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Liam Farrell (Co.Tyrone)

(photo: John Howson)   (Liam with the Raymond Roland Quartet - photo courtesy of Reg Hall)

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        A complete account of Liam Farrell's musical activities would cover just about every social aspect of Irish traditional music-making, not only in London but in Ireland and America, too. It would be no exaggeration to say he has known and played with pretty well every musician of note during the 1960s, seventies and eighties, and perhaps just as importantly, everybody has known him and held his music in high regard. Set against a life of hard physical work on the buildings and in civil engineering, while priding himself that he has never failed to turn up for work in the morning, he has always found time for the informal session, a singsong with his work mates, a wedding here, a tune with a visiting musician there. Always ready to appreciate and praise other musicians to their face and behind their back, he has great tales and he knows how to tell 'em. He has hardly ever missed the annual Fleadh Ceoil in Ireland and, like Joe Whelan, he has kept up with what's going on in the music through Irish radio and television, the latest cassettes and CDs and generally keeping his ear to the ground. Concert hall tours of Ireland and America with Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann presented opportunities for him to associate with the top musicians in New York and Boston and so on, and, though there wasn't any money in it, the after-hours craic was wonderful. There were invitations up north to play with the Liverpool Ceili Band and the fiddle player Jimmy Power chose him as his partner for his trip to Australia. Back in the 1970s, Liam was part of Le Cheili, a group of powerhouse musicians including Danny Meehan on the fiddle, P. J. Crotty on the flute, and the accordeon player, Raymond Roland. They made a couple of long-playing records, and Liam made other records with Bobby Casey and Vincent Griffin. It is good to have their artistry saved on vinyl, but it was all transitory; there's a great time to be had today and there's another session tomorrow.

Joe Whelan (Co. Offally, Ireland)

  (photo: John Howson)

        Joe Whelan was born and brought up at Eglish, midway between Birr and Cloghan in Co. Offaly. There was a single-row melodeon in the house which his grandmother and mother played but they later acquired a two-row accordeon in B & C and it was on this that he started, at the age of about twelve. Joe listened to the renowned accordeon player Francie Brereton when he came to work in Cloghan but Joe actually received few tips from anyone and evolved a style of his own.

        In the first ten years after the war, traditional music was attracting an active following in rural Ireland, and Joe's teenage years were swept along in the tide of this new excitement.

        Joe arrived in England in 1960 and found himself amongst like minded musicians and he was soon leading his own bands. Family commitments led to Joe's semi-retirement from music for a while and then at the end of the 1980s he was invited to play in the Goldsmith Arms in Penge with an old friend Michael McMahon. Liam Farrell had played there some time previously, and he was now at a bit of a loose end following Raymond Roland's death. Joe and Liam came together and a new partnership was born.

James Carty (London)

(photo: John Howson)

        James Carty is the son of one of the stalwarts of the London Irish music scene, flute player John Carty.  James is one of those rare musicians born in London, who feels strongly about home in Ireland and who feels equally strongly about the old-style traditional music. Born in Whitechapel in the East End of London in 1969, he has the strongest of attachments to his father's home in Knockroe near Boyle, Co. Roscommon, where his brother John now lives, and his mother's place in Rosrue, Cashel, Connemara, Co. Galway. As a child he was brought up with the sound of his father and his elder brother John playing the flute and banjo at home, but he reckons he only began to take notice when he was about seven. He had a few tin whistle lessons at Brendan Mulkere's class in Whitechapel, and then he gave up playing for years, though as a teenage he hung about where the music was played. At twenty-three, at a significant point in his life the day after his mother died - Gregory Daly gave him a boxwood flute - a bag of gold dust - and, like many sons of flute players, he worked out how to play on his own. About seven years ago, he was taken down to the Crescent, and it was Joe Whelan and Liam Farrell who really got him going and had him playing there regularly for a couple of years.  James plays every Sunday in one of London's finest Irish music session at the Auld Triangle, Finsbury Park.

Reg Hall (London)

  ( Reg Hall playing piano with Joe Whelan, Liam Farrell, and James Carty - photo: John Howson) 

( Reg Hall -with sound restoration expert Charlie Crump - photo: John Howson)

        Reg Hall has lived most of life with some sort of involvement in traditional music. He played melodeon with Sussex concertina player ScanTester and with other influential English traditional musicians in Norfolk like Walter and Daisy Bulwer and Billy Cooper. He plays fiddle for Bampton Traditional Morris Dancers and is a musician for the Blue 'Oss May Day dancers in Padstow Cornwall. In the 1950s he was at the core of the vibrant Irish music scene in London, becoming known as a rock steady piano player. He was the editor of the important Topic 'Voice of the People' series working closely with the sound restoration expert Charlie Crump who he knew through his other great interest in New Orleans Jazz. In recent years he has been a visiting research fellow at the University of Sussex from where he has now been awarded  his doctorate.

Liam Farrell, Joe Whelan, James Carty & Reg Hall can be heard on: VT141CD