I was reading the liner notes on one of Harry Bradley’s CD’s, and he mentions learning some tunes from the 1920s recordings of John McKenna. I’ve been wondering, are these and similar recordings available on CD now? Or were they just around on 78’s that some people had?
I’d love to get ahold of some recordings by the really old geezers!
Any information would be great, thanks, Jeanie
I bought a tape years ago called “Fluters of Old Erin”, which had recordings of McKenna & others. It might be worth searching to see if it has been brought out on CD.
John McKenna is my at-present favorite guy. I’ve got a couple of recordings of him from the 30s … check your email EOD today and we’ll see if they fit in there!
In addition Viva Voce put out an entire cassette of McKenna called “His Original Recordings” from 1921-1937. It’s excellent…don’t think it has been re-released on CD, though.
Ooooohh, thanks! OK if I forward your notes to Santa? 
i have some casette tapes of John Mc Kenna or Jack Mc Kenna as he was known by many of his fans of the day in Ny, i copied the casettes from old homemade reel to reel tapes that i got from my uncle Joe in the late sixties,
he was a close friend of Mc kenna and quite often played flute with him at house parties, I also got an 8 keyed rosewood flute from my uncle before he passed away, it was a flute that belonged to Jack Mc Kenna and was used in some of his recordings, Mc Kenna was also a good singer and could lilt a tune
just as good as he would play it.
Cathy,
Thanks for e-mailing the McKenna files! I’m in the process of downloading them now, so it should work, I hope.
Many, many thanks! Jeanie
Topic’s Irish CDs (Irish Dance Music, etc.) each have a track or two of Mckenna on them, usually in duet. Rounder’s From Galway to Dublin and Shanachie’s Wheels of the World CDs have more; Rounder’s Milestone at the Garden has a duet with McKenna playing whistle, too.
One of his very earliest sides had him lilting the tune as well as fluting it - great stuff although it left the piano player behind.
glinjack, what’s that flute of McKenna’s like? Can you tell if it’s the one in the pic Peter posted?
Wow! What a blessing to have been willed one of McKenna’s flutes. Tell us more. How does it play?
Jeanie
from the photo, it looks like the flute McKenna’s holding is a run-of-the-mill German-type flute. Likely it was a Fisher flute, from the Carl Fisher chain in NYC which was huge on importing these things in the 20s and 30s.
How can you tell it is?
The crown is big/round silver. Very German style.
The G# key is angled and curved to the flute body; again, very German.
The keys are pillar mounts with the foot key touches very German styled.
The holes also look medium in size, which was also of the German styling.
Unclear whether McKenna played this flute in his recordings, though. Yet from what I’ve heard of his stuff (and I’ve got many great recordings that were copied from the 78s onto cassette) the flute wasn’t that great. He, however, was an outstanding player.
dm
Funny – that same picture was in the latest Treoir, only there it’s labeled John McKenna and Jim Morrison. (Hmmm… the context in the magazine suggests they think it’s James Morrison, unless there was a well-known Jim Morrison who was a recording artist in that period as well. Did “The Professor” play banjo-mandolin?) I assume Treoir is wrong – I know there’s a mislabeled picture of harmonica player Don Cavanagh later in the same issue, for instance.
Anyone have an idea how to get ahold of the Viva Voce album of John McKenna?
Hi
in answer to questions from Kevin L Rietmann and Hoovorff, the flute on the photo that peter posted is definately of the German factory make as David said, The flute that i have shows the form of the London makers, especially the keywork and machine turned mounts, it has eight keys with the C C#
and Eb keys having pewter plugs, the other six keys are saltspoon type,
The head joint is ivory which is original to this flute, there is no mark or name on the flute, it plays nice at the moment but with a bit of tightening up of joints etc i feel it would be a great flute, one of these days i will get around to
bringing it back to its former glory,
whoever made the flute had studied the work of some of the well known
London makers, Flute was made i would guess sometime between 1835 and
1860. I got the flute from my uncle Joe in 1970, he died in 1972,
That’s not Jim Morrison in that photo! McKenna and Michael Gaffney recorded as a duo on a few sides. Morrison could play various instruments though, I was told he taught fiddle with a banjo for instance. He and McKenna recorded with tin whistle/flute, too.
