This Weekend I’ll Mostly Be Listening to… Planxty December 22, 2012
Posted by irishelectionliterature in This Weekend I'll Mostly Be Listening to....trackback
Happened to be talking to one of my cousins recently about a recording session in the late 60s he did with Donal Lunny and others in Kildare. It was a fascinating insight into the trad scene of the time. A few days later I heard Donal Lunny, AndyIrvine , Liam O’Flynn and Paddy Glackin on RTE Radios Miriam Meets show.
So I was prompted to get out some of my old Planxty CDs and records and listen to them yet again. What a band they were too mixing traditional music with Folk music and making songs such as Arthur McBride amongst many peoples favourites. The fusing of Raggle Taggle Gypsy and Tabhair dom do laimh was genius too.
Most of the various musicians involved with the band over the years became or were household names and mainstays of the trad / folk scene here to this day.
Theres a fine piece on them here and their website is good too, giving an excellent biography of the band in particular
I’ve also included at the end of the post, The Planxty Documentary made for RTEs No Disco in 2002
enjoy.
The Planxty Documentary made for RTEs No Disco in 2002
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Fantastic stuff IELB. A group that have always rewarded listening again and again. I hadn’t seen the documentary so that’s a real bonus.
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mixing traditional music with Folk music
???
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‘Irish traditional’ presumably. I always loved their version of Sweet Thames Flow Softly.
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Top stuff IEL. The Humours of Planxty by Leagues O’Toole is an excellent biography which, for one thing, really captures what life on the road was like for the bands of that era. It kind of passed surprisingly under the radar when it came out first but is a great read for anyone with an interest in the band or the era.
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This is Planxty, rather than Christy Moore, from the Iron Behind the Velvet LP.
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