Comhrá Ceoil and the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway, are delighted to announce details of the second talk in this year’s Martin Reilly Lecture Series, which will be given by Gerry Clarke, at 6.30pm on Tuesday, 28 March 2017, at Galway City Library.  ‘Old Familiar Tunes’ introduces the shared sources of Irish traditional musicians and the emerging genre of hillbilly (or country as it became known) recorded on 78rpms during the first half of the twentieth century.

Much of the repertoire of songs and tunes which Gerry will focus on are known to listeners from current practice of Irish traditional music, but we may be less familiar with the early versions of traditional music recordings made in the 1920s and 1930s.   With Gerry guiding us through these and corresponding music recordings from the American Southern States, we will hear some tunes that are in common between boththese music genres during these decades.   We can look forward to such diverse sounds as the Flanagan Brothers and Al Hopkins Hillbillies among others. In this talk, Gerry will give us an insight into the music, the musicians and the world of early recorded music in both genres.