Sligo Indians

Tony DeMarco | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 22, 2008)
• Original Release Date: 2008
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Smithsonian Folkways
• ASIN: B00157DOPK
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #76,431 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

About the Artist

Tony DeMarco: Irish fiddler. If that sounds slightly off, you have only to listen to the music on this recording to be cured of any preconceptions about the importance of ethnic purity in traditional music. There may have been a time when Irish music in New York City was played exclusively by Irish immigrants and their offspring, while their Italian neighbors strummed mandolins and sang opera. But the Big Apple really is a melting pot, at least for some of its disparate immigrant elements. Before World War II it really wasn't very common for Italian and Irish Americans to marry each other. By the 1950s, however, this kind of ethnic mixing was fairly normal in Tony's native Brooklyn, where the Italians and Irish lived side by side and attended the same parish churches.

Tony was born on May 20, 1955, the second of three children raised in East Flatbush by Paul DeMarco and his wife, the former Patricia Dempsey. Paul, a grandson of Italian immigrants, was a teenage lightweight boxing star who turned down an offer to turn pro and work with lightweight champ Paddy "Billygoat" DeMarco in order to pursue a more conventional career on Wall Street. Tony's maternal grandfather Jimmy Dempsey was a New York City cop and a son of Irish immigrants who married Philomena "Minnie" Fenimore, one of several Italian-American siblings who married into Brooklyn Irish families.

Musical ability runs on both sides of Tony's family. During the Prohibition years, Minnie Dempsey's Italian immigrant father ran a speakeasy in East New York, where he played the piano and mandolin. Tony's paternal uncle Louie DeMarco was a singer who performed with 1950s doo-wop groups, including "Dickie Dell and the Ding Dongs." Tony's cousin John Pattitucci, from the Fenimore side of the family, is a leading professional bass player who has recorded with jazz stars Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter. But Tony definitely found his way to Irish traditional music via a different path than the one trod by musicians raised in Irish immigrant households.

More typical young Irish traditional musicians in New York in the 1970s had at least one parent born in Ireland. They may well have attended step dancing classes with one of the many dance schools in the region, and most likely went to group music classes conducted in the Bronx, Brooklyn, New Jersey, or Long Island by Pete Kelly, Martin Mulvihill, and Maureen Glynn. They would have joined a branch of the international Irish traditional music organization Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann and competed each year at the regional fleadh cheoil at Manhattan College in the Bronx. If they placed high enough, they would go on to the big show, Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann--the All-Ireland Fleadh--from which not a few returned home with the coveted title of "All-Ireland champion" on the fiddle, button accordion, tin whistle, or other instrument. Tony had a different background altogether. As he puts it: "I never grew up with the competitive Comhaltas scene--I came through the hippie scene, the folkie scene." He tells the story of how he took up the fiddle and discovered Irish music in his own contribution to these notes, but it is worth repeating here that his first exposure to Irish traditional music was through a Folkways recording of the County Sligo fiddler Michael Gorman. Tony had many other musical influences before this, and would have many more afterward, but for him the appeal of the Sligo fiddle style would never fade.

Product Description

The Sligo Indians is a long-awaited solo debut for one of America's finest folk fiddlers. A Brooklyn native of mixed Irish and Italian descent, New Yorker Tony DeMarco is a master of the intricate ornamentation, swinging rhythm, and adventurous melodic improvisation that mark the famed County Sligo fiddle style. Mentored by the late Sligo master fiddler Paddy Reynolds, Tony has for decades been a pillar of the Irish session scene in New York City. 54 minutes, 36-page booklet with extensive notes. With special guests: Eddie Bobe, Kevin Burke, JR Davey, Tom English, Ivan Goff, Natalie Haas, Peter Horan, Charlie Lennon, Seamie O'Dowd, Fionn O'Lochainn, Jerry O'Sullivan, John Patitucci and Seamus Tansey.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a master musician at the height of his powers, April 29, 2008

By 

T. Madden (Glen Ridge, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sligo Indians (Audio CD)

This is traditional Irish music played by a master musician at the height of his powers. Sound quality, tune selection, arrangements, etc. are all great. Album pace is perfect, with just enough change in tempo from track to track to keep it interesting. On the day it arrived I played the entire cd through three times in a row before I could get up and do anything else. Tony is an awesome fiddle player with full command of a number of styles. Little touches here and there in his playing hint at his broad range, but the music never strays very far from the core of Irish Trad. While there are a number of guests on the recording, they really compliment Tony's playing. This is not a collection of duets, but a cohesive, personal musical statement. Powerful, sensitive, uplifting music.

Liner notes are fab as well, from some of the most knowledgeable people writing about Irish Traditional music today.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Master of the Sligo Style, November 1, 2008

By 

Terence Winch - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sligo Indians (Audio CD)

Tony DeMarco's playing has a paradoxical twist---there's an almost ethereal delicacy layered over an authoritative, melodic drive. The result is exciting and incredible playing that you won't mistake for anyone else's. Though Tony---a Brooklynite of Italian-Irish heritage---synthesizes all kinds of influences in his music (including bluegrass and jazz), the end result is pure Irish fiddle music in the Sligo tradition. It has been far too long a wait for this first solo album by one of Irish music's contemporary greats. But the wait is over and this extraordinary CD is now out there for all to hear.