CLADDAGH RECORDS NEWSLETTER February 1999 Claddagh Records, Dame House, Dame Street, Dublin 2, Ireland phone/fax +1-353-1-679-3664. Retail and international mail-order. email claddagh@crl.ie (Finbar Boyle) http://indigo.ie/~claddagh/ THE EAGLES WHISTLE. Michael Tubridy.. First time on CD. Michael Tubridy played flute and concertina on those first beautiful Chieftains albums. On this album he plays flute, concertina, bombarde, tin whistle, fife and bodhran. He is steeped in both the music and dance of County Clare, and this is one of the great recordings of the Irish tradition. MARTIN BYRNES WITH REG HALL. Mairtin Byrnes, Reg Hall.. One that I havent heard for years. Recorded in London in 1969, Mairtin was in his prime, and this is beautiful playing of a kind that most younger players simply are not able to achieve any more. CROSSING THE BRIDGE. Eileen Ivers. Latest offering from a super fiddler who no longer has very much to do with traditional music. THOUSANDS ARE SAILING. Various artists. Songs of emigration sung by Dolores Keane, De Danann, Boys of the Lough, Arcady and more. BY MEMORY INSPIRED. Terry ONeill. Another commemoration of 1798. TOMORROW WE PART. The Fureys and Bob Stewart. Ancient, hard to get album of Finbar and Eddie with English psaltery player Stewart. THE HIGH B. Seoda. First album from a young ceili band type group. EARLY RECORDINGS OF IRISH TRADITIONAL MUSIC. John J Kimmel. A favourite LP of mine years ago, this is the old Leader album of the first musician to record Irish music commercially. These recordings were made between 1907 and 1929, and are remarkable not only for their genuine virtuosity, but for the fact that the musicians background was German. TRADITIONAL MUSIC FROM COUNTY CLARE. Micho Russell. Old recording of Micho, from the 1970s. PORTRAID. Sean Maguire. Re-issue of the Gael-Linn album of a few years ago. MAIDEN VOYAGE. Various artists.This one has been hard to get for a long time now. Recorded in Peppers bar in Feakle, it has great music from Tommy and Siobhan Peoples (fiddle), Andrew McNamara (accordion), Kevin Crawford (concert flute), PJ King (accordion), Paraic Mac Dhonnchadha (banjo), Pat Marsh (bouzouki) and more. THE IRISH FOLK FESTIVAL LIVE 1974. Various artists. German festival album including music from Ted Furey, Georfe Furey, The Buskers, Micho Russell, etc. A NIGHT OUT WITH THE DUBLINERS. Yet another compilation of the same old tracks, different running order. Even the same old misspellings. And Michael Tubridy (see above) has compiled A Selection of Irish Traditional Step Dances, a book in which he gives the music and steps of some of the traditional step dances of County Clare. Using a system devised by himself he has, for the first time ever, written down nine of the traditional dances, including St Patricks Day and The Blackbird. Until now step dances have always been taught within the oral tradition, and this book will surely have a wide readership all over the world.