Tony MacMahon image

MAC MAHON FROM CLARE

THE IRISH VOICE

by Don Meade

Tony MacMahon is one of the great Irish traditional musicians of our time. It has been been more than two decades, however, since the famed button accordionist last produced a solo recording. That's far too long, of course, but MacMahon from Clare was well worth the wait.

MacMahon from Clare includes many true solos, but it also features Tony in collaborations with some distinguished musical friends. Among these are the late bodhrán player Peadar Mercier, tenor banjo pioneer Barney McKenna of the famous Dubliners, and fiddle virtuosi Séamus Connnolly and James Kelly.

Kelly and MacMahon teamed up for the most impressive selection on the CD, an extemporaneous romp through the reels ‘‘The College Groves’’ and ‘‘The Floggin’’’ that has to be one of the most exciting accordion-and-fiddle duets ever committed to disc.

Another particularly affecting track features MacMahon with the late Joe Cooley, his accordion mentor and one of the most revered Irish musicians of this century. This track was recorded during a legendary session in Cooley’s native Peterswell, Co. Galway in late 1972, not long before the master’s death.

Though he has done more than any other player to expand the musical range of the button accordion, MacMahon has also frequently disparaged it, once going so far as to voice regret that there was no bog hole in Ireland deep enough to bury all the accordions in the country. This conflicted relationship with his own instrument is perhaps what impelled MacMahon to bring never-before-heard sophistication to the humble ‘‘box.’’

Having mastered Cooley’s classic style of playing dance tunes, MacMahon began in the 1960s to adapt the majestic slow airs of the Irish-language vocal tradition to the button accordion. Playing with great emotional intensity and making extravagant use of left- and right-hand chords, MacMahon invested the accordion with the grandeur necessary to the ‘‘big’’ traditional songs. He returns to this territory on the new disc with masterly renditions of five slow airs, including ‘‘Amhrán na Leabhar’’ (‘‘Song of the Books’’), ‘‘Caoineadh Eoghain Rua’’ (‘‘Lament for Owen Roe’’) and the Breton ‘‘Maro E Mar Maistress’’ (‘‘My Love She is No More’’).

MacMahon from Clare was independently produced in Ireland.

Don Meade

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