This month I’ve asked my young ITMA colleague Andrew Caden, to help choose a selection of  music from the Larry Redican (1908-1975) collection. Andrew is from Bethesda outside Washington, DC and has come to be recognised as an outstanding young fiddle player. The Redican collection gives us an unique insight into the traditional music and musicians of New York in the 1950s and 60s and here Andrew has chosen a selection that reflects the best of that period. 

Several tracks feature private recordings made of Larry with his musical friends of that era. Andy McGann, a native New Yorker, was renowned as a great fiddle player having learnt from older musicians including Michael Colemen in the 1940s. Another mentor of Andy was Kathleen Brennan Grant (19i5-1975), here interviewed by Ciaran Mac Mathuna (1925-2009) in 1961 about her friendship with Coleman and her influence of Andy McGann as a younger man. Jack Coen (1925-2012), originally from Co Galway and Felix Dolan (1937-2013), a New Yorker, were two stalwarts of the New York music scene and featured frequently in Larry’s recordings, including in the New York Ceili Band. Paddy O’Brien (1922-1991), from Nenagh together with Joe Burke (1939-2021), were the two major figures to emerge from the 1950s to popularise the accordion and both spent time in the US in the 1950s and 60s, playing with Larry and colleagues in New York. Finally, it isn’t widely known that Sean Maguire (1927-2005), spent some years in New York in the late 1950s. Larry captured him in full flow surrounded by the cream of New York fiddle players and Maguire didn’t disappoint.

Enjoy,
Pádraic