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Rushy Mountain music

February 17, 2011

By Staff Reporter

In 1991 Four Men and a Dog’s debut recording, “Barking Mad,” earned album of the year honors from Folk Roots magazine, which seemed smitten by the band’s easy fit into the stereotypical slot of a bounding, boozy Irish bar band. Frankly, I was not impressed by this accolade from Folk Roots. It struck me as more bark than bite — the magazine, not the band.
But Four Men and a Dog certainly possessed plenty of musical bite, led by former Arcady member and 1985 All-Ireland senior fiddle champion Hayden from Tyrone, McGrath from Fermanagh, and Birmingham-born Murphy from West Limerick. Add in Lupari from Derry, who provided amply entertaining antics (remember his Irish rap in “Wrap It Up”?), and Daly, who ably shouldered rhythm and many of the songs and whose nickname, “Black Dog,” gave rise to the group’s name, and you have a potent, appealing band.
But often under-appreciated back then was the box playing of Donal Murphy, whose flair for lively melodic music gave Four Men and a Dog a significant lift. He made a similar contribution to Sliabh Notes, a trio also featuring fiddler Matt Cranitch and singer-guitarist Tommy O’Sullivan. True to their name, Sliabh Notes specialized in the polkas, slides, and other dance music of Sliabh Luachra (“The Rushy Mountain”), a region bordering Kerry, Cork, and Limerick, and in that trio Murphy’s dexterity came more to the fore.
Now comes “Happy Hour,” the long-awaited solo debut from Donal Murphy, and most of the tracks represent Sliabh Luachra-style dance music at its irresistible best. He’s principally backed by Steve Cooney and Tim Edey, each of whom plays guitar and bass, with Cooney adding keyboards to two tracks and Four Men and a Dog colleague Brian McGrath laying down piano on two tracks. There’s also a five-member Murphy family get-together on a medley of slides and a medley of reels.
The lone exception to dance music on the CD is also the lone, slightly disappointing track on it: the slow air “O’Donnell’s Lament,” which sounds a little labored in execution and gets gauzy with Cooney’s synthesizer. But everything else on “Happy Hour” fulfills the promise of its title: convivial, pulsing, and impossible to sit still to.
With Edey injecting some tangy filigree into the supporting rhythm, Murphy’s accordion playing is a tour de force on the album’s top two tracks: the reels “John McGrath’s / Kilcoon / Miltown Session” and the spellbinding, progressive medley of “The Wily Old Bachelor” hornpipe, “The Moving Cloud” reel, a slide picked up from West Limerick fiddler Moss Murphy, and a polka performed in the past by fiddler Padraig O’Keeffe. In those tunes Murphy’s ornamentation is jaw-droppingly accurate and animated, with single-note variances and other fleet, flawless, improvised moments bringing out the full-bodied gusto of his music. He drives the tempo with detail, a feat that would defeat a lesser box player, and his style swings with joy.
The idiomatic syncopation of American ragtime flourishing from about 1890 through World War One swings delectably “hard” in Murphy and Edey’s treatment of “Hale’s Rag,” written by fiddler Theron Hale. Recall that the Irish traditional band Beoga, on their most recent album “Mischief,” re-imagined the 1930 American swing ditty “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone.” It appears that traditional musicians in Ireland are increasingly casting an eye toward vintage Americana for varying their repertoire, and it’s an unexpected, refreshing development, the kind that Irish-American musicians may want to investigate. Sometimes the tastiest fruit hangs from the oldest backyard tree.
To anyone who still clings to the notion that the re-emergence of Boston button accordionist Joe Derrane since 1994 has had no discernible influence on traditional music performed in Ireland, check out the Derrane-like triplets placed by Murphy in the hornpipes “Tailor’s Twist,” which Derrane memorably recorded on his 1996 album “Return to Inis Mor,” and “The Strand.” Murphy’s hornpipe playing may lack the overall cascading triplet effect achieved by Derrane, but the rapid-finger, descending note runs Murphy sporadically tucks into his performance are bracing all the same.
“Master Crowley’s / The Rookery / Shetland Reel,” “West Kerry Polka / Murphy’s Polka / Daly’s Mill,” and “Abbeyfeale / Knocknagree / Cuz Teahan’s” are all medleys performed impeccably by Murphy and bolstered by Cooney’s inventive guitar accompaniment.
The playing of Dan, Sean, Eilis, Melanie, and Kevin Murphy on accordion, banjo, flute, fiddle, and mandola-plus-bodhran, respectively, offers familial fun with Donal on the slides “Biddy the Darling / Garravane / Johnny O’Leary’s” and the reels “The Tap Room / The Plough and the Stars / The Bells of Tipperary.”
“Happy Hour” is a 50-minute-long toast to the undeniable talent of Donal Murphy. You won’t want to leave.
This self-produced, self-issued album (cat. no. DMR001) is available at www.donalmurphy.net.

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