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Sleeve Notes
Anyone who has seen and heard the Wolfe Tones in full spate at a concert or a ballad session will understand the interpretation I place on the word 'communication' in this context. The very essence of the Wolfe Tones act is true communication: between artiste and audience. Personally, I can recall a languid summer's day in Pairc Ui Chaoimh Cork. There must have been thirty thousand people in the stands or on the grass, flanking an open air stage.
The Wolfe Tones were part of an over-all folk package, headlined by Don McLean.
They closed the first half of the show. The songs they sang and the poems they said captured the mood of the day. And there was this incredible rapport between artiste and audience. I've never experienced anything quite like it. It wasn't hysteria. It was Seánce-like: the songs and the music were the medium: the thousands, flanking and facing the rostrum were participants.
But this was not a depressing spiritualism; rather was it an enlightening, jolly, happy, carefree, siamsa. That's the word: siamsa and whatever connotations are linked with that glorious Gaelic phrase, the Wolfe Tones are part of its origins.
Here in this magnificent double album, you will hear all the songs you associate with the Tones: James Connolly, Slievenamon, A Nation Once Again, Tricoloured Ribbon, Highland Paddy, On The One Road, Rockall, and Banna Strand.
The atmosphere of an audience is here: the recording was live as the parlance in the industry goes. It could not be anything less than live with Brian, Derek, Tommy and Noel.
The association of a singer or a group with a certain song is a mark of acknowledgement of its lasting power.
The songs associated with the Wolfe Tones are legion: and incredibly, they're all on this album. All of these ballads have been sung and will be rendered wherever Irishmen and women gather to celebrate or mourn.
You see, that's the real secret of the Wolfe Tones. They sing the songs we want to listen to. Music that is part of our past.
The songs that can never die.
Michael Hand
Editor Sunday Independent