Galway Advertiser 1996/1996_08_01/GA_01081996_E1_019.pdf 

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ENTERTAIN M ENT
GALWAY'S MOST COMPREHENSIVE ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE - EDITED BY L F O'CONNELL EF

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M o r e B a n g For Y o u r Buck
playing up a storm and sounding as if they're having a ball, but there is a classic timelessness about this album that comes directly from the material Arcady has chosen to play. The inspiration for 'Many Happy Returns' came to Johnny a few years back. He was in a pub listening to a traditional band when an old man, during an inter val, asked them for 'The Sally Gardens'. "They didn't play it. Or maybe the truth was, they couldn't play it because they didn't know it. And I started thinking that there were a lot of songs and tunes that nobody seemed to be doing any more. "I begin thinking somebody should do an album of classic tra ditional material, both for that older generation who remem bered and still loved beautiful old songs like 'Sally Gardens', and for a younger audience who might never get to hear them at all." Gradually it became clear to him that, if, as seemed likely, nobody else was going to under take the job, it was up to Johnny and Arcady to do it. The result is 'Many Happy Returns', is a selection, as Jackie Small writes in his sleeve notes, of "the most popular and durable of these songs and tunes gathered together in one collection...[This] well-loved core of tried and trust ed favourites...represents the common language of all tradition al players and singers, no matter where they come from or what their own special styles or reper toires may be." In other words, Arcady's new album makes a statement. As Johnny explains, "Over the last five or ten years the trend has been for Irish musicians to be more contemporary in terms of material, instruments and perfor mance. There's nothing wrong with this. But it's also important not to forget, and to reaffirm from time to time, the roots of the tra dition. And a lot of the material on Arcady's new album aims to do just that." Johnny found when he and Arcady were playing in the United States that many audi ences requested the older songs and tunes. 'It's as if they were recalling us to our roots." Again, as Jackie Small writes, "these songs and tunes...evoke vivid and poignant memories, laden as they are with associations with great musicians and singers at other times and on other occasions." "These were the songs and tunes I was listening to 25 years ago "The Pipe on the Hob' done by Sweeney's Men, 'Once I Loved' by Sarah and Rita Keane, Terry Smith singing 'John o' Dreams'." It also seemed to Johnny that Irish music was in danger of becoming too commercialised, becoming a 'product' that was easy to market, becoming, in fact, overly-sophisticated. For these reasons, sound and production attained became important. "What I tried to get on 'Many Happy Returns' was some thing like the sound you get on albums that were done in the 70's. I've heard a lot of tradition al tunes played with over-fussy arrangements. I wanted to try to re-capture that 'living' sound you get when you hear a band playing in a pub, rather than in a studio." This is an important point, and one that has been made increas Connemara step dancers, or an ingly by a number of musicians, old favourite like 'The Rocks of working in many different genres. Bawn' sending the kind of shivers Digital recording often gives an up your spine that you normally 'air-brushed' feel to the music. only get if you're lucky enough Clarity is exceptional, no ques to be sitting in at a session as this tion; but something of the raw deeply moving song unfolds ness, the spontaneity of perfor around you. mance is lost. Arcady's line-up includes some As a parallel, that old rocker, of the finest contemporary tradi Neil Young, is never tired of say tional musicians on the current ing how much he prefers vinyl to scene. There's maestro Johnny CD, and on his recent album, 'Ringo' McDonagh on bones, 'Big Time', he actually includes bodhrans and triangle; Nicholas one track of an old blues number Quemener "laying down a dri-

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hat's what an American said to Brendan Larrissey one weekend recently when he told her that Arcady was about to release a new album. He's still trying to figure out what she meant. "But she was smiling when she said it, so I'm pretty certain it was meant as a compliment!"

