Upon the death of the last of this great Irish singing group (Liam Clancy passed on December 4) it seems fitting to return to their routes and take a peruse of their first album recorded 60 years ago in 1959.
The Rising Of the Moon: Irish Songs of Rebellion according to Liam Clancy’s memoir The Mountain of the Women, had a long gestation. Produced under the auspicies of the label Clancy cofounded with song collector Diane Hamilton Gugenheim, it was recorded in Tom Clancy’s kitchen with his wife and baby in attendance. The album garnered rave reviews being hailed as “raw” and “the epitome of things Irish”. Despite this the quartet was unhappy with the album so they engaged a harpist an released the “revised version”. The original has been lost so it is the revision that comes down to us.
The Rising Of the Moon opens with the shrill notes of Makem’s tin whistle and starts as it means to go on with the stirring title song. It is very raw despite the refinements. The simplicity and zeal for the Irish song are what makes this record so great. The singers perhaps are not at their best but they were young and it was their night job, to make excuses for them who are now all dead.
For its time the album brought forth many songs which would become standard “The Rising Of the Moon”, “Minstrel Boy”, “Foggy Foggy Dew” but to name a few. The reissue comes with expansive liner notes including the words to all the songs. And as it says for years it was almost illegal to whisper these in Ireland, to hear them in peace time is a pleasure. They hold well.
