Brendan Taaffe: Review of Frankie Gavin




Frankie Gavin: Fierce Traditional

(Tara Music company, 8 Herbert Lane, Dublin 2, Ireland. Tel 353.1.678.7871, www.frankiegavin.com)

Frankie Gavin is, of course, the great Galway fiddler of De Danaan fame and the classic Frankie Goes to Town. In recent years Frankie has not been as prominent on the traditional scene—too busy, I guess, recording with the Rolling Stones and such. Fierce Traditional reasserts his claim to being a top fiddler, with a distinctive style. Classic Gavin, to my mind, is fast, bouncy, rhythmically aggressive, and technically complex. The opening cut, The Man of the House into the Providence, is exactly that; fast and virtuosic. But much of the album shows a mellower side of Gavin, and on the laid-back version of Lucy Campbell (for me, the gem of the album) Frankie maintains his crisp execution of bowing and ornaments while giving the tune more space. Tune-hounds will want to note that for Lucy Campbell Frankie has fiddle tuned down to Bb (Eb-Bb-F-C) and that for the rest of the album he is tuned to Eb (Ab-Eb-Bb-F). Much of the album emphasizes the lower end of the fiddle, giving the album textural contrast between the fast, bouncy stuff and the mellower cuts.

As a reviewer, I see part of my role to be comparison; fiddler x, whom you haven’t heard, is like fiddler y, so if you like y you should like x. That kind of thing— but Frankie Gavin is himself, the kind of fellow to whom you compare others. Frankