Every so often in Irish traditional music, a marvelous album comes along without much advance fanfare. The Missing Reel by fiddler Séamus McGuire and flutist John Lee, with superb support from guitarist Arty McGlynn and pianist Fiona McGuire (Séamus’ sister), is just such an album. Released at the end of 1990, it has sustained its popularity among traditional music lovers in Ireland throughout the spring and summer of 1991. And it will no doubt make more than a few best-of lists at the close of this year.
Sligo-born Séamus McGuire is familiar to many through his playing with his fiddler brother, Mánus, in the band Buttons & Bows. Séamus is also a former member of a Canadian group called Hang the Piper, with whom he performed in the late 1970s while serving his residency in pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital in Toronto. He is a past winner of the prestigious Fiddler of Dooney championship, one of the most rigorous open fiddle competitions in Ireland, held each year in Sligo.
Less well known is flutist John Lee, who hails from South Leitrim, particularly the area in and around Choone, Tooma, Aughavas, and Carrigallen. John’s father, Peter, his grandfather, Farrell, and his uncle, Bernie Cunnion, were three sources for the rich South Leitrim music heard on The Missing Reel.
But the primary source was the great Aughavas flute player John Blessing. Nine tunes culled from his repertoire appear on the album, including a coruscating medley of three reels, “The Road to Ballymac/ Corriga Grove/ The Cloone Reel,” on which John Lee’s forceful style of flute playing is absolutely brilliant. Another John Blessing selection of reels, “The Aughavas Reel/The Humours of Tooma/ Maggie on the Shore/The Drumerkane Reel,” starts off slowly, seductively, with John Lee on flute and Arty McGlynn on guitar, slides effortlessly into the second reel, then picks up tempo with the third reel, and finally tears into the fourth as Séamus McGuire’s fiddle joins in. Just outstanding!
Though half of the 14 tracks on the album are reels, it still offers an impressive variety of differently paced tunes. A musician with a far-reaching taste in the traditional, Séamus McGuire does a beautiful version of”Lord Haddo’s Favourite,” a Scottish slow air that the Battlefield Band had brought back to prominence on their 1982 album There’s a Buzz. Also featured on The Missing Reel is an unnamed wedding dance tune from Dalarna, Sweden’s “Folklore Province” famed for its own fiddling tradition. (On 1984’s Buttons & Bows album, Séamus McGuire did another Dalarna dance tune, “Waltz From Orsa.”) And rounding out the album’s Irish traditional tunes are a Leitrim clog dance melody, four jigs, a pair of hornpipes, and a Munster slow air entitled “Rechnoc Mna Duibhe,” learned by Séamus from Murroc, Limerick musicians Micheal O Suilleabhain and his wife, Noirin Ni Riain.
Cleanly and unfussily produced by McGuire, Lee, and McGlynn, The Missing Reel is a testament to the sheer joy and craic to be had by two talented Irish traditional musicians who hit it off from the first note. Séamus and John are neighbors in Letterkenny, Donegal, where they often get together in each other’s kitchen or living room for some tunes in private.
Each musician feels totally at ease with the other, and that close-knit quality permeates this recording, made during May-June 1990 in Letterkenny’s New Mills Sound Studio.
The Missing Reel is 43 minutes and 40 seconds of undiluted instrumental bliss. It is the best new traditional music album to come out of Ireland so far this year and would be considered a triumph in any year. Grab it!
The Missing Reel, by Séamus McGuire and John Lee, CEF 146, Gael-Linn Records, 26 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, Ireland.
Also New
Dance Across the Sea, by Mark Roberts, Sandol Astrausky, et al.
This is a pleasant, stately album of mostly traditional tunes taken from Ireland, Scotland, Brittany and England. Two former members of the band Touchstone, flutist Mark Roberts and mandolin player Claudine Langille, appear here, and the tracks featuring them are the album’s best, including “Rose of Lucerne,” “Trish Polka Medley,” and “Trip to Durham.” (The latter tune is mislabeled as a “traditional Irish slow jig.” It’s definitely a slow jig, Irish in flavor, but traditional it’s not, having been composed in the late 1970s by Armin Barnet and David Molk on their car “Trip to Durham” in New York’s Catskills.) There are four compositions by the late 17th-century Irish harper Turlough O Carolan, three of which feature Tipperary-born harper Mairead
Loughnane Doherty, who also does two slow air solos. Other musicians on the album include Sandol Astrausky on fiddles, Alan Bradbury on accordion and double bass, and producer Bruce Foulke on classical guitar. The 15 tracks add up to a competently performed if not very exciting album by some of New England’s better instrumentalists. (North Star Records, 95
Hathaway Street, Providence, RI 02907; 1-800-346-2706.
Time to Time, by Gerry O’Connor.
Superb solo debut from the gifted tenor banjo player hailing from Garrykennedy, Tipperary, who once played in the band the Wild Geese. There’s excellent studio support here, too, from button accordionist Mairtin O’Connor, bouzouki player Brendan O’Regan, guitarist Steve Cooney, dobro player Randell Rainwater, and guitar/bouzouki player Manus Lunny, who was in the Wild Geese with Gerry. It’s remarkable how well Gerry sustains the listener’s interest throughout all 13 tracks on the four-string banjo. One of the year’s finest releases! (Mulligan Music Limited, 75 Sweetmount Avenue, Dundrum, Dublin 14, Ireland.)
The Relief of Derry Symphony, by Shaun Davey.
The fourth album in Davey’s line of pop orchestral/operatic works-the first three are The Brendan Voyage, Granuaile, and The Pilgrim-and by far the weakest. It’s a mélange of ersatz Aaron Copland, mainstream melodies, and soundtrack-like swells and swirls. The gorgeous voice of Rita Connolly and the flawless uilleann piping of Liam O’Flynn can’t save it. Horseman (and record buyer), pass by!
(Tara Records Limited, 8 Anne’s Lane, Dublin 2, Ireland.)
My Love Is in America, by Kevin Burke, Séamus Connolly, et al.
Take 16 of the most accomplished fiddlers playing Irish music in the U.S., have them convene for a concert in Gasson Hall, Boston College, and what you get is this often exhilarating 22-track album recorded live that memorable night of March 25, 1990. The fiddlers are Kevin Burke, Liz Carroll, Séamus Connolly, Brian Conway, Johnny and Paddy Cronin, Tony DeMarco, Martin Hayes, Eileen Ivers, James Kelly, Andy McGann, Johnny McGreevy, Brendan Mulvihill, Paddy Reynolds, Dale Russ, and Martin Wynne.
Produced by Micheal O Suilleabhain, who cannot be praised highly enough for organizing this extraordinary event, it’s an album that belongs in every Irish music lover’s home library. (Green Linnet Records, 43 Beaver Brook Road, Danbury, CT 06810; 203-730-0333.)
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the September 1991 issue of Irish America. ♦
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