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Paddy Keenan

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€13.99

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Gael Linn CEFCD 045; 41 minutes; 2003 CD reissue of 1975 LP


The uilleann piper Paddy Keenan’s 1975 debut album is the only one of the 2004 Gael Linn re-launch series which can justifiably be regarded as a genuine reissue (even if it was actually released officially for the first-time in CD format in 2003). That word “officially” is important here because Keenan himself became so frustrated by the album’s unavailability that he actually issued his own “unofficial” release a few years earlier which was, for a time, available solely via his Hot Conya Records website. Paddy had only revived his musical career in 1997 with the release of his first album for fourteen years, Na Keen Affair, but it remains puzzling why Gael Linn waited so long before making such a vital and influential album as his debut once again available.

The original LP cover (depicted opposite) remains one of the most memorable of any ever issued by the label, Bill Bolger’s line drawing not only capturing Paddy’s contemporary hirsute appearance (and he has not changed physically very much in the interim) but the sheer intensity of his musicianship, eyes seemingly closed in concentration on his playing.

The reverse of the sleeve carried extensive notes by Séamus Ennis in both Irish and English, although if the reader’s knowledge of the former was limited, she or he might have been left believing that Paddy Keenan was born in Mullingar in 1923 when, in fact, his birthplace was Trim and he was a mere twenty-five years old at the time of this record’s release.

Unfortunately, while those notes are included in the reissued CD package and clarify that it was actually Paddy’s father John who was the Westmeath native, Gael Linn has made a hideous error in not reproducing the original album cover on the front of the liner booklet.

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