The Road To Garrison reel

I got this tune from the Moher recording, “Over the Edge.”

I’m looking at Moher’s CD right now, Jack , and I don’t see any tune they call the “Godfather” listed. Any explanation ?
I don’t know if this is the tune or not , but I heard a story about a reel called “The Godfather” about a year ago. Charlie Lennon had composed a tune , and someone had picked it up, and no doubt it had been passed around. Somewhere along the line someone gave it the name “The Godfather” , but when Charlie heard about this he was not too well pleased, as someone had given one of his tunes a name without his approval. Look over your shoulder before you call this “The Godfather”, ( assuming this is the same reel.)

oops… It’s the first tune on the last track. I found out later that it’s also known as “The Godfather.” If it’s the same tune you’re talking about… urm… sorry Charlie. The liner notes say the tune is associated with fiddler, James Cullinane, but I also read somewhere that Maurice Lennon penned it. It gets murkier and murkier.

Could well have been Maurice - I’m not 100% certain about it being one of Charlie’s tunes, but my memory is that I was told it was Charlie. Maybe someone else can help. Thanks , Jack.

This was composed by Maurice Lennon, whose name (If I recall correctly what he said at a NYC concert a year or so ago) was “The Road to Garrison,” Garrison being a town on the Fermanagh/Leitrim border near the Lennon home in Kiltyclogher. It acquired the “Godfather” name via Kiltyclogher fiddler Brian Rooney, who made it the title track of his first solo CD a few years ago.

Straight from the horse’s mouth, I got this email from Maurice Lennon:

“Dear Jeremy,just a quick word a.to say how much I like the site and b.to let you know that the title tune of fiddler Brian Rooneys album The Godfather is in fact a tune of mine, written over 15years ago. It is not called The Godfather but is called The Road To Garrison,a small village in Co.Fermanagh,less than a mile from my home.It was Noel Hill the concertina player who first alerted me to the ERROR! It’s the same tune that some called Tony Cullinans after it first appeared on Kevin Crawfords album.Sincerly Yours,Maurice Lennon”

So there you: it’s officially The Road To Garrison.

Sorry, Maurice - thanks for setting the record straight.

Another great Maurice Lennon composed tune! Heard it for the first time when Maurice played it in session at the Armada Hotel last night in Miltown Malbay. He started with “Stone of Destiny”, also one of his own compositions, which most of us knew but he was on his own for this one. Thanks to the Yellowboard we now have both tunes.

On Kevin Crawford’s “D Flute” tracks listed here, it’s called Maurice Lemmon’s–a fellow I never heard of! 😉 ..mm…
Thanks to this discussion I was able to track this one down as Road to Garrison by Maurice Lennon.

This tune is already a classic and thanks to Maurice it will be played long into the future - but it will be interesting to see if his original name for it will endure. For some reason The Godfather seems a more memorable name for the tune. Names are just names, but the music will live on 🙂

Maurice Lennon’s version (based on that played by him and family on the “Leitrim Equation”) is closer to:

X:1
T:The Road to Garrison
R:Reel
M:4/4
L:1/8
K:D
A3B ADFA|BFAF EDFE|DA,A,2 A,B,DF|GBAG FDDA|
BA^GB ADFA|B2 AF EDFE|DB,B,2 A,2dB|1 AFEG FDD2:|2 AFEG FDFA||
d3f afbf|afbf afef|d2fd Adfa|bfaf fee2|
fgab aff2|gfeg fedB|ABde fdec|dBAG FDD2:||

… though it’s not going to shed any light on anything.

But first a conjecture: there’s another tune on here called The Godfather, and the first few notes are very similar so perhaps that’s where the confusion came from…

As to the rest of the story, I first learnt (or rather, half-learnt) the same Maurice Lemmon’s version that jimmydearing mentions above, along with most of the rest of the tunes on that Crawford recording - although it was nice, it wasn’t an instant favourite, so it kind of went into the “back store”.

The next time I encountered the tune was at the Joe Mooney summer school in Drumshanbo, where I was given a version of it by Ben, Maurice’s father. He happened to say at the time that the tune had been recorded under the wrong name by “a fellow from London”. Great tune, lovely version, didn’t think any more about it. The tune got promoted back to my A-list of tunes, where it has stuck…

So, we’re around the town one afternoon, along with everybody else, and everyone’s playing their “new tunes” that they’ve learnt. And we trot out The Road to Garrison. Someone says, “Oh, I love that tune, isn’t that The Godfather?” to which I replied it wasn’t, and told him where I’d got it from - and he said it had come from Brian Rooney’s album as The Godfather, and did I really think he would have named the whole album after a tune that didn’t have the right name? I said I didn’t know, having never heard the album, but it was a great tune, and we left it at that. The tune does the rounds, as a few people have learnt from Ben, and most of the rest know it from Rooney’s album.

A couple of days later, my dad gets the same tune in the concertina class from Noel… as The Godfather. Cue same discussion as before, almost word for word, until my dad sends him to check with Ben at tea break… and Noel duly comes back and confirms, yes, it’s a Maurice Lennon composition, and yes, it’s called The Road to Garrison (I think dad’s still got the sheet music with the one name crossed out and the other pencilled in). Typical Noel: “Of course, The Godfather would be a much better name for it, but it isn’t, so I suppose we shall have to call it the other thing.”

None of which illuminates anything, but I suppose it fills in a few gaps, here and there.

Here’s the pipe-, whistle-, and flute-friendly variation played by Fásta on their album *Rewind*.

X: 3
T: The Road To Garrison
R: reel
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Dmaj
|:A3B A2FA | BFAF egfe | dAAA FAAF | GEAG FADF |
A3B A2FA | BFAF egfe | dBBB A2dB |1 AFEG FDE/F/G :|2 AFEG FDDA ||
|: d3f afff | fabf afef | dfff Adfa | bfaf egfe |
defg afff | fgeg fedB | A3B A2dB |1 AFEG FDDA :|2 AFEG FDE/F/G ||

I was happy to tweet @RTERnaG regarding this tune during this year’s live- on - radio Éire’s Alba concert at WCSS 2016. Neansai Ní Choisdealbha had not alone given the tune the wrong name but had even named Brian Rooney as the composer. Thankfully she read my tweet and corrected the error. “… cumtha ag Maurice Lennon, agus ainmnithe aige mar ‘The Road to Garrison’..”
Mo cheol thú, a Neansaí!

Brian Rooney Calls this tune The Godfather on his album The Godfather.

Version put together from a pub recording of the composer