CD Review - Gay McKeon, Irish Piping Tradition"

Nobody comes with better piping pedigree than Gay McKeon. From the early days as a pupil of Leo Rowsome in the Thomas St Pipers' Club (there's an oft-used photo from that time included in the exemplary notes) to well-known piper with recordings with Christy Moore, June Tabor, Noel Hill and Maddy Prior, Gay has a platinum track-record, and the solo album was overdue.

It's not a strictly a solo album, since he's joined by wife Mary Corcoran on keyboards, Paul O'Shaughnessy on fiddle, Tom McDonagh on bouzouki and Paul Doyle on guitar. Yes, and the younger generation is represented by his two sons, Conor and Sean. The selection of tunes is very good with classics like Lord Gordon's and Trim the Velvet, set dances like Frank Roche's Favourite, and good slow airs like Lord Mayo and Slan le Maigh, also known as the Bells of Shandon (to Fr. Prout's words).

The chanter playing is beautifully clean, the ornamentation neat and the staccato regulator work like an echo of Rowsome. To my taste, though, some of the reels are taken too quickly,as if driven by the accompaniment with the plectrum setting the beat. This even applies to the Garden of Daisies set-dance, but there are two jewels of hornpipes, the Ballyoran, paired with The Tailor's Twist, and the Plains of Boyle/The Independent. These two, plus an unaccompanied and very natty Colonel Frazer, would make any album into a find..

August 1997