The Essentials

Sides were chosen, with Hitchner covering trad, folk and bluegrass, and Murphy concentrating on rock, solo vocalists like Mary Black, and showband music. Unavoidably, there was a little blurring of the boundaries, and the writers did a little “let’s make a deal” action on on the side ? Murphy traded Rory Gallagher to Hitchner for dibs on the Wolfe Tones ? but in the end, they fashioned a list that they feel covers the full spectrum of the genre. See if you agree.

We’ve divided these into groups of ten, arranged alphabetically. Click the links below to view the first group.