Jim McFarland

A Taste Of Tradition - Mountain Streams

Reviews of "A Taste Of Tradition" Mountain Streams

Jim has the kind of tenor voice and the intuitive skill to turn the Tunney anthem, (The Mountain Streams Where The Moorcock Crow) in all its extravagance, into a veritable tour de force.
Irish music review

At more than an hour's duration, Mountain Streams is a long album, but one well worth acquiring and exposing to repeated plays. Jim ensures the latter by featuring a grand mix of material.
Geoff Wallis - Musicial Tradition Magazine

Jim has been gathering songs for half a lifetime, and although I've often listened to him, I'd forgotten just how great a singer he is. There are seventeen songs here (some of them sung with his family, but most sung solo). As a Derry man his repertoire has a Northern flavour, although some of his songs have come from much further afield. It's an excellent production and well worth having.
Finbar Boyle - Claddagh records

Jim's daughters, Orla and Maria, tiptoe in for a gorgeous duet on "Going to Mass Last Sunday" and his airing of an old Lee Valley String Band first cousin,"The Banks of the Bann",is a sparkling gem.
Siobhan Long - Irish Times

Góilín / Musical Traditions

Around the Hills of Clare

Around the Hills of Clare is a joint production from An Góilín and Musical Traditions. It's a double C.D. of 47 tracks with a 44 page colour booklet included. It's a "snapshot" of traditional singing in Clare from the 1970's to the present date.

Featured are some of Clare's finest singers, many of whom, like Nora Clearly, Vincie Boyle, Jamesie McCarthy, Martin Howley,Nonie and Patrick Lynch Martin Reidy, Mikey Kelleher have not been heard on commercial recordings previously. Described by Finbarr Boyle of Claddagh Records as "an inestimable resource" these two albums are required listening for anyone with an interest in "the real thing".

Grace Toland, Jim MacFarland, Antaine Ó Faracháin, Mairéad Ní Oistín

Where Linnets Sing

Singers from the Góilín

Jerry O'Reilly

Down From Your Pulpits, Down From Your Thrones

Jerry is a singer, dancer and uilleann piper from Dublin. Here he presents us with thirteen songs, learned over a lifetime. There are love songs, historical pieces, a murder ballad, a comic or two - in short a good representation of the singing tradition. Enough of them are unusual enough to be of interest to people who wish to add good songs to their repertory.

Góilín Singer's Club

The Croppy's Complaint

The Croppy's Complaint was produced in 1998 to mark the Bi-Centenary of the 1798 rebellion in Ireland. There are seventeen tracks of songs and tunes associated with the era. The line up of singers and musicians could only be described as top class featuring Mick O'Brien on uilleann pipes and The Four Star Trio on Accordion Flute Fiddle Guitar and Bodhrán, Frank Harte, Jim MacFarland, Sean Tyrrell, Éamon Ó Bróithe, Jerry O'Reilly, Seán Garvey, Áine Uí Cheallaigh, Tim Lyons, Róisín White, Barry Gleeson and Mick Willis, Terry Timmins and Luke Cheevers. A "must have" for anyone interested in this period of history.

Barry Gleeson

I Heard a Bird at Dawn

This is a brilliant new C.D. from Barry Gleeson, who has been one of the cornerstones of An Góilín since its foundation 26 years ago. "I Heard a Bird at Dawn" is Barry's second album and contains fourteen tracks of what can only be described as top class singing. Most of the tracks have never been recorded before and there is a strong Joycean flavour to three of them.

As well as Barry, the album features, what can only be described as, a veritable who's-who from the singing and instrumental tradition of these islands. Palaver, Gerry Cullen and Phil Callery ex Voice Squad, Tom Crean of the Press Gang, Antaine Ó Faracháin, Jim MacFarland, Grace Toland, Lauralee Curtain, Kevin Conneff of the Chieftains, Brendan Gleeson ("The Brother"), Mick Willis and Peter Eades. Definitely one worth having, buy it!