By Paul Keating

As December dawns the notions that concern us at the end of the year are Yuletide gift-giving and reflection on things past.

Your helpful correspondent has found the perfect recording that will address both those needs, and even if it goes no further than your personal DVD, host a seasonal soiree with fellow fanatic trad friends or family so you can share its enjoyment. You’ll find yourself transported into an era that occurred not too long ago in the Auld Sod with seemingly nothing in common with the Celtic Tiger so prominent today.

Ireland’s national broadcasting service RTE has released a new DVD called Come West Along the Road: Irish Traditional Music Treasures from RTE TV Archives 1960s-1980s that may travel familiar traditional highways and byways but contains television footage from their library that is sure to please all who love traditional Irish music, song and dance.

Some of you may remember the similarly titled VHS released in 1994 and produced by Tony McMahon, then one of RTE’s inside architects of their traditional coverage. The new DVD is produced by Nicholas Carolan with 47 different tracks culled from over 50 hours of programming now in its eighth broadcast series from its treasure-laden RTE archives.

Deeply immersed in this material as the presenter since 1994, Carolan was even more qualified to select highlights over the first 25 years of RTE coverage (1961-1986) by virtue of his seminal work as the director of the Irish Traditional Music Archives, Ireland’s most respected central source for research in Dublin.

In a recent interview on RTE-Radio 1 with Aine Hensey on The Late Session, Carolan allowed that the choices were personal but they were inspired as well because of the scope and diversity they offer in the new effort.

There is something for everyone and truly historic footage in many instances. While many generations are represented on the offerings, one of the more important aspects of this new recording will be to open up that rich musical era to new audiences, particularly the younger generation who will find a much simpler but direct form of entertainment than they are used to viewing on their MTV channels with much less artificiality and hype.

The folk music revival of the 1960s and 1970s is thoroughly reflected throughout, with the emergence of commercially formed trad bands and artists who are well-known to us now.

In cabaret settings like the Tallaght venue, the Embankment or similar stages we witness the early days of the Bothy Band, De Danann, Planxty, Stockton’s Wing, the Dubliners and even the Voice Squad in a Manor House hallway where they give voice to “The Bonny-Light Horseman.”

Since I am of a similar vintage as these heroes of traditional music, to see them with long-hair, sideburns and dress of the 1970s reminded me anew why that is a road that I happily walked or often times danced along, particularly one life-altering summer of 1976 while piloting a VW bus leading to many such escapades in Ireland.

As Irish music thrived or evolved in the 1990s they owned much to these “commercial” pioneers who honed their stagecraft from the previous generations who performed the music, song and dance because it was who they were.

Come West Along the Road also prides itself on viewing that slice of Irish life captured best at country fleadhs on the streets or in pubs or houses where traditional music was a way of life.

The early RTE cameras were perhaps novelties or a nerve-wracking presence to some, but necessary equipment to bring us up close to tradition-bearers in settings that were comfortable to them, even if it was an RTE studio in Dublin surrounded by a knowing audience.

The “video verite” quality is what it is and the sound has to be viewed in that context also while it produces many gems. You can see Paul Brady, Liam O’Flynn, Julia Clifford, Denis Murphy, Paddy Moloney, Sean Potts, Peadar Mercier, Al O’Donnell, Tommy Makem, Tommy Peoples, Matt Molloy, Donal Lunny, Willie Reynolds and fine duet in the very measured East Clare style by the young Martin Hayes and Mary McNamara.

Those Altan firebrands, Mairead ni Mhaonaigh and her late husband Frankie Kennedy, show up in a Killybegs pub session in the thick of it as usual. Even the legendary Joe Cooley appears in a Peterswell, Co. Galway pub (1973) playing a reel “The Wise Maid” that is associated with him.

A poignant track at the Gaiety Theater in Dublin from January 1972, a year after Sean O’Riada’s death at a memorial concert, features Ceoltoiri Chualann which plays tribute to O’Riada’s influence and the rise of the Chieftains simultaneously.

Sean O’Se, in mellifluous voice gives us “Ta Na La” (It is the Day) in this performance. Paddy Moloney plays alongside the brother and sister Denis Murphy and Julia Clifford at a fleadh in Enniscorthy along with Des Mulkere.

Not far from their Capel Street home in Dublin, the Kellys (John Senior and Junior and James) give us the reels “Ceathru Cavan” and “Wild Irishman” in a fiddle trio in an RTE set.

Dancers will be pleased to see some old-style set dancing from Clare fuelled by the Tulla Ceili Band and Sliabh Luachra with John O’Leary doing the honors with his Knocknagree mate Dan O’Connell lashing into it on the floor.

Dancing expert John Cullinane gives us the Liverpool hornpipe. But the highlight here is Donncha O’Muineachain and Celine Hession dancing a graceful and energetic slip jig together that will bring back many wonderful memories of their early CCE tours in America and sadly the premature passing of that great dancing gentleman earlier this year.

There are many songs in Irish and English in this collection, but three stand out for me. The Abbey Tavern in Howth has long been the portal through which many folks heard Irish music for the first time in perhaps a more touristy setting than we would like to admit. There is no denying the talent that shared that stage.

Indicative of that are Ann Byrne and Jesse Owens, who emigrated to New York, as they render that popular folk ballad, “The Lily of the West” in classic form.

At the other end of the spectrum in Co. Kerry, in 1967, the RTE lens puts us in the middle of a scene that one could imagine today’s politically correct police avoiding all together as we spend some in a rural pub in Ballydavid.

Inside are only ould fellas clad in caps and heavy dark jackets with their fags filling the room with smoke and fascinated by the singing in Irish of “An Baile Atu Laimh Lei Suid” by Padraig Aghas.

The pint-fueled love song gets an assist by a friendly and familiar pubmate who links hand in hand with the Gaelgoeir helping to crank out the words to the delight of all in their knowing company. A lovely you-are-there quality all together.

Bridging these two singing traditions is the late lamented Frank Harte, who left us earlier this year, singing alongside a canal “Valentine O’Hara” from his canon.

To say this collection belongs in every home where traditional music is revered is an understatement. Unlike other recent DVD releases, the pictures and the brief on screen text captions with the spare details between the tracks reveal all you really need to know about these snapshots from the video legacy of RTE.

The good news is that this is volume one, so look for more material to emerge with a similar theme.

If you want this in time for Christmas, contact Ossian USA at 603-783-4383 or at www.ossianusa.com or visit the RTE shop directly at www.rte.ie where it can be ordered as well as in Irish book and music shops. Trying to score the VHS copy will prove harder, especially in an NTSC format.