The Boys Of Sligo by Dervish on The Session

Debut recording from Dervish(minus Cathy Jordan).

The Donegal Set

The first tune in ‘The Donegal Set’ is called “Paddy’s trip to Scotland” ( https://thesession.org/tunes/1303 )
The second is “The newrigged ship” ( https://thesession.org/tunes/880 ),
and the last is “Larry Redican’s bow” ( https://thesession.org/tunes/4707 )

Fiddler

This album had Martin McGinley on Fiddle, as opposed to Shane McAleer who played on some of the other earlier albums.

I really like early albums from Dervish (well, judging by this one and Harmony Hill). Great Christmas present for me!

Great tunes on this album, and you can hear the early seeds of Dervish’s development. For that reason it’s more interesting as a record of how things developed than as an album you’d want to listen to on your stereo the whole time. They just haven’t quite got it together yet on this one. I’m struck by how “ropily” put together the sets are, how bad the sound quality is on some of the tracks, and how the band hasn’t quite meshed rhythmically yet, especially Michael to Brian in the rhythm section. Later though, they’d mesh perfectly and create Harmony Hill, which is one of the best trad albums that has ever been produced by anyone.

Tommy People’s reel

The second tune of track #11 is Scartaglen Road: https://thesession.org/tunes/900

The set entitled “Eddie Kelly’s Jigs” on track 9 is composed of:

1) The Meelick Team Jig (composed by Eddie Kelly https://thesession.org/tunes/1511
2) The Independent Jig (composed by Billy McComiskey) https://thesession.org/tunes/9513