'Many Happy Returns' (Dara CD 080) is the name of Arcady's brilliant new album, 'baptised' at a massive celebratory hooley in Dublin last month. 'New', yes, but only to Ireland. In fact, it was released by Shanachie Records in the States last year, and it won the Independent Record Company 'Traditional Album of the Year' Award. 'New', yes, but in fact the tracks on 'Many Happy Returns' were recorded almost two years ago. But then Johnny McDonagh, Arcady's frontman, went into hospital for a triple-bypass opera tion, and while traditional music's best-known bodhran player was recuperating, other band members pursued other projects, such as Brendan Larrissey's stunning solo debut, 'A Flick of the Wrist'. By this year, Johnny was get ting worried that unless the band took steps to release the album in Ireland, it wouldn't be new at all, because the enormous popularity of the album Shanachie had released in the US were begin ning to trickle into Ireland. With the new opportunities pre sented by an Irish release, Johnny settled down to arranging the track list in a different and musi cally more satisfying playing order. As producer, he also worked hard at getting just the right kind of sound for this selec tion of songs and tunes that had been quite consciously chosen to illustrate an underlying theme. Finally, the band commissioned artist Catharine Kingcome to design the marvellous cover of 'Many Happy Returns', with its startling image of fiddle, accor dion, bodhran, and guitar hung up on a typically knarled and bent tree, such as you can see every where in the West of Ireland, recalling the aeolian harp that makes its music from the rustling of the wind. The extra time spent on prepar ing the Irish release has been fully justified. Since its release 'Many Happy Returns' has had critics tumbling over themselves with heart-felt praise, both for the standard of musicianship dis played throughout the sixteen tracks, and - equally importantly for the care with which the mater ial has been chosen. Let us first of all get one thing on record: 'Many Happy Returns' is a great album. Not only is it a joy to hear such fine musicians

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ARCADY
Conor Keane, whose instinctive handling of rhythm has to be heard to be believed; the lilting and seemingly effortlessly melod ic Brendan Larrissey on fiddles Finally, there's the superbly expressive Niamh Parsons, "whose husky, evocative voice gives a warm glow to every lyric here" (Irish Echo). No less a con noisseur than the great Scottish singer Archie Fisher has said that "a voice like [hers] only comes along once in a generation". In addition, Arcady has assem bled some of its friends, people like Phil Callery, Fran McPhail, and Gerry Cullen, aka The Voice Squad; Liam O Maonlai; Michael McGoldrick, Paul O'Driscoll; Neil Martin; and Brendan Power - an old friend of Johnny's. The result of all this talent com ing together under the guiding vision of Johnny McDonagh is an album that will be enjoyed with pleasure a hundred years from now as much as it is currently delighting record-buyers all over Ireland and the United States now. There is something bogus about trying to express in words the experience you can only get lis tening to music. Much as this is true for musk in general, it applies particularly to traditional musk, in whkh each perfor mance of a well-known tune both pays due homage to the players and singers who have 'inhabited' the music in the past, and gives the individual contemporary play ers and singers the chance to re interpret the music for today's audience. Arcady, unquestionably one of the very finest traditional bands working with the rich legacy of Irish music today, has created its 'masterwork' with 'Many Happy Returns'. It has accomplished the near-miraculous in both acknowl edging its musical debt to the past and giving a bright morning freshness to songs and tunes our fathers and mothers knew and loved. It's been a long wait since Arcady's debut album, 'After The Ball', but after only one hearing of 'Many Happy Returns', it's been well worth the wait. Steve Winick, writing in the US folk music magazine. Dirty Linen, put his finger on what's special about this album, "Because it takes tunes and songs from the very core of traditional Irish music and presents them in exciting and contemporary arrangements, this disc will in time be considered a classic." You can hear Arcady in con cert next Thursday, August 8, in the Town Hall Theatre. Don't miss this chance to hear one of the very finest traditional musk groups on the contemporary

There is something bogus about trying to express in words the experience y o u can only get listening to music"
recorded in a club; you hear con versation, orders for drinks, glass es being set down on tables, while underneath it all the band chugs along like an old steam train. It's a marvellous perfor mance; you can almost smell the music bouncing off the walls of the club. So, on 'Many Happy Returns' you get a tune like 'The Battering Ram' that conjures up in your mind the feel of a group of ving, aggressive guitar rhythm reminiscent of the Bothy Band" (US critic Steve Winick in Dirty Linen), and lending his voice on vocals; Patsy Broderick, who's "drive and rhythm are just breath taking and offer further proof why she belongs on the same short list of Charlie Lennon, Carl Hession and Michael O Suilleabhain as Ireland's most gifted keyboardists today" (Irish Echo), on piano and keyboards;