I think it was in 1948 that Seamus Ennis made some acetate recordings for friend in the US. He played the Bucks of Oranmore, the Brother’s Jig, the Sligo Maid, et al., and did it great. He introduces the tunes saying that he’s sending them over for “Louie” (maybe Louis).
Does anyone know who “Louie” was?
Wasn’t it Louis Quinn, a fiddleplayer who was part of the group around Lad O Beirne?
Ennis was approaching his peak ,in my opinion, around that time. The Doolin recordings he made maybe a few years later were also superb. Present day pipers, who do their homework properly, or maybe those who aspire to be pipers in future years, can only hope to emulate the great master, learning to place their ornamentation in the appropriate places in the tunes,and observing steady rhythm, as very few do today. The basic simple melodic framework of the tune, with good rhythm, is the most important skill of all, and if you do not get this right, no amount of ornamentation, however clever, will embellish the tune and endear it to the listener.
The open style of playing is much favored by the general public, or non pipers, being melodic, and easy on the ear, where rolls, twisting the chanter, and sliding the odd note are basically the only skills required, this can be mastered quite easily by a competent whistle player in a relatively short time. This does little for me,sadly, so I still listen to Ennis/Reck if I want to hear piping. He always seemed to find the right style for the particular tune he was playing,and made sure his decorations fit perfectly within the overall context and rhythm of the particular piece at hand . Patsy Touhy rattled out triplets/quadruplets/Etc. like a Thompson machine gun, and I was enthralled with this stuff when I heard it first, yet take away all the backstitching gimmicks and you have a very basic musician, although I am quite sure that many will disagree with me on this. I have listened to all this one-trick-pony stuff over and over, just to find out what he was doing at the time, and it seems he missed out, or decided not to use, the simpler ornaments in most of his playing, which in my opinion, would have made him a much more rounded and greater exponent. Maybe he disliked the little grace notes, ghost notes,etc.,etc.that are in most pipers toolbox, or maybe he just did not learn to use them in early days when he was learning. Enough said, I am ranting on, as usual, voicing an opinion which may well cause disdain to some, and send minor tremors through the piping psyche of many smuggish present day pipers, also hapless individuals who are struggling to learn this wonderful instrument. My tip for beginners, though, listen to Ennis, and buy David Powers 18.5 Maloney cd, this would be time very well spent, and do put in the hours practicing, forget about composing as we seem to have more than enough of this ilk around today, and do remember the chanter is what you are playing, first and foremost, leave the other bolt-ons on the back boiler for the present.
For anyone who doesn’t already know of these recordings, they can be found at the following link - you’ll have to scroll down 3/4 of the page to the Irish Music Recordings section:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/music/
These are Ennis at his finest, matched only by the Doolin recordings (made in 1957 ?). Everything else I’ve heard falls short.
matched only by the Doolin recordings
Hmm, some of the 1948 acetates are quite exquisite and a good few other ones are up to and above the same level too, Queally’s pub 1957 (during the Miltown fleadh, actually a few days before the Doolin stuff but he was playing for friends not for broadcast so he’s flying), the group of recordings around the Mist on the Mountain/Silver Spear, some of the long sets Breathnach got off him, that one recording of the Blackbird, the Clare Foxchase, the precision and technique he displayed so deliberately when Breathnach had him filmed (until they lost the video copy Brendan used to show us beginners anyway). That was the stuff of my formative years as a piper anyway, along with everything else.
They are brilliant, incredible musicianship and taste. Pity he didn’t maintain his technique into the era of decent recording quality.
I do think his recordings for the 1960 EP Ace and Deuce of Piping are pretty good for the later stuff, the first two tracks especially. Does anyone know the background to that recording session? I know it was done in London, but that’s about it.
So these are recordings not issued on vinyl or CD? Are there a lot of Clancy’s playing also recorded for his close friends?
I do think his recordings for the 1960 EP Ace and Deuce of Piping are pretty good for the later stuff
Not sure you can call 1960 as falling into ‘the later stuff’ when, arguably, less than two years before he was really on the top of his form.
