I've decided to post two together here... just to keep up a little with my massively advancing banjo compatriot Brendan.
I decided to play The Battering Ram slowly in order to improve my technique. However,what you will hear is a bag of cats being strangled slowly. Sorry about that.
Secondly, here's my version of Far From Home. A lovely hornpipe... my father does a great version of this one...
This is a real session standard, though people really struggle with the name... is it 'Maids of Mount Cisco', 'The Maid of Monsisco', or the 'Maid of Mount Kisco'?
There is a town just north of New York City called Mount Kisco, and most of the stories about the origin of this tune seem to point directly to that. Of all of these, I think the most likely to be true is that the great Sligo fiddle player, James Morrison (the professor) called the tune 'The Maid of Mount Kisco', in honour of his wife, who was from... you guessed it, Mount Kisco.
Here's a great version of this tune being played on the 'Hammered Dulcimer' - a distinctive and very rare-to-be-seen instrument! The musician in this case is Karen Ashbrook (karenashbrook.com)
God, I've struggled to get any playing done these past two months, so I have a lot of ground to catch up on.
Here's my attempt at the drunken landlady. I've tried to grace the tune a bit more, but I'm suffering from fiddler's squeak... don't know how I'm going to get a sweet, non-scratchy, non bum-notey sound on the fiddle in time for the big session, but I'll keep trying in hope of a miracle!
Although quite similar to the Pigeon on the Gate, the Drunken Landlady is a great reel in its own right. Thought to be first collected by the Dublin piper Séamus Ennis in the 1940s on Inishnee in Roundstone Bay, Co. Galway. It is a common session tune and has been widely recorded: Bothy Band, Out of the Wind into the Sun (1977); Noel Hill &Tony Linnane. Noel Hill &Tony Linnane (1978); Tommy Peoples, The Iron Man (1982); Shaskeen, My Love Is in America (1993); John Carty, Last Night's Fun (1996) and De Danann, Wonderwaltz (2010). Here is the Noel Hill version, in between the Humours of Ballyconnell and Ryan's:
I picked up this version ("with all the bells and whistles thrown in") from tablature in Enda Scahill's Irish Banjo TutorVol. II (p. 79 and CD2 tracks 51 & 52).
I first came across this beautiful reel, named as Paddy O'Brien's, on The Cat That Ate The Candle (1994) by John Carty & Brian McGrath. It is credited to John Carty on www.irishtune.info but I've recently learned that is in fact a tune called The Swallow's Nest composed by Paddy O'Brien the elder from Tipperary. I've come across several versions of the tune but, for me at least, Carty's mid-paced banjo version is unbeatable. In truth, I find it tough enough to play and 'make a hames of it' more often than not, but I'll stick at it.
Another barndance! The Warbling Robin (or Ceiliúr na Spideoge, in Irish) was composed by the Connemara flautist Marcus Hernon and recorded The Grouse In The Heather / An Chearc Fhraoigh (2000). It has been recorded on banjo by John Carty on I Will If I Can (2005). Here's my go at Carty's version.
Given to me by Brian McGrath, Far From Home or Far Away from Home is a lively barndance that was, apparently, one of the last tunes recorded by Sligo fiddler Michael Coleman in 1944. He was in ill health at the time and died the following year.
The tunes has been recorded under a variety of names: as Michael Coleman's on Johnny Óg Connolly & Brian McGrath Dreaming up the Tunes (1998), as Far From Home on John Carty Yeah, That Is All (2001), as Johnny Gorman's on Matt Molloy & John Carty Pathway to the Well (2007) and as Paddy Shannon's on Mick Conneely & David Munnelly 'Tis What It Is (2012).
Here is John Carty on banjo and At The Racket performing the tune in Crocket's on the Quay, Ballina.
We had a new wooden floor laid this week so I'm taking advantage of the great acoustics in the empty room ...
