Seamus Tansey without piano backing??

[franco]

I'm with franco, can't stand that dreadful vaudevillian joanna clanking away like a bad night in a 40's East-End pub. Frankie Gavin's concert in Oxford was completely ruined by one of 'em (piano that is, not a pub).

That's a good analogy because that's kind of what it sounds like. Anyway thaks for all the tips. I'll go for a copy of Easter Snow and see what I think.

[StevieJ]

Music from the Coleman Country has several tracks which are just him and Andrew Davey (and a lot of other excellent tracks, with no piano anywhere).

There's electric organ on that too, basically inaudible on the original LP, but quite clearly heard on the CD remix, along with the guitar. I rather like it. As Séamus explains in the interminable "added-value" tracks of commentary on the CD, they got musicians from the local country band in to provide the backing for the LP.

As an aside the Hammond organ seems to be making a bit of a comeback on trad records these days - Andrew MacNamara's box CD No Compromise is one example among several. I rather like it there too. But if you can't stand Frankie Gavin's choice of pianists, perhaps you won't care for the Hammond organ either.

[colomon]

There's electric organ on that too, basically inaudible on the original LP, but quite clearly heard on the CD remix, along with the guitar. I rather like it. As Séamus explains in the interminable "added-value" tracks of commentary on the CD, they got musicians from the local country band in to provide the backing for the LP.

I think the only track I ever notice organ on is the John Henry (?) one they added for the CD release. Though I'm sure it's there in the mix in those big group numbers.

Still, the duet tracks are all straight duet, right? No backing at all.

The great thing about listening to all your music from MP3 is that you can keep things like those "added-value" tracks out of your normal listening, in which case they really are an added value! Not many IRTrad albums have liner notes as informative and entertaining as Seamus's commentary. (Though I do take it all with a "this is Seamus Tansey, after all" grain of salt.) Great stuff as long as you don't have to listen every time you want to hear the music.

[GaryKelly]

Well, to be fair to Frankie The G, I think it was the sound engineer's fault at the Oxford gig. Brian McGrath (the accompanist) is a lot more subdued on Mr Gavin's latest CD (Fierce Traditional). But at Oxford he was deafening, the piano mercilessly crushing the fiddle, and when he switched to 'church organ' mode for the slow air, you could hear the stage and balconies resonating and rattling horribly, with Frankie's lovely playing of the Bb whistle completely ruined in the background.

On the CD, The G plays flute rather than whistle on track 4, Sliabh na mBán, and very tasty it is too.

[StevieJ]

Still, the duet tracks are all straight duet, right? No backing at all.

In fact Col I think they all have backing. The most minimal is the enthusiastic "tambourine" on some of the Tansey and Davey tracks (Willie Coleman's, The Fox Chase) and on Jim Donaghue's whistle solo. This might be worse than piano for franco, I don't know.

But there is guitar on just about everything else and as far as I can make out organ too. Listen to Tansey and Davey's "Lord Gordon" and tell me you can't hear the organ on that. It's just a "pad" but it's loud and clear.

Steve

[colomon]

You're right, now that the album has rolled around in my play list. I certianly just noticed guitar backing on the duet "Trim the Velvet".

I guess I just automatically block it out, much like the piano on those old 78 recordings....

[Kevin L. Rietmann]

The ability to ignore accompaniment is a useful talent. Why don't they give workshops in that?
Listen to http://www.tedmcgraw.com/mp3/DannyODreels.mp3 for some really over-the-top piano playing. I wonder where you learn stuff like that?
The 78 with the bass/brushed snare drum backup was by Charlie Higgins, "The Pride of Drumkeerin, Co. Letrim." Like Peter says, it's a very nice sound, very light and you aren't distracted by the heaps of homophony guitars and pianos throw at you. Coleman and Killoran were accompanied by Whitey Andrews, who played a 4 string tenor guitar. Some of those records came out so all you hear is a third in the bass, and some faint strumming - a similiar light backup. Hugh Gillespie's guitar player apparently broke some of his strings before the session, with similiar results although he may not have planned it that way!
I prefer the bouzouki over the guitar for these reasons. Too bad Johnny Monyihan couldn't have been into the oud - or the balalakia. Or the monochord. Some of the chords the modern geetarists throw in are so pompous I can't listen to ten seconds of it. Celtic Emerson Lake and Palmer or something.

[Cayden]

for some really over-the-top piano playing. I wonder where you learn stuff like that?
.

Hehe, do you know that 78 RPM recording of the Blackbird from that Irish orchestra from Chicago, the one Joe Shannon played in for a while (can't think of the name now), that has a very memorable piano introduction. I loved that (probably for all the wrong reasons)

[MurphyStout]

I've listened to a Tansey album with a fiddler playe (who I don't recall) called "To Hell with the Bregrudgers" that may or may not have piano backing. I don't really recall, sorry. It's a nice album though.

[kenny]

.......Jim McKillop

[Unseen122]

Personally I love Piano accompiniment.

[Kevin L. Rietmann]

Hehe, do you know that 78 RPM recording of the Blackbird from that Irish orchestra from Chicago, the one Joe Shannon played in for a while (can't think of the name now), that has a very memorable piano introduction. I loved that (probably for all the wrong reasons)

Bonnnk! Big bass A note. That's Eleanor Kane, she could play the melody with the right hand and vamp with the left at the same time. I've never heard but the one 78 of her (it's on the Galway to Dublin record), I'd like to hear a whole tape.
I like that guitarist who backed up Hugh Gillespie (and Paddy Killoran, I think - those records don't have credit), Jack McKenna. He'd play these weird chromatic runs on the low E string, it sounds like he was into the Lydian mode or something!
Another of these old band records, Frank Fallon's Orchestra, has the RedHaired Boy hornpipe, the First of May is another name for it - the melody of the song the Little Beggarman. When they go into the second part the banjo player strums chords in a single triplet, it sounds like old ragtime or minstrel music! You definitely don't hear stuff like that anymore.

[kevin m.]

Well, this is really not addressing your question. But on Cape Breton Island almost all the fiddle music is accompanied by piano. I don't know what the tradition in Scotland is. I really like it---the people playing the piano are really expert at accompanying. I know a flute and a fiddle sound very different though.

Recently,I saw David Greenberg perform on Fiddle and Baroque Violin,accompanied by a Fine Pianist from Glasgow (who's name,unfortunately,I forget).
The accompaniment was pitched just right IMHO,never obtrusive and giving the music a 'lift'.
The fellow also played a battered Harmonium (coming from Glasgow,it's a wonder that it wasn't deep fried as well as 'battered'! -ahem, sorry Glasgow!) and Melodica - sometimes simultaneously.
David also gave us brief historical notes on the Cape Breton tradition,inbetween tunes.
This concert was a refreshing introduction to a tradition of musicmaking that I'd never heard before.