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Sleeve Notes
A casual glance through the sections of any major record shop in Dublin — or indeed London or New York these days — would inevitably reveal an extensive collection of Irish folk and traditional music. It's easy to forget that this wasn't always the case.
In the 1960s the predominant Irish musical force was that of the showbands — groups normally consisting of a rock rhythm section, fronted by crooners and augmented by brass sections. Their ability to perform the chart hits of the day, American Country and show tunes, alongside their own material, filled large dancehalls throughout Ireland and provided them with a level of record sales probably far in advance of The Beatles or The Rolling Stones on a local level.
By contrast, folk and traditional music had few recorded representatives — if a growing popularity. Early sixties albums by Ceoltóirí Chualann — the group of musicians from whose nucleus The Chieftains were formed in the seventies — and Seán O Riada — the man credited with doing so much to revive the public's interest in traditional music and place it in a concert hall setting — were joined as the decade progressed by The Dubliners, The Johnstons and Sweeney's Men. The latter three groups had all recorded, at one time or another, for the Transatlantic label.
The original line-up of Sweeney's Men was Johnny Moynihan, Andy Irvine and Joe Dolan (the group had been formed in 1966 and was then known as The Sweeneys). When Joe Dolan left in June 1967, he was replaced by Terry Woods, and this line-up recorded two singles for the Pye label. One of these songs, 'Old Woman In Cotton', written by Pat Carroll and Andy Irvine, is included in this compilation.
But it is their eponymous debut album, released on Transatlantic in 1968, that might almost serve as a template for many of the artists and recordings that followed in its wake. The raw excitement of the performances, the intricacies of the deft instrumental arrangements and, perhaps most importantly, the willingness to feature material from within the Irish tradition as well as the rich British and American folk traditions, all made for a distinctive and innovative debut. From familiar Irish songs such as 'Dicey Riley' and folk standards 'Tom Dooley' and 'The Handsome Cabin Boy' to the beautiful 'Willy O'Winsbury', the album captures the vibrancy of the folk scene at the end of the sixties.
By the time 'The Tracks Of Sweeney', their second album for Transatlantic, was released in 1969, Andy Irvine had left to travel in Eastern Europe. Reduced to a duo, the resulting album is more introspective, more blues-influenced and features some wonderfully haunting, melancholy songs such as 'Dreams For Me' and 'Standing On The Shore'. The album's closing track, 'Hall Of Mirrors', is perhaps the most poignant song they recorded. No further albums were recorded by the group.
Andy Irvine went on to become a founder member of Planxty, made some seminal recordings with Paul Brady and also formed East Wind with, among others, Davey Spillane and Bill Whelan. In 1969 Terry Woods, and his then wife Gay, became founder-members of Steeleye Span and Terry re-emerged in the eighties as a member of The Pogues. Johnny Moynihan became a member of De Danann for a period and joined Planxty around the time of their third album, 'Cold Blow And The Rainy Night'. He later fronted the Fleadh Cowboys, a fondly remembered staple of the Irish live scene in the mid-eighties.
In an era when The Chieftains and Clannad enjoy worldwide success, when Riverdance has become a phenomenon as a stage-show/video/album, and when a younger generation of musicians from Altan to The Corrs to Eileen Ivers are taking their Irish music in new directions and to wider audiences, it's entirely appropriate that these albums should be made available again. Indeed, if it had not been for Sweeney's Men and their contemporaries attracting the attention of audiences and record companies in the sixties, and thereby establishing those fledgling Irish Folk / Traditional sections in the LP racks that at last supported the music's visibility on the live circuit, concert halls and record shops might today be very different and less interesting places.
Declan Colgan, 1996
A lot of early Sweeney influence came from recordings of Old Timey American musicians from the twenties and thirties. Johnny and I tried to emulate 5-string banjos and mountainy fiddles on our open-tuned mandolins and bouzoukis. Later, after being strongly affected by Charles Parker's BBC Radio Ballads with Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger — notably 'Singing The Fishing' — we began to incorporate this style into Irish and Scottish songs. Strangely, it was left to Terry to sing the Old Timey songs, to which he was devoted.
The bouzouki-mandolin interplay, which later became a strong feature of Planxty, was "invented" one evening in Johnny's family kitchen in Dalymount, Dublin, as we strove to find an accompaniment for 'Rattlin' Roarin' Willy'.
Andy Irvine, 1996