Let's Sing a Quasi-Irish Song with Buster

And now, to mark the upcoming feast of St. Patrick, I present an Irish-themed compendium that has nothing to do with that good saint and very little to do with Ireland itself. While each selection is Irish-related in some way, it is usually the Irish or Irish music through the lens of American or English composers and performers - with the notable exception of the great Irish tenor John McCormack. Apropos of its varied ingredients, I am calling this collection "Buster's Irish Stew."

As usual, I'll present the 32 selections chronologically, reaching back to the early years of last century for the oldest specimens.

Peter Wyper

Our first number, an "Irish Jig," comes from 1909 and the Scottish accordionist Peter Wyper. He was supposedly the first accordionist to make records, so now you know who to blame.

The following year, two of the big stars of the early recording scene, the Americans Steve Porter and Billy Murray, combined for the vaudeville routine "Irish Wit," with a snappy tune sandwiching fast-paced ethnic repartee.

American banjo virtuoso Fred Van Eps is next with his 1911 record of "Irish Hearts." Van Eps was the father of jazz guitarist George Van Eps.

Fred Van Eps at the recording horn

Vaudevillian Ada Jones was last heard on this site in a German dialect number; on this 1911 record she has been transformed into an Irish lass, telling her "German dunce" boyfriend that "You Will Have to Sing an Irish Song" to have a chance with her. Albert Von Tilzer ("Take Me Out to the Ball Game") was the songwriter.

Billy Murray turns up again in 1912 with a tune called "If It Wasn't for the Irish and the Jews," reminding us that "without the Pats and Isidores you'd have no big department stores," among other benefits provided by these two ethnicities. Presumably the Victor company hoped to sell these platters in both Irish and Jewish neighborhoods, and the department stores run by Pat and Isidore.

Cigarette card from 1914

The great John McCormack makes the first of several appearances in this collection with the traditional song "Molly Brannigan." The recording dates from 1913, although this pressing comes from 1920.

Among his other accomplishments, the American songwriter and singer Chauncey Olcott wrote two enduring standards - "My Wild Irish Rose" and "When Irish Eyes are Smiling." In 1913, Olcott recorded the first named for Columbia.

Olcott was an polished vocalist but no John McCormack, who did his own version of "My Wild Irish Rose" for Victor in 1914. The song dates from 1899, when it was heard in the Broadway play A Romance of Athlone. Coincidentally, McCormack himself was from that Irish town.

One of Australian composer Percy Grainger's most famous compositions was his setting of the Irish reel "Molly on the Shore," dating from 1907. Originally for string quartet or string orchestra, Grainger later obligingly arranged it for orchestra, wind band, and violin and piano, missing an opportunity to capture the big kazoo-player market. In this 1916 recording, American violinist Maud Powell is heard with pianist Arthur Loesser, the half-brother of songwriter Frank Loesser.

Maud Powell in 1914

John McCormack returns with Chauncey Olcott's other big success, "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling," in a 1916 recording for Victrola. The orchestral accompaniment is led by the immensely prolific Victor staff conductor Rosario Bourdon.

Two years later, McCormack was in a New York studio with the less-familiar "My Irish Song of Songs," which name-checks all the familiar Irish tunes of the time. Josef Pasternack, another Victor music director, leads the band.

Arthur Pryor in 1920

We skip ahead to 1923 for a two-sided medley from Arthur Pryor's Band, "Reminiscences of Ireland." One of the tunes is "Irish Washerwoman," which will turn up twice more later in the playlist. The Pryor Band first became famous under the leadership of Arthur's father, Samuel. Arthur took over its leadership after his father's death. A trombone virtuoso, Arthur had been in Sousa's Band for 12 years, rising to become its assistant conductor.

Bartlett and Robertson

Ireland has been the source of inspiration for many composers, none more so than the English composer Sir Arnold Bax. Among his many works with an Irish theme is 1916's "Moy Mell (The Happy Plain)" for two pianos. Performing in this 1927 recording are the eminent wife and husband duo of Ethel Bartlett and Rae Robertson. The two were closely associated with Bax's music, although he did not compose this work for them - it was written for Myra Hess and Irene Scharrer.

One of the leading chamber ensembles of the day was the Flonzaley Quartet, who recorded an "Irish Reel" in 1927 for Victor. The arrangement is by second violinist Alfred Pochon. The other side of the record (not in the playlist) was Pochon's arrangement of the spiritual "Deep River" - much different from the Flonzaley's usual diet of Beethoven and Haydn.

