Long shot, but I’m trying to ID tunes on a CD called “Irish Jigs and Reels”

Amazon has a CD that looks exactly like mine, here: http://tinyurl.com/n9qova but tunes they list are completely different. My CD has the same title and cover art as theirs, but my tracks begin with Golden Keyboard and end with The Kilfodda. I can’t find reference to my version anywhere on Google.

My conundrum is that only the first tune in each set is named on the CD. My ears recognize a lot of the unnamed tunes, but I’m frustrated that I don’t have the names to go with them. I’m at that point where I can almost lilt them but not quite. My brain has a much easier time filing them away when I know the tune name.

So if anyone out there in mustard-land has this version of this CD and can identify some or all of the mystery tunes for me, I would be extremely grateful. I realize it is a lot to ask. Thanks.

It’s not all that unusual to find the listed tunes on the sleeve not bearing a lot of resemblance to what you hear off the CD. One possible short-cut is to download the CD onto your computer using Windows Media Player. That should give some details of the tagged info on the CD that is otherwise difficult to access. Or you could try using iTunes to do the same job. Either application can also go onto the web for a listing.
The other approach (better) is to write down the first few measures of each tune on the tracks in ABC and then search either this site or other sources (see Links) for matches. This way is better because you’ll learn about the tunes first-hand.

For background, the tunes listed on the Amazon.com CD (various artists) are:

1. Dusty Miller/Cucanady
2. Spindle Shanks/The Bell Harbour/The Ivy Leaf
3. When a Man’s in Love
4. Earl’s Chair/The Copperplate/Creamer’s
5. Boys of Belfast/The Girls of Belfast/The Girl That Broke My Heart
6. Laugh and Half Daft
7. Lady Ann Montgomery/The Enchanted Lady/Sweeney’s Dream
8. Paddy Carty’s/Gan Ainm/The Beauty Spot
9. pddy Taylor’s/Kate’s Fancy
10. Swinging on the Gate/The Mother Reel/Kathleen’s Fiddle
11. Terry Teehans
12. Morning Lark/Contentment Is Wealth/Crehans

Presumably track 9 is Paddy Taylor’s/Kate’s Fancy

“Live In Concert” by Brid Harper And Dermot Byrne has both Golden Keyboard and The Kilfodda. Worth chasing up?

I just found these reviews on Amazon:

1)

“If you’re looking at Amazon’s track list for this CD and the first song is ”The Dusty Miller/Cucanandy,“ be aware that you will probably be sent a different ”Irish Jigs and Reels“ with the same cover/color scheme, but a different set of songs. I own the CD with ”The Dusty Miller/Cucanandy," which I ordered from Amazon a few months ago, and it is excellent. However, I recently ordered another copy as a gift and was surprised to see a new set of songs on an otherwise identical-looking CD. They sent a replacement and it was still the wrong one.

I listened to the “updated” CD and it’s not nearly as good as the previous one, but enjoyable nonetheless. It consists of 12 fast-paced reels/jigs and no singing. I gave the one-star rating so people can be aware of this discrepancy."

2)
"Hi there,
Ronan Browne from CRAN here. Great music here and sure why wouldn’t it be with Desi Wilkinson, Sean Corcoran and Neill Martin. These tracks date from the early days of CRAN before I joined. Yes, a lot of the tracks are poached from CRAN’s 1st CD which we are now re-releasing ourselves having wrested it back from the unsavory people who had held it in a strangle-hold for the last 10 years! While no money goes to us from this compilation, it does bring us to your attention and allows you to look for our legitimate CDs, The Crooked Stair, Black Black Black, The Lover’s Ghost, and Music from the edge of the world, all of which are available on Amazon.
Happy listening to all - not everyone is a crook!
Cheers,
Ronan "

Maybe you can post the titles that are listed and somebody will recognize it.

lazyhound, I do appreciate the suggestion, but I already tried that, and it brought up the same list as Amazon - which definitely does *not* match the tunes on the CD.

The list on the CD has the following (which appears to match the first tune in each set):

1. The Golden Keyboard
2. Maid Behind The Bar
3. Paden O’ Rafferty’s
4. Trip To Durrow
5. Stenson’s
6. St. Anne’s Reel
7. Speed the Plough
8. Out On The Ocean
9. Father Kelly’s
10. Tee Totaller
11. The Flax In Bloom
12. The Kilfodda

Apparently this list was compiled by someone who had no idea that tunes are strung in sets.

I know how to look up tunes here and other places, but the issue is that I don’t know the names of the second, third, etc tunes in each set, and I can’t look them up without that. Or maybe I could if I could properly lilt them, but I can’t.

I researched CRAN and their tunes appear to be the ones on the version I do not own.

Very puzzling, to be sure. Any other ideas?

Or do you mean that I could write it out in ABC and then search on the ABC string?

I don’t know ABC, so it might be less painful to just learn the tunes I recognize and put a name to them later. But the names are so handy, it would help to have them.

Must be one those compilations that are released for the ‘tourist’ market, perhaps. They seem to just bundle together a collection, that they don’t pay royalties on etc., and just recycle them, changing the packaging etc. You come across these regularly in Ireland in tourist/ visitor centres etc. I saw a bunch recently for Euro 8 apiece and in amongst them was a CD of Finbar Dwyer, ‘Kitty’s Rambles’ which I promptly snapped up!!
I’d say your best bet is to find someone locally who has a good few tunes, play the CD for them and more than likely, they’ll be able to ID most of the tunes.

Thanks, wounded. I think I might be to shy about my beginner-ness to ask any of the session folks I know… Maybe I’ll consider it my challenge - when I can ID all the tunes on the mystery CD, I will know I have “arrived…”

Not paying royalties is bad, bad, bad. I didn’t actually buy this CD (I swapped for it at SwapaCD) so I won’t feel I supported someone who did that. Still, I am so curious about what/who is on this…oh, well.

All of the tracks you’ve listed, amyamanda, also appear on a double album called ‘Celtic Wedding Music’ - http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/window/media/page/0,,3575513-7694424,00.html - which can’t be coincidental.

However, on said release they’re intermingled with some very sub-Dubliners versions of well-known songs and ballads (including some real schlock horrors).

Some of the tune recordings sound very familiar, but I’ll have to put on my thinking cap about those.

The artistdirect site has a cut listed as “Gander and Pirate”, which is really “Gander at the Pratie Hole” 🙂