Old Dog Long Road - Vol.2

(1961-2015) [2 Discs]

14 November 2020 [AK-9]

Selected by Irish Times in top five Irish traditional albums for 2020!

“Andy Irvine’s collection Old Dog Long Road (Vol 2) is full of gems, both minor and major.
All glorious reminders of what really matters.“ - Irish Times

“This is the latest in an extraordinary series of biographical/historical songs,
He is most assuredly a worthy heir to the mantle of Woody Guthrie.” - WBRS Boston, MA

On foot of the success of my retrospective collection "Old Dog Long Road" volume 1(AK-8), we now bring you volume 2!

These recordings represent a record of my long career of playing music and for that reason I can’t resist adding in one or two tracks that go back to the very beginning when I would return from my day job, take up my Gibson L-00 guitar, put my newly half-learned harmonica in the rack that Ramblin’ Jack Elliott had given me, turn on the big tape recorder that my mother had bought for me and record a song or two that had been going through my head all that day.

Most of the tracks on this double CD are my own solo performances, gigs and home recordings, but there are some songs and tunes, recorded with other musicians and previously unreleased. The Greek song, “The Snows” with Mozaik (Andy, Dónal Lunny, Bruce Molsky, Rens van der Zalm and Nikola Parov) featuring Chrysoula Kechagioglou is a track we recorded, but left out of Mozaik’s latest album “The Long And The Short Of It” (MOZCD03). “Sweet Bann Water” - a traditional song learned from the singing of Joe Holmes and Len Graham - I recorded in ‘the wild’ in South Australia with Rens van der Zalm for our album “Parachilna” (AK-4) in 2012. The traditional songs and tunes I recorded include “Jack Mulroe”(2008), “The Royal Forester”(1978), a different version of “A Blacksmith Courted Me”(1970), a hornpipe “The Drunken Sailor”(1984) and jigs “The Contentment Is Wealth/The Shores Of Lough Gowna”(1984), and an early song of my own, “You Fascists Bound To Lose”(1968).

I have great memories of playing with Nollaig Casey and Des Moore and I’ve included the hornpipes, “Cooley’s/O’Dwyer’s”(1983) from the one tour we did. There is a live Planxty track with Johnny Moynihan, Paul Brady and the late much lamented Liam O’Flynn on “As I Roved Out”(1975) and “The Blind Harper” with Dónal Lunny at Tailor’s Hall in the Liberties of old Dublin in 1978.

Considering the age of some of these ‘performances’, the sound quality is remarkable. The example of an “oldie” on this collection is “Hobo’s Lullaby”(1961), recorded nearly sixty years ago.

I’d like to offer my great thanks to Leon O’Neill, a master and a perfectionist in getting the very best sound out of old slightly faded recordings! And thanks sincerely to all the venues, sound engineers and audiences, all over the world, who have contributed to this release.

Produced by Andy Irvine

Track list:

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