Giants of 1970s Irish folk revival set to revive their sound in Perth
Legendary” may be an overworked term in the music-chronicler’s lexicon, but the eponymously titled album by Andy Irvine and Paul Brady certainly remains a benchmark in the annals of Irish folk. Released in 1977, during a heady few years which saw the emergence of such enduring names as the Bothy Band, De Danann, Shaun Davey’s Brendan Voyage and Planxty, the album will be revisited, 43 years on, by Irvine and Brady when they play the only Scottish gig on their current tour at Perth Concert Hall next Saturday.
These now veteran troubadours had already developed a musical relationship within Planxty before they made the album. Listening to it again, more than four decades on, one is reminded of its sheer zest and of the musical empathy between the two different voices and instrumental approaches. The inspired fretwork between Irvine’s bouzouki or mandolin and Brady’s guitar frames songs with deftly unobtrusive folkbaroque intricacy, while Irvine’s hurdy-gurdy and repertoire of Balkan music introduce exotic elements amid rootedness in homegrown tradition.
Irvine suffuses the Napoleonic ballad Bonny Woodhall with immediacy and poignancy, while his own composition, Autumn Gold , is a winsome reflection. Brady’s epic rendition of Arthur Mcbride ,the tale of a loutish recruiting sergeant meeting his just deserts, remains a definitive account, couched in a distinctively tuned guitar accompaniment which beguiled Bob Dylan, as well as the rest of us.
The pair pursued their own careers for more than three decades – Irvine with reformed Planxty, Patrick Street, the multicultural Mozaik and other solo and collaborative projects, while Brady developed his singersongwriting career, collaborating with and writing material for Irish artists and other notables including Bonny Raitt, Tina Turner and Mark Knopfler.
They expressed apprehension when, some years ago, they embarked on a series of reunion gigs, but the results have met with enthusiastic acclaim. Perth Concert Hall – sadly their only Scottish date – should prove no different, particularly as they’ll be accompanied by two other salient veterans of the Irish scene, fiddler Kevin Burke and multiinstrumentalist Donal Lunny, both of whom played on, and in Lunny’s case produced, the 1977 album.
As luck would have it, just up the A9 in Dunkeld and Birnam that very same weekend (20-22 March), the 17th Niel Gow Festival looks back to a somewhat earlier folk hero – the fiddler-composer regarded by many as the greatest figure to emerge from the 18th-century “golden age” of Scots fiddle music.
The weekend will host such notable, cross-generational players as Adam Sutherland, Charlie Mckerron, Marie Fielding, Ryan Young and Douglas Lawrence.
In the meantime, the patientlyawaited bronze statue of Gow himself, for which local fiddler Pete Clark and his fellow organisers have long campaigned and fundraised, has been cast, and awaits only planning permission and
some further funding to cover final installation. Clark hopes that the statue, a striking likeness of the maestro by the distinguished sculptor David Annand, might be unveiled – with a celebratory concert – in early summer.
Travelling even further back in time, the Lowland and Border Pipers’ Society will celebrate the 700th anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath at their annual competition at the College of Piping in Glasgow’s Otago Street on 28 March. Unlike some of the more white-knuckle arenas of establishment competition piping, the LBPS competition tends to be a more informal affair which nevertheless has witnessed some notable emerging talent over the years.
As they approach the date of the Declaration’s signing on 6 April, the society is marking it on the 28th with an additional, one-off showcase competition “for elite bellows pipers” at the end of the afternoon. At the time of writing, Gary West, Malin Lewis and Neil Clark were among those expected to compete, with judging by audience vote.
The society has also arranged for a print of the Declaration, made from a 19th-century copper plate by the engravers Lizars, to be on view, courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. ■
Clark hopes that the bronze statue of Niel Gow might be unveiled in early summer