ hasn’t been re-issued and that is in my opinion a great omission. I talked to Bobby daughter Angela about this at some point [as no doubt have many others] but she didn’t seem overly interested in doing anyhting about it.
One or two tracks of the Reg Hall tapes are on The Cowhouse by the way, JIM cARROLL AND pAT mC kENZIE gave some material to Tony Crehan who hadn’t enough material himself initially. There’s great stuff in it and a nice CD could be selected from it. Some of Reg Hall’s recordings of Jimmy Power and Tommy Kearney were recently issued as a CD by Na Piobairi Uilleann recently, there’s hope yet so something may be done with his other material.

17

There are also a few (3 or 4) excellent Casey tracks on “Ceol An Clair,” the brilliant compilation of Clare fiddlers released by CCE many years ago. I wonder if CCE would consider re-releasing that one on CD, as it also includes Junior Crehan playing The Mist Covered Mountain and The Golden Castle, and a load of truly gorgeous playing by Patrick Kelly, not to mention the great stuff from Joe Ryan and John Kelly. A friend of mine sent a tape of this album to me a while back, and I’ve probably listened to it a thousand times by now…it’s a classic.

18

We’re all still waiting on CCE to realease vol 2, let alone contemplating a CD. With Seamus MacMathuna set to retire it is expected NOTHING will ever come out of the CCE archive in the future. A shame as they have some lovely stuff and if they would set their mind to doing something that would really make the world of Irish music benefit from, they’d contemplate making it more available.

Interesting enough one set of Kelly’s on the ‘Ceol an Chlair’ are two separate tunes ‘spliced’ together. I don’t know what made them decide to do that.

Recently I was given a tape of Patrick Kelly and Mrs Crotty playing together which was interesting [and very nice], apparently they ‘had a thing together’ at some point and they are really fired up, tearing into it like there’s no tomorrow.