Pardon my ignorance, but can someone please define “pure drop” for me? Whatever it is, I have a nasty suspicion that, as a harmonica player, I won’t be able to partake of it 
Steve Shaw.
Steve, I don’t see anyone else rising to the bait, so I’ll have a bit of a go. As I understand it, the “Pure Drop” is a euphemism representing ITM the way it was played by just plain folks in its natural settings before it became the pervue of the modern professional music industry. This can be whatever one wants it to mean, or as much as one thinks they know about it, I suppose. I think this is supposed to mean people playing at home, or for/with the neighbours, passing the music on from generation to generation. Unfortunately, things get a bit muddled, because those who learned it at home were also the ones who became today’s modern professional musicians.
At best, it can harken back to some Golden Age, where the instruments were whatever you could get your hands on or make, including harmonicas, or you could just lilt the music if you didn’t have anything else. But definitely there was a simplicity of style of playing the music, without heavy overproduction, symphony orchestras, synthesizers, heirarchies of leading and backing instruments, etc. Also, there was a definite sense of rhythm to the music, which was not jazz or modern folkrock or new age mood music or whatever else. It was definitely played as ITM without any foreign influences. People go on about the speed sometimes, but I think that is immaterial compared to getting the feel of the music.
By the way, I seem to recall a big deal being made many years ago about a family from the south of Ireland that were amazingly good on harmonicas, but I can’t remember their name, now. Perhaps someone else here remembers them, and if they ever recorded.
Cheers,
djm
Thank you djm - I can see what it means now from your very clear explanation, especially the contrast with some of the more modern “slick” interpretations of the music. I suppose there’s room on the planet for everything but I know which style I prefer… I’m also heartened to see that you don’t consider the harmonica to be excluded!
It would be the Murphys of Wexford that you’re thinking of. They made one album (to my knowledge) called Trip to Cullenstown. The father died some years ago, leaving two brothers (I think) who are still active. Two other currently-active traditional harmonica players are Mick Kinsella (modern, jazzy-bluesy style) and Noel Battle (much more traditional). There are some in N. America too, notably James Conway of Chicago who has a CD of Irish tunes called Mouth Box.
Thanks for that!
Cheers
Steve
And in Canada there’s Don Kavanagh, whose album is A Dubliner and His Harmonica.
Yes. That sounds right.
Never heard of him, but more power to him.
djm
How about Brendan Power?
Yikes! what happened to the URL? Fixing it…
I didn’t mean to leave out Brendan Power - that was inexcusable - sorry! He has done a huge amount to promote the harmonica in Irish music, and he also makes and customises harmonicas for “Irish” needs.
Steve.
I wouldn’t forget about Eddie Clark, gorgeous harmonica playing and pure-drop by my book. He is on the Sailing Into Walpole’s Marsh LP/Cassette with Maeve Donelly and Sean Corcoran, and other places, too, I’m sure.
Including an album with Joe Ryan on fiddle and yes, I’d say pure drop. I have that on LP and it’s probably hard to get unless it’s been reissued on CD. I don’t find it listed on the Green Linnet site though. The LP is Green Linnet SIF 1030. The harmonica is not that easy to hear clearly on the recording because it’s overshadowed by the fiddle. Still nice stuff though.
Steve
As far as I know, that’s their only solo (ie, family) album. But they also appear on Kevin Burke’s Up Close.
A couple of older players worth mentioning would be the Cape Breton player Tommy Basker (Tin Sandwich) and also Noel Pepper.
Tommy Basker, Eddie Clarke - yes, I was very remiss in not mentioning them too! Just shows what depth of knowledge there is on the list if only you can goad people by asking the right question! 
Talking of Kevin Burke (cheers Wombat) reminded me of the absolutely stunning harmonica playing of Mark Graham on the Open House albums (I’m particularly fond of the first one). Among lots of other things he plays a brilliant version of Mullingar Races. I know that a lot of modern recordings, what with their high “production values,” are probably migrating away from “pure drop” but some of them are d**ned good none-the-less!
And while I’m unashamedly promoting harmonica players, what about just any recording featuring said instrument that Andy Irvine made…
Cheers!
