Search - David Hammond And Families The Clancy Brothers :: Irish Folk Song Favorites

Rachel J. (Bibliosopher) from SCHUYLERVILLE, NY
Reviewed on 3/26/2008...

There are 23 songs on this CD: 1) B is for Barney, 2) All Around the Loney-O, 3) Green Gravel, 4) The Doffin Mistress, 5) The Maid of Ballydoo, 6) I Know My Love, 7) The Dark-Eyed Gypsy, 8) Will Ye Go Lassie, Go?, 9) "Tis Pretty to be in Ballinderry, 10) Cruise of the Calabar, 11) As I Roved Out, 12) The Wee Falorie Man, 13) Rockin' the Cradle, 14) I'll Tell My Ma, 15) I Wish I was a Maid Again, 16) The Gallant Forty-Twa, 17) Early, Early All in the Spring, 18) When I Was Single, 19) The Irish Girl, 20) Fan-A-Winnow, 21) Three Gray Geese and Others, 22) See Saw and Others, and 23) Sally Go 'Round the Moon and Others".

Can't think of a title

Taylor | Snoqualmie, WA United States | 12/06/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"this CD was a big disappointment. after hearing a lot of songs by the clancy brothers and makem i really wanted to get one of their CD's. "i'll tell me ma" is my favorite song by them. so seeing the cheap price and my favorite traditional song on the track list, i bought it. holy hell was i pissed. not a single line of backing vocals by the clancy brothers is sung throughout the entire album and the only instrumental accompanyment to hammond's mediocre voice is a guitar or two. and on top of that, "i'll tell me ma" is sang with a completely different melody than i've heard by any other band. further, there is no booklet, just a cover piece of paper, and the last three songs feature hammond's daughters or something "singing" like the little 1st graders they are. i hated those 3 songs so much i burned a CD excluding those ones and threw out the original. but....
after a while it grew on me. there are actually a lot of pretty good songs. and they're all very short (most are not even a minute long, with another 5 or so ranging from 1 and a half to 2 minutes) which is good in this case. they're all pretty slow. that with hammond's girly voice makes you not want songs to get long and annoying. "i'll tell me ma" grew on me, and now it's one of my favorites on it. for 7 bucks, it's definately worth it. but if you don't have any dubliners or clancy brothers w/makem CD's, get those first."

The Clancy Brothers sing a lot of short Irish folk songs

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 01/05/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Having married an Irish lass I was dragged off by her family and herself to Milwaukee's Irish Fest where I was introduced to the Irish folk songs of Tommy Makem. It was then explained to me that Tommy Maken used to sing with the Clancy Brothers, who were originally known as the Clancy Brothers with Tommy Makem, which makes sense since Makem was not related to Tom, Pat and Liam Clancy. Whatever the name, these were the Irish expatriates who made the songs of their native land popular in the United States and may even have had a hand in the folk revival of the Sixties. Certainly, their performance of "The Ed Sullivan Show" is the stuff of legend: scheduled to play for three minutes they ended up playing for sixteen. "Irish Traditional Folk Songs" is, all things considered, a minor album featuring the three Clancys, singing this time with David Hammond. Their are both original and traditional folks songs on this album, but it is something of a wonder than most of these songs are actually considered songs. This album has 23 tracks but less than 40 minutes of music. That does not mean there are not some nice little songs here, such as "The Maid of Ballydoo," "'Tis Pretty to Be in Ballinderry," and "The Irish Girl." Some of the short pieces are certainly catchy, such as "I Know My Love," but you certainly wish there was more to be heard. The last several tracks feature songs being sung by the children of the principles, which is certainly quaint, but not particularly memorable. "Irish Traditional Folk Songs" is not the first album by the Clancy Brothers you would want to check out and certainly I would advocate one of their earlier albums with Tommy Machem, but for the fan who has a dozen albums or so in their collection this would certainly be one that does not duplicate a lot of what you would already have in hand."