Evening Concert in memory of Jimmy Philbin
Good Mixer Band / Le Chéile
London Irish Centre (Mac)
Sun 30th Oct 2016
7.30pm
£12 / £6 under 18
IMDL ticket booth here: https://www.musicglue.com/irish-music-and-dance-in-london-imdl/
Our evening concert features musicians who played together during the great days of the London Irish music scene in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Camden pub, The Good Mixer, was for many years a focal point for Irish music in North London. Throughout the 1980s, many of the great Irish musicians who lived in the capital played there at a classic Saturday night session. They included piper Tommy Keane, flute player Michael Hynes, bouzouki player Noel O’Grady, fiddler Henry Benagh, fiddle and banjo maestro John Carty and flute player Marcus Hernon.
By the end of the decade, many musicians had decided to return to Ireland and the session, as do all good things, came to an end. In 1989, Noel, Henry, Marcus and John gathered at John’s home studio and made a recording, which was originally intended to be a memento. The recording had lain more or less forgotten since that time, until John revisited it recently and was surprised at how fresh it sounded.
The decision was made to master and release it and Noel, Henry, Marcus and John have reunited to perform at occasional concerts. The music still has the magic from the days when they got together on one night the week to play for the love of it.
Le Chéile was formed in the early 1970s by musicians who played regularly in the famous sessions at The White Hart, on Fulham Broadway. The 1960s and ‘70s were golden years for traditional Irish music in London, when musicians played to packed houses and sparked the revival which went on to spread back home and around the globe.
Le Chéile was the cult Irish band of 1970s London. Their classic album, Lord Mayo, was reissued on CD in 2006. To coincide with that release, the surviving original band members – master fiddler Danny Meehan, Liam Farrell (banjo), John Roe (piano) and Kevin Boyle (guitar) – reformed alongside new recruits, flautist Paul Gallagher and accordionist Andy Martyn.
Now they’re back, adding powerful momentum to the revivalist movement within Irish music today with their exciting big band mix of back to basics traditional music from Donegal and Galway. Their third album, Out of the West, was released in 2010.