The Flonzaley Quartet

Perhaps the best known (and most parodied) sentimental song in the repertory is "Mother Machree" by the well-known songwriters Chauncey Olcott, Ernest Ball and Rida Johnson Young. Again, this was an American song of theatrical origin, coming from the 1911 Broadway play Barry of Ballymore. John McCormack is heard in his second recording of the piece, dating from 1927.

Mother Machree song card, c1939

Albert Sammons by
Alexander Akerbladh

Grainger's "Molly on the Shore" was popular with violinists, but not all used his arrangement. In 1928, the superb English instrumentalist Albert Sammons recorded Fritz Kreisler's version, which Grainger reputedly hated. No accompanist is named on the label and I haven't able to discover who the pianist might be.

Also in 1928, John McCormack recorded the wrenching ballad "The Irish Emigrant," written in the mid-19th century by Lady Dufferin and George Barker. This is a remarkable record, surely the best of this group.

"The Irish Emigrant" cigarette card

Moving on to 1936, we have the lighter-hearted "Laughing Irish Eyes" from veteran American bandleader Johnny Johnson, with a pleasing vocal by Lee Johnson. The budget label Melotone records issued this disc.

English violist Watson Forbes recorded William Alwyn's "Two Folk Tunes" in 1940 with harpist Maria Korchinska. The composer contrasts a Norwegian tune with an Irish air. Forbes was a distinguished figure, but he is not note-perfect here.

Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears by Cecil Beaton

Last October I discussed John McCormack's recording of Yeats' "Down by the Salley Gardens" in the setting by Herbert Hughes. Benjamin Britten set the poem under the title "The Sally Gardens" in his first volume of Folk Song Arrangements. In this 1944 recording the composer accompanies Peter Pears.

Charlie Spivak

James Royce Shannon's "Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral" was written for a 1914 Chauncey Olcott show, Shameen Dhu. It did well at the time in Olcott's recording, and its popularity was renewed when it was included in Bing Crosby's 1944 film Going My Way. The playlist has a relatively unfamiliar instrumental version from big-toned trumpeter Charlie Spivak and his band.

In 1945, Boyd Neel took his orchestra into Decca's West Hampstead Studios for our final version of "Molly on the Shore," in Grainger's arrangement for strings.

The next year, comic Morey Amsterdam (last discussed here for not having written "Rum and Coca-Cola") decided to revive an old vaudeville song, "With His Wonderful Irish Brogue," which dates back to at least 1918. This was for the small Crown label.

Fred Lowery

"My Wild Irish Rose" returns in a version from Fred Lowery, probably the most recorded and popular whistler of all time. A big-band veteran, Lowery would achieve his greatest hit with "The High and the Mighty" theme in 1954. This one has the same eerie quality that helped make "The High and the Mighty" a success.

It wouldn't be an Irish-themed collection without hearing from Bing Crosby. I've included one of his lesser-known songs, "My Girl's an Irish Girl," the flip side of "Galway Bay," a 1948 coupling. Victor Young leads the band.

John McCormack died in 1944, and in 1948 another Irish tenor, Michael O'Higgins, put out the tribute song "When McCormack Sang Mother Machree" on the small American Beauty Recordings label. O'Higgins was a music professor at the University of Dublin.

Glamorous Freddy Morgan

In 1949, Spike Jones wreaked his usual havoc with "MacNamara's Band," featuring a decidedly inebriated sounding "I. W. Harper and The Four Fifths" on vocals. (I. W. Harper was a then-popular bourbon.) I believe "Harper" is actually Freddy Morgan. The conceit here is that MacNamara heard Spike's records and decided to imitate his sound, at which point the Irish deported him.

At long last, we come to our first version of "The Irish Washerwoman," a traditional tune played throughout the British Isles. Here we have Leroy Anderson's arrangement from his Irish Suite, written for the Boston Pops and Arthur Fiedler. This recording dates from 1950. You can hear Anderson's own version of the Irish Suite via this post. I've newly remastered the sound both of that recording and its companion, a Fiedler collection of Leroy Anderson compositions.

The Pinetoppers

"The Irish Washerwoman" returns disguised as an "Irish Polka" in our next selection, dating from 1952. The artists were the country group The Pinetoppers, who were led by songwriter Vaughn Horton, the author of "Mule Skinner Blues," "Sugar Foot Rag" and "Mockin' Bird Hill," not to mention Louis Jordan's classic "Choo-Choo Ch'Boogie." The "Irish Polka" is attributed to "Paddy Hogan." My guess is Hogan was Horton under another name.

Perhaps fittingly, we close our collection with a song that has nothing whatsoever to do with Ireland or Irish music, but does lend its name to this collection. "English Muffins and Irish Stew" was a pop song by the well-known writers Moose Charlap and Bob Hilliard, here recorded by Brooklyn's Sylvia Syms. Unaccountably, it turns out to be a mock calypso!

