I don’t think there are many DVDs around yet featuring whistle played competently or better in a concert setting. Over the weekend, I watched two DVDs that fit this description. I’ve had them both for a while but haven’t had the time to watch them right through. I don’t know if either has been mentioned here before.
The first is Kate Rusby’s Live in Leeds. Apart from Rusby’s fine folk singing you get a superbly tasteful band featuring Mike McGoldrick on whistles and flute throughout, occasionally joined on whistle by John McCusker.
The other is a two DVD set of the Dubliners 40th anniversary concert called, believe it or not, 40 Years. I guess that would have been the aging John Sheahan on fiddle and occasionally whistle, still sounding fine. The band sounded fine pounding out the expected favourites; in fact they sounded much better than we have any right to expect from them at this stage in their careers. This DVD brought home to me how very little difference there is between Australian folk and traditional song and Irish folk when played mainly on string instruments. Even the singing sounds similar.
I’ve got some excellent Michael McGoldrick stuff with a band called Flook.
No whistles, but some of the best flute playing you’ll hear.
I stupidly missed a chance to see him at a festival in Castlewellan, Co Down a couple of years back. After his set onstage, he and his band went back to the pub and played till 7am the next morning!
That would be their live CD wouldn’t it, Bresker? I think I prefer their later stuff but that might just be due to my having heard it first. I would expect them to visit Australia before too long actually so I think you’ll get that chance to see them, but not with Mike McGoldrick of course.
Old John really gets the crowd going with Swallow’s Tail. Interesting to compare his whistle version with Barney’s banjo solo version as found on some of the CDs.
I like the hornpipes he plays, The Showman’s Fancy and the Wonder Hornpipe, just before Swallow’s Tail, and wasted no time adding them to my repertoire.
Can someone please explain to me why the Dubs play reels with a swinging rhythm like a hornpipe whereas most other Itrad artists I’ve heard play them straight? I’ve noticed that John Whelan does the same thing. Is this a matter of preference or are they defying convention? I can’t hear Docherty’s Reel any other way.