I am not sure when the Breathnach film was done, all I know is that Brendan wanted to document Ennis’ technique and that the film was then lost sometime around 1985 (they had a video copy of it knocking around that time anyway). Breathnach showed the video in 1982 or so and it has Ennis sitting all suited up in front of bookscases playing one long set of Easter Snow, Lament for the Fox, Gold Ring and (the other) Dusty Miller. The playing is deliberate to show the technique and he executes the tunes to perfection. Really lovely, and perhaps overwhelmingly so when I first heard it. All I have is the sound recorded from th side of the tellie Breandan used to show the tape, which isn’t ideal although not too bad, considering.
I think there are more than a few later recordings where he rose to the occasion and played beautifully. Problem is, he never quite had the pipes going the way he did through the forties and fifties (there’s a story to that I suppose, especially when considering the way they went through the seventies , but we’ll leave it at that).
Are there a lot of Clancy’s playing also recorded for his close friends?
We’re on Ennis’ case now but yes, it was not uncommon to send friends recordings, in Clancy’s case the tape he sent to John Joe Tuttle is probably the most powerful example, and there is the mention a lost tape he recorded for Ennis, playing the styles of all pipers Ennis hated (Which Rita Byxbe was supposed to deliver but lost) but I have examples of ‘musical letters’ like that by Leo Rowsome, Bobby Casey (for a variety of people), Tommie Potts’ tapes for Peter O’Loughlin, from Micho Russell and others. There’s a recording Ennis, Clancy, Martin Talty Thady Casey, JC Talty and a few others made for a friend (a further unidentified ‘Eddie’), which partly survives as well.
And I am sure you must have heard Peadar Broe’s “letter” to (I think) his daughter? Fabulous playing.
Peadar Broe’s “letter” to (I think) his daughter
Brian Gallaher’s wife was the source of that one, she told me how that came about but I can’t remember the exact details. Not sure it was for Broe’s daughter though. Unless we’re thinkin of different recordings ofcourse.
I came a cross another recording at some point as well, Paddy Killoran wasa regular visitor here, he was married to Josie Hayes’ sister, at some point a recording was made with music, by Killoran and friends of his as well as local musicians, with messages for friends and family in the US. At some point Kitty Hayes came on with her message for her sister in law and she told how she pined fora concertina and how she’d play a tune for the tape if she had one. She ended up waiting near to another forty years before she got the chance to play.
Very much documents of social history as well as musical mementos.
Is it the one where Peadar plays The Old Man Rocking the Cradle, gradually changing the tempo?
Thanks for the link PJ.
I’d heard a few of those tracks before on Forty Years of Irish Piping, but the others are new to me. Wow, really great stuff. Do the Doolin recordings refer to the ones on the Clare Library live recordings site? If not are there sources to get any non-commercially-available tracks?
Do the Doolin recordings refer to the ones on the Clare Library live recordings site?
The ‘Doolin recordings’ are a set of recordings made by Ciarán MacMathúna for RTE in the aftermath of the Fleadh in Miiltown. You can hear Ennis call the titles of the tunes and C.M. repeating (’ Ballymanus Fair and Kelly’s hornpipe’—‘Ballymanus Fair an Kelly’s hrnp, whoever Kelly was’… that sort of thing). Most often the Silver Spear/Dublin Reel set gets played from that recording, Ennis was flying, he was feeling the pressure of eyes on him, Leo Rowsome was there and perhaps more nerve wracking for him, the Father, James Ennis. He was recorded years later saying he set off that set too fast but made it home anyway. MacMathúna made similar comments, I believe on his ‘Job of Journeywork’, where he revisited some of his recordings.
There’s also a bit of whistle and fluteplaying by Ennis from that particular occasion.
I don’t think they are on the Clare library site, I just had a look but didn’t see them (it was a quick look though).
That’s in The Return from Fingal right? Very fast
I also downloaded the recordings of Seamus Ennis, that go under the name of Morning Brush from Thesession. Very exciting playing!
Btw, does anyone have any more recordings of Mr. Ennis, or know of anywhere where I could find more? I would greatly appreciate it! 