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Bit of an aside here, but - Nic Moreno, when did the "Raw Bar Collective" release their 2nd CD ? I was only aware of one, but would be very eager to get the second. Any information gratefully received.

Bit of an aside here, but - Nic Moreno, when did the "Raw Bar Collective" release their 2nd CD ? I was only aware of one, but would be very eager to get the second. Any information gratefully received.

I picked it up at the catskills irish arts week. It might have just been released before that. They played on the Friday night with Nell singing, and ended with a set of newfoundland singles and just about the most fun dancing I've ever seen.

Joe John Mac Con Iomaire - Caoineadh na dTrí Mhuire is a nice one, with Seán McKiernan filling in on a C chanter as a bonus.

I know I was going to stop but there's another singer who is waiting to get a mention, the late Mick Flynn. I once said here that you hadn't lived until you heard Mick sing A stór mo chroí and he made the song his own, that's for sure. But he sang a lot more than that, on his own or with his wife Jane. Mind your searches though, there's another singer called Mick Flynn in Liscannor and few miles further up the coast and he's very prolific and totally different. It's the Miltown Malbay Mick Flynn you want.

I have no small picture of Mick Flynn handy on-line so I borrow one of my own pics from Clare library again:



For a bit of background, the singers talking to Antain O Farachain about their singing, yet another TG4 series, Amhráin is Ansa Liom , is great. Many on Youtube

Eg

Amhráin is Ansa Liom Áine Uí Cheallaigh

Eoiní Mhaidhcí Ó Súilleabháin -Amhráin is Ansa Liom

Amhráin is Ansa Liom Josie Sheáin Jeaic Mac Donnchadha

and a whole load more of them

And:

Róisín El Safty - Eleanór a Rún

Naisrín Elsafty - Máire Ní Eidhin

and one by their mother : Treasa Ní Cheannabháin - Nellie an Bhrollaigh Ghile

Thanks Nico, and also to Mr. Gumby for the link to "Custy's". Now, where's my "Mastercard"........................... ?

Mr Gumby

Thanks so much. You have given me enough here to keep me busy for weeks and I'm grateful for you for sharing your knowledge and enthusiasm for the music. I'll post again after I've listened to some of your suggestions and watched the videos.

All the best

Russ

To clarify about Paddy Tunney; as a non-Irish speaker, I found his singing, in english, particularly useful in understanding some of the peculiarities of sean nos singing. How the melody and ornamentation could be stretched or fitted to the emotional weight of each line, and how that could change from verse to verse. So many singers in every genre seem to get away with ignoring the sense of what they're singing, but a sean nos singer guilty of doing so would be howled down at the first hurdle.

If you listen closely to Tunney in English, particularly his recording of Sean O'Dwyer a Gleanna, one of the great irish slow airs/sean nos songs, it's all there. Unless you're a snob who declares that nothing in english can be sean nos, this is perfect, and for non-irish speakers, hugely informative. Yes, singing in english loses those great, singable, gaelic open vowels, but its got everything else.

I don't really want an argument about it Simon, as I said my reaction was more one of gut feeling than anything else. I generally look at singers as one group: singers. And within that the sean nós enclosure is not very well defined in my mind with the Connemara crowd obviously and clearly in as well as singers from other Gealtacht areas but there's a large fuzzy area around the edges, Language would be an issue to some but that crowd would have to evict Mick Flynn and his A stór mo chroí and that right there shows you just how untenable holding that position can be.

I must say that like instrumentalists (people here would say 'musicians'. There are singers and there are musicians) modern sean nós singers can sound very conscious of what they are doing, like a craft that has been taught rather than something picked up, all the ornaments in their proper places and all that. I feel that's a shame but what can you do? There's a whole discussion to be had about that one, the effect of 'passing on' music in its natural environment and teaching music in formal settings (and the inevitable codification that comes with it).

Mick Flynn is probably on the Clare library site I linked to above. He had a few recordings of his own and he was also on the olf 'Lambs on the Green Hills' recording with other Clare singers. Look up Ollie Conway when searching that corner, he was a mighty singer too. His 'Yellow Bittern' was really something. And I love Vincie Boyle too, he can turn a crude Ritchie Kavanagh ditty like 'A little bit of 'lastic' into a fine piece of traditional singing.