Customer Reviews

Paddy In The Smoke: Irish Dance Music From A London Pub

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've just ordered this CD because my old album, purchased in about 1968, is almost transparent from playing it so many times. This is the real deal: Irish fiddle music recorded in a noisy London pub. You can taste the dark beer and cigarette smoke, and you can't keep still. The fiddle playing is superb, and the one tune with accordian is fantastic (the only thing I've ever liked on accordian).

If you've been lucky enough to stumble onto this review, please trust me: If you like traditional music of any kind, this CD will be one of your all-time favorites.

The very first note played on this recording--Martin Byrne's long vibrato on the G string--launches you into an incredible experience. The fiddles, the sounds of the barroom crowd--it all makes music from the concert hall and recording studio seem rather meaningless in contrast. This music, as Ciaran Carson notes, "is about something." Go, listen.

I first heard Paddy in the Smoke as a record around 1970. At the time I had just moved to New Hampshire from Berkeley and I was playing the fiddle for New England contra-dances. My interest in Irish music was just developing. I thought the playing on the record was very nice. But it was scratchy fiddling and sometimes the intonation was a bit off. I wore that record out. I now have the CD. I have over 300 CDs of Irish Traditional Music and I play mostly the timber concert flute. I live in Ireland.
I now realize that Paddy in the Smoke is one of the best recordings of Irish music ever made. It is heartbreakingly beautiful, capturing the passion, joy, and despair of Irish musicians living in London in the '60s. It might be the best recording of "live" Irish music ever made-- along with: "Paddy Canny, P J Hayes, Bridie Lafferty & Peadar O'Loughlin -- An Historic Recording of Irish Traditional Music from County Clare and East Galway."
Anybody with even a passing interest in Irish Traditional Music should put this CD at the top of their to-buy list and listen to it until they understand, and are consumed by, the music. Thirty-five years later I am still totally taken by this CD.

IN CALIFORNIA THIS IS WHO WE COPIED TO BE AUTHENTIC AS IRISH TRADITIONAL MUSIC PAYERS