The Cash Box, July 28, 1956

As usual with these collections, the raw material came from lossless needle drops found on Internet Archive and refurbished by me. The sound is quite good - even for the records that are now 100+ years old.

A pleasant St. Patrick's Day to all from your one-quarter Irish blogger!

Song Settings by Finzi, Butterworth and Vaughan Williams

Gerald Finzi

Recently I have been posting recordings of the Walton-Sitwell entertainment Façade, including the original 1929 version with Dame Edith and Constant Lambert, Walton conducting. That edition came from a LP that also offered the first recordings of two notable sets of English song - Gerald Finzi's Dies Natalis and George Butterworth's A Shropshire Lad. Today I am posting my transfers of that music, together with the initial recording of Ralph Vaughan Williams's On Wenlock Edge - three landmarks in 20th century English song setting.

For Dies Natalis, Finzi set poems by Thomas Traherne, a 17th century poet and clergyman whose work is generally grouped with the metaphysical poets although his writings were virtually unknown until the 20th century. Dies Natalis is in form a cantata, with an orchestral introduction and then settings of four striking poems that convey the wonder and innocence of the newborn child.

Joan Cross

The performance is by soprano Joan Cross and the Boyd Neel Orchestra, dating from October 1946 and January 1947. The legend is that neither the composer nor the singer were happy with the results, and today the set is seldom heard. There is something to that: Cross was a noted actor, but wonder and innocence were apparently not in her artistic arsenal. Still and all, the records are not as bad as one might think. They convey Finzi's gorgeous string writing well, and the singer is sympathetic, clear and in tune.

The full power of Finzi's work would not be displayed on record until 1964, when it was taken up for EMI by tenor Wilfred Brown and the composer's son, Christopher. This remains my own favorite, one I played for myself the night my first child was born nearly 40 years ago.

Gervase Elwes

Both Vaughan Williams and his younger colleague George Butterworth set poems by their contemporary A.E. Housman, drawn from his popular collection A Shropshire Lad. The older composer set six of the poems for tenor, piano and string quartet. The work is here performed by tenor Gervase Elwes, the work's dedicatee, with pianist Frederick Kiddle and the London String Quartet. Elwes and Kiddle both took part in the first performance, in 1909. The recording dates from 1917, and is thoroughly remarkable. Elwes is more declamatory than is the norm a century later. His sense of time is flexible; he and the instrumentalists draw out the concluding "Clun" to powerful effect. It's impossible not to reflect that the sense of loss and impending doom - always implicit in Housman - were especially pronounced during the recording sessions, which took place three years into the horrific first world war.

George Butterworth

Butterworth himself was a victim of the war, killed in the Battle of the Somme in 1916 at age 31. He left relatively few works; notably this collection and the orchestral work The Banks of Green Willow. Both he and Vaughan Williams set Housman's ironic "Is My Team Ploughing?" As you might expect, given their similar styles and close association, the settings have some similarity. Vaughan Williams left out the poem's two stanzas that dealt with football, to Housman's irritation. The composer thought the poet ought to be happy he left out a passage with the clunky couplet "The goal stands up, the keeper / Stands up to keep the goal."

Butterworth set 11 poems from A Shropshire Lad; this is the first set, which strictly speaking is called Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad. The second set, not included here, is Bredon Hill and Other Songs.

Roy Henderson

The present recording comes from 1941, with Roy Henderson, one of the finest baritones of his generation, and Gerald Moore, the most famous accompanist of the time.

The sound on all these issues is well balanced and pleasing - even the Vaughan Williams from a century ago. Using modern tools, it's possible to get good results from many such acoustic recordings, within the limits of their constricted frequency range.

Grace Williams and Gustav Holst

It's been some time since we have had a classical LP appear here. This one features two 20th century composers, one familiar, the other less so.

Boyd Neel

The popularity of Gustav Holst's "The Planets" almost eclipses his other works, but most of his music is of considerable interest. The St. Paul's Suite is a very attractive folk-derived work named for the girls' school where the composer taught. Here it is well performed by Boyd Neel and his orchestra, which made many records for English Decca at mid-century.

Grace Williams

To me, the real interest is in Grace Williams' lovely Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes, from 1940. This, the first recording of any music by the Welsh composer, is from October 1948. It was made for the Welsh Recorded Music Society and issued on 78 in 1949. It then was reissued with the Holst on 10-inch LP in 1951.

Mansel Thomas

Mansel Thomas, a notable figure in Welsh musical life, conducted the Fantasia. He was at this time the director of the BBC Welsh Orchestra, although here he leads the London Symphony.

The sound is adequate. The download includes contemporary reviews from The Gramophone.