The Brendan Voyage

A great recording from 1980, composed by Shaun Davey and performed by Liam O’Flynn and inspired by Tim Severin’s book.

The tune “The Gale” highlighted on the recording list is a different tune. If anyone knows how to break the link it would probably be a good idea. Thanks.

No! No! No! Stop changing the artist to Liam O‘Flynn. It is Shaun Davey’s album. Liam O’Flynn is just one of the many musicians on it, the featured one, yes but it is not his album!!

The composer is Shaun Davey, the artist, the musician is Liam O’Flynn, this is a site about music and Irish musicians. My way gave credit to both and gave Shaun Davey top listing with the title of his work. At least as I’d put it one would find both on a search an all the active playing of Liam as a fine exponent of the uilleann pipes would show up with a link to his name. Putting Shaun’s name in the header gives him top booking, or are you too thick and bull headed to see that? I’m not, so as you’ve been the first to add this here, however limited your view, so be it. But at least my submission struck a balance, while yours is limited and limiting…

There is no need to be nasty. I credited Shaun Davey with the album because it is his album. He is more than just the composer. He was the producer, arranger and, as far as I know, conductor. Yes, Liam was the main musician on it, or “soloist” as the album cover credits him but it wasn’t his album. It was an orchestral piece and should be considered as such. You will note I credited Liam O’Flynn in my very first comment when submitting the album.

Apologies for answering one rudeness with another, your email. I had not to my knowledge changed this recording previously. I was attempting to day to find a way to see this recording linked to the main artist, this being more of a website for musicians than composers, on the whole, but, ALWAYS believing in giving credit where it is due. So, mainly I was trying to see if there was a way for this to link under Liam’s name, as that would be the greater interest here on this site, the musician and what they do with the music, and here, more so than the composer. BUT, I valued the ‘Last.fm’ entry on Shaun Davey and didn’t like that it had been lost with the attempted change I’d made, listing Shaun Davey in the title and the main artist, uilleann piper Liam O‘Flynn after ’by‘. It didn’t work. I was about to write Jeremy for ideas on this when I got your blunt “Stop it!” ~ “stop doing this!” To my knowledge, and I might have forgotten attempting it previously, I hadn’t done it before. This was my first time trying to make that link the main ’musician‘ of the piece, this being mostly a website of musicians. Personally, though I dabble in the composing end of things, or at least it take hold of me from time to time, my greatest interest in elsewhere, with the music, the history, the ’musicians’ involvled in it all, including their recordings…

As said, I won’t attempt the change again, but it would be good if both of the main people involved in this could be linked, especially so this recording showed up under the name of the main musician featured and known for this recording ~ Liam O’Flynn. I can but hope.

Sorry to have ruffled your feathers, and apologies for losing my patience with your demands… “thick and bull headed” is something I too easily suffer from myself… I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else, either end of that.

I’ve solved the problem in one easy step by adding ‘featuring Liam O’Flynn’ to the album’s title.

The two of you seem to have got your knickers in a twist about something less important than the number of angels that can dance on a pinhead.

Yup! Thanks Scutcher, you’ve made the link - but… I was trying different ways to do that and was being unsuccessful at it ~ preserving the ‘last.fm’ link to the composer Shaun Davey while still making the link between this recording and Liam. 😏 I hadn’t thought to join the two up after ‘by’, but, again we’ve lost that bit of ‘last.fm’ info on Shaun Davey. I have written our webmaster Jeremy for ideas, but you’ve managed what I was trying to do ~ except losing that link of information. Fingers crossed Jeremy can sort that little bit out.

But yes also, less improtant than the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin, but I already know the answer to that. An angel told me… ~ ‘c’

Well I don’t know whether to reply to your long private message or the long post here. I don’t see much point in duplicating it so here it is then.

Apologies for my brusqueness in my initial message to you. I had assumed, wrongly I guess, that it was you who had changed it previously. I had spotted in my news feed a couple of weeks ago that someone had edited the album. I had a look to see where she had edited it and it took me a while to spot the change in artist. I changed it back and sent a polite, querying message about why she had changed it. It turns out she had been trying to de-link a tune, couldn’t and changed it back. It was therefore someone else who changed the artist. When I saw you come along then and change it I put 2 and 2 together and, perhaps got 5. I was not meaning to be rude in my earlier message (and to be honest I don’t think I really was). Blunt perhaps but I was feeling a little exasperated.

To the matter at hand, I have thought a lot about your reasoning behind the change. I hadn’t expected an album I posted here 8 years ago to be causing such a debate now. I honestly can’t agree with listing Liam O’Flynn as the artist however. He just isn’t. He is one of the musicians on the album. As I said earlier Shaun Davey is not just the composer. He is the producer, musical director, arranger and the person who hired all the musicians, giving Liam a job. It is not really fair to compare it to, say an album of Mike McGoldrick’s where he plays a tune composed by somebody else. In that instance Mike has put his own creative slant on it. He has arranged it himself and put a bit of himself in it. Or say an album of Pete Clark’s where he is playing all tunes written by Niel Gow. It is still Pete’s album. That is just not the case here. It is Shaun Davey’s album. He was the driving, creative force behind it.

I understand your desire to want to have a way of linking all of Liam O’Flynn’s albums together but, to do that you would have to credit the Planxty albums to him too, for example, rather than to Planxty. I think what you are looking for is an additional feature on the site where you can add a list of musicians who feature on an album. Certainly it would be a worthwhile idea, if time-consuming. Changing the artist on here does not really address that though.

Certainly Scutcher’s change does act as a compromise - although it does remove the biog info from Last.FM. I am not about to change it back now but it would maybe be an idea for Jeremy to provide a ruling on it. (Sorry Jeremy).

Okay, I’ve made a little change to the code that pulls in the information from Last.fm.

If a recording features multiple artists (combined using “featuring”, “with”, “and”, etc.), then information for each artist will be displayed (assuming Last.fm has some information on that artist).

I hereby declare this Gordian knot unravelled. 🙂

You are just too kind Jeremy! 🙂

Nicely done, all round… And that new feature allowing the listing of multiple artists. It would still be good to figure out a way to handle ‘various artists’ in a way that a track or more from a known artists, or their involvement in the work of another ‘featured’ artist, would show up under their name along with their solo or ‘with friends’ efforts.

Thanks for the patience, time and creative diplomacy… ~ ‘c’

Track #8 was linking to a different tune by the same name, as was pointed out by 2 contributers. I’ve made an amendment to remove the anomaly.