Joe Heaney - The Road from Connemara

(2000) 39 tracks (147 mins)

Disc One - My Bonny Boy Was Young * West of Ireland * Skibbereen * Paidin's Wife * The Song of the Eel * As I Roved Out * The Brown Blackthorn * Caroline and her Young Sailor Bold * Fishing in Connemara * Song of the Drowning * Singing in Connemara * The Jug of Punch * The Ferocious O'Flahertys * The Widow From Mayo * The Harp Without the Crown * Sunntrai * Advice tp Young Singers * The Valley of Knockanure * The Valley of Knockanure * Whiskey O' Roudeldum-Row * Barbary Ellen.

Disc Two - The Two Greyhounds * The Old Woman of Wexford * The Banks of Claudy * Eamonn an Chnoic * My Boy Willie * Patsy McCann * Fair Una * The Hag With the Money * The Lonely Woods of Upton * O'Brien From Tipperary * Erin Gra mo Chroi * Cunnla * The Tennis Right * Eanach Cuain * There Is A Fair Tomorrow In the County Clare / The Shoemaker * The Glen of Aherlow * Farewell To the Worries of Life * The Old Man Rocking the Cradle.

Includes 60-page booklet, which contains in-depth notes and lyrics. A first release for these 'live' recordings collected and recorded by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in 1964, this double CD album features 39 songs, many with accompanying stories, and all previously unissued recordings.

Born in 1919 into a small Irish-speaking community in the west of Ireland, Joe Heaney was to become one of Ireland's most legendary traditional singers ever. His native townland of An Aird Thoir in Carna, long renowned for its wealth of songs and stories, was the perfect breeding ground for such extraordinary talent.

He performed regularly with The Dubliners. At the Newport Folk Festival with The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem he is said to have really bowled over his audiences, despite the competition of mega artists such as Bob Dylan!

"He was a gifted singer and storyteller and a consummate performer: the only solo unaccompanied singer I have ever come across who could hold riveted for hours on end any audience of any size, no matter what its age or ethnic composition? He was Ireland's supreme cultural ambassador abroad" (Mick M)