Does anyone have any information on this CD and musician? I heard tracks from it on Clare FM and it sounded wonderful. Just wonder if anyone has heard it all and has a review - or mini-review.

http://www.cic.ie/cgi-bin/product.asp?idproduct=963

Cheers,

Gerry

Chris Droney is one of the stalwarts of North Clare concertina music, Ciaran MacMathuna recorded him playing with his father during the 1950s, his son Francis is a lovely concertinaplayer too. The Droneys are a dynasty of concertinaplayers. He has several tapes/Cds out, most recent 'The Fertile Rock' form the late 90s. He also plays with the Four Courts Ceiliband and can be heard on their recordings.
At 80 he's playing as powerful as ever.

I take it the Peter that you would recommend this particular CD? The little I've heard of it sounds great.

I don't buy a lot of CDs but it should be nice, yes. Jacinta McEvoy does the backing, which should be tasteful.

I have it. It's straight forward Irish concertina music. I like it. I'm not well versed enough to say how good it is, but it sounds good to me.

This is a great CD! As was pointed out, it is indeed nothing but straightforward concertina music, which I would hope would be what you're looking for in a CD from a concertina player. I don't know which of the tracks you heard on Clare FM, but if you liked those I can assure you that the rest of the CD is more of the same. Chris Droney's playing both reinforces and belies his age, which is now into his 80s. As is the case with his contemporary (both in age and in being a Clare man) the flute/fiddle player Peadar O Laughlin, the many years of playing mean that the music now inhabits the man, so what you hear is a pure expression of the essence of Clare music, with no personality or gimmicks to muddy it up. But despite the age of the player, there is great lift and energy to the music, to the point that if you didn't know better you'd swear it was coming from one of today's young bucks who has decided to discard the bag of tricks and just let the tunes have their say.

And the accompaniment on guitar and piano by Jacinta McEvoy is just right, to the point that I was a bit surprised to learn from a recent conversation with her daughter that Jacinta met Chris only a short while before they did the recording. It sounds as if they have been playing together for years!

I'm really looking forward to seeing and hearing Chris Droney live when he comes across the pond to the Catskills Irish Arts Week this July.