Steve
I should have checked for a website before mentioning him:
http://www.thewhistleshop.com/catalog/tutorials/cds/kavanagh/kavanagh.htm
They have sound samples. There is some accompaniment, so it’s not purely pure drop, but but he’s a good old-fashioned Irish musician. (Albeit with a bit of a French-Canadian influence these days.)
He’s a fine player, a lot of fun to play tunes with, and a great guy.
…so, if there’s accompaniment, it isn’t “pure drop” then? 
Cheers!
Steve
That’s putting it a bit bluntly, and it depends what kind of accompaniment, but basically: yes. The music is originally unaccomanied (or unison) music (also called “single-line” music: no harmony, no counterpoint).
So, for example, would you call the early Planxty albums “pure drop?” Most of the tracks have some sort of accompaniment, yet these albums are regarded in some circles as being “seminal.” I know (second-hand, as I’m “young”) that eyebrows were raised at the time…
This is a brilliant thread…thanks to all.
Cheers
Steve
Nope. Liam O’Flynn playing by himself would be pure drop. The Romanian stuff and the bouzouki was Andy Irvine’s contribution. I suppose you could call it world fusion at a folky level.
When I first got a CD burner the first thing I did was take all my LPs and edited out all but Liam’s playing.
djm
Planxty is definitely not pure drop. It is seminal for the IrTrad groups that followed, from Stockton’s Wing to Deanta, Dervish to Nomos and so forth. They were certainly the biggest thing that had happen in Irish music at the time and made the music popular with an age group and outside Ireland. By that time the folk revival had pretty much worn itself out and folk rock was flourishing. Andy Irvine, Christy Moore (with John Faulkner, and also others like Joe Dolan) had been playing the folk club circuit in Ireland in the sixties for a while, playing guitars, mando, harmonica. In 1972, Christy Moore’s “Prosperous” album was basically the blue print for Planxty, and you have Liam O’Flynn on there (if you listen to Raggle-Taggle Gypsy/Give Me Your Hand it’s planxty right there). When they decided to form Planxty shortly thereafter and asked O’Flynn whether he’d join the band (Proserpous had just been a project), they were suprised that he agreed, “beacause he was so into the traditional stuff at the time.” (See Andy Irvine webpage for that bit of history.)
Musically I don’t think Planxty was all that seminal. They came after a decade of the Chieftains trying to figure out how Irish trad could be played in a group setting. If you listen to Chieftains I-V you see the progression from basically taking turns playing solo (or unison) to increasing complex and harmonic arrangements. But the Chieftains had nothing to do with folk/rock or the younger generation. On that side there was Sweeney’s Men, who between 1966 and 1969 pioneered the bouzouki/mandolin sound that became the stable of Planxty (Lunny & Irvine backing Christy’s singing or O’Flynn’s piping). If you listen to Rattling Roaring Willy, the first track on Sweeney’s Men, you’ll hear it. (Sweeney’s Men were Andy Irvine, Johnny Monyhan, Terri Wood, who had replaced Joe Dolan). The basic approach to playing Irish trad in a “band” was there before Planxty formed. What they added was playing more traditional tunes, and of course using the bagpipes.
Right, I’ve understood that Planxty were not pure drop. I have those early Sweeney’s Men and (some) Chieftains discs and I can also take your point that Planxty were perhaps not even seminal - like many others they were building on what went before…but they did take the ailing thing by the scruff of the neck (I’m wrong aren’t I?) and inject a new dynamism, didn’t they? And they did it without fancy effects or electronics of any sort…I love 'em. shoot me down!
Steve
Shoot you down? No! I love them too and practically everybody I know who plays the music today (and wasn’t born in Feakle) cut their teeth on Planxty and the Bothy Band. Brilliant stuff that has aged very very well (can you say the same of Steeleye Span, or Pentagle?). Without those two, would there be as many uillean pipers today? And I do think that they made Irish trad hip and acceptable at the time, like Clannad made Gaelic cool. (Of course we probably wouldn’t have as many zooks and bodhrans either, but what can you do.)