Two men and their concertinas

MEMBERS of two acclaimed musical families have joined forces for a new album, Na Fir Bolg, which will be launched at the Willie Clancy Summer School on July 3.
It’s a collaboration between Lissycasey’s Jack Talty, a nephew of Noel Hills and cousin of well-known piano player and singer Carol Talty and Cormac Begley, son of Seamus Begley, a well-known figure in Kerry music.
Jack said the format is somewhat out of the ordinary.
“It’s a concertina duet album, which I suppose is a bit unusual. It has been done before but not very recently.
“Cormac is from West Kerry and I’m from West Clare and they’re the styles of music we’re playing on two concertinas. We use a number of different concertinas on the album, ranging over five octaves, so it’s unusual in that respect.”
The album marries their two styles well, he feels. “Whatever about the styles, the repertoire has a lot of West Clare and Kerry musicians. John Kelly is one, Paddy Cronin and people like Denis Murphy and Johnny O’Leary, they’d be well-known traditional musicians and most of them would have passed on at this stage. We’re predominantly looking at West Clare and West Kerry music and musicians from them.”
Their friends encouraged them to make a recording after hearing them play together. “We met through mutual friends. We were at a session and I suppose it’s a bit unusual to have two concertinas at a session. When we started playing together we realised that there was some common ground and potential to play together. Our friends thought we were compatible and that we should think about recording something.
“One of the first times that we played together without anyone else outside of a session, was when Cormac invited me to do a concert in Galway. He organises concerts in St Nicholas’ Church called Tunes in the Church and he brought me up there last year. As part of the concert he played with me and because we were playing different concertinas, they mixed together very well. They are in different registers, he’d play some lower concertinas and I play some higher ones. We realised at that stage that there was some potential to record an album.”
They went back to the same venue to record the album. “It was recorded over four days in May in the church. It went very smoothly really. The approach we took was that we sat down and we played and what happened, happened. There wasn’t a lot of studio manipulation done afterwards. We didn’t want to edit anything, so what you hear is what you get. They were live takes but not in front of an audience.”
After the initial launch at the Willie Clancy Festival, there will be further launches around the country.
Speaking about Na Fir Bolg, Martin Hayes issued gushing praise. “Cormac and Jack have produced music that pays homage to the beauty of the melody in a way that is neither flashy nor overproduced. The unhurried pace is perfect for letting the tune unfold and also allowing subtle but powerful rhythm to be part of their music. The balance between being slavishly beholden to tradition and being personally creative is a difficult balance to maintain. This recording is a fine example of this balance being beautifully expressed.”