Does anyone know the publication dates of Sully’s Session Tunes books, or even have a best guess? Their Sunday name is "Irish Traditional Music Session Tunes" by Anthony Sullivan, published by Halshaw Music, and there were three volumes, green, pink and brown.
Interesting that they do not have a publication date on them. I have all three of them, plus ‘Sully’s Irish Music Book’, which has a ‘Copyright Halshaw Music 1979’ statement on the book’s title page. I guess the ‘Session Tunes’ were from around the same time.
I bought them all, around 1985.
Looking at the music notation, it looks as if it was (very well) hand-written (every note and marking is fractionally different).
Quite a change from the consistent typeface that comes out of an ABC mincer!
Thanks, Jim. Your reasoning fits in with my guess, but the perfectionist in me is annoyed that I can’t be definitive!
The piper on the cover is Felix Doran, born c. 1915, died 1972. He looks about mid-fifties there (give or take a decade!), so at a guess the photograph was taken late sixties, early seventies. That’s about the limit of my mathematical deductions, but it might give any Sherlocks a lead.
I recall hearing a banjo player at a session mentioning that Tony Sullivan was working on some books a few years after he won the All-Britain and All-Ireland banjo Championship (1976), so ….
Thanks a doggam bunch Nigel, for reminding me how old I am :)
According to the back page of book 2 the fiddler on the front cover is Andy McGann.
I was selling his books in the mid eighties, but can’t recall when they appeared on the market.
Maybe you can get the info off him.
What I was about to suggest, contacting Sully direct. We used to stock them, ordering them direct:
http://www.halshawmusic.co.uk/