Trad Beat Raffertys complete musical hat trick

By Earle Hitchner

THE ROAD FROM BALLINAKILL, by Mike and Mary Rafferty. CD #MMR112000, Larraga Records, 229 Baldwin Ave., Hasbrouck Heights, NJ 07604; 201-288-4267; mraffie@aol.com, traff5788@aol.com.

The flute, whistle, and uilleann pipes playing of Ballinakill’s Mike Rafferty, who also plays Jew’s harp and lilts, represents the melodic, naturally pulsing music of East Galway to the core. Steeped in tradition, his music has already been featured on three previous releases in 2001, making this year special for him — and us.

Two are CD reissues of original Rounder LP’s: 1977’s "Irish Traditional Instrumental Music From the East Coast of America," on which Mike played a reel, and 1983’s "Light Through the Leaves," on which he performed a pair of reels. The third album is new on BMG/Windham Hill: Cherish the Ladies’ "The Girls Won’t Leave the Boys Alone," where he joined in on a pair of jigs.

Also brand-new, "The Road From Ballinakill" fully showcases Mike Rafferty’s talents and completes a hat trick of traditional musicmaking by him and his daughter Mary, a member of Cherish the Ladies. ("The Old Fireside Music" in 1998 and "The Dangerous Reel" in 1995 are their previous duet releases.) It’s music drawn from the heart, played with soul, and bound by a blood tie that invariably adds something more to the mix. It is, in short, the "pure drop," a distillation of touch, tempo, and taste, flowing from first to last track.

The graceful swing in Mike’s flute and Mary’s button accordion playing in the reels "Peeler Boland’s/Sporting Nell" and "The Fox on the Prowl/The Liffey Banks," expertly backed by Solas guitarist Dónal Clancy, is utterly entrancing, with no note clipped, skipped, or sped over. There’s also an unforced lift to the jigs "Katie’s Donkey/Tony Smith’s" that the Raffertys and Clancy perform so appealingly, and those three, plus gifted New Jersey fiddler Willie Kelly, give a measured, masterly rendition of the hornpipes "The Weird One/Dingle Bay," the latter of which was recorded by Mike’s cousin, the flutist P. J. Maloney, and fiddler Seán Ryan on a high-fidelity Avoca LP four decades ago.

Recorded in Nnew Jersey and Ballinakill studios as well as in Mike Rafferty’s Hasbrouck Heights home, "The Road From Ballinakill" radiates a hearth-like warmth not just from Mike and Mary but also from the family and other friends they’ve invited to the project. The Raffertys’ musically generous spirit is obvious from the three tracks they give wholly to the unaccompanied singing of "The Banks of the Lee" by Kathleen Glynn, Mike’s sister, and "Horses & Plough" by Michael Rafferty (no relation), an East Galway neighbor of Mike, as well as the reels "I Have No Money/The Steeplechase" performed by Willie Kelly on fiddle and Clancy on guitar.

Besides them, there are Gerry Conroy, another East Galway acquaintance of Mike, who forms a winning whistle duet with Mary on the reels "Moving in Decency/The Pride of Rathmore," and Gabriel Donohue, who adds nylon-string guitar, piano, or bodhrán to four tracks and also helped to engineer and mix a good portion of the music. Though not present on the album, the presence of All-Ireland champion lilter Paddy Rafferty, Mike’s late brother, is still felt in "Byrne’s" hornpipe, which Mike lilts in tribute to him as Mary plays whistle.

By himself, Mike Rafferty movingly plays flute on the reels "Miss McLeod’s/Mister McLeod’s" and uilleann pipes on the air-jig pairing of "Barrel Rafferty’s/The Rakes of Kildare." With accompaniment, Mary Rafferty provides two sparkling solos of her own, playing accordion on the jigs "The Hag With the Money/Paddy Taylor’s" and the reels "The Man from Dublin/Martin Wynne’s No. 3."

Musicianship in service to the music: that’s the motivation for Mike and Mary Rafferty’s playing here. The velocity-equals-virtuosity mindset benumbing so many trad albums today is absent. Rather than bolt to the finish line, this father-and-daughter tandem take their time to savor the journey and, in doing so, let us savor it as well.

In that sense, "The Road From Ballinakill," to borrow Robert Frost’s phrase, is "the one less traveled by/And that has made all the difference." Mike and Mary Rafferty have made the right choice on what is one of the most enjoyable and joyful Irish traditional recordings of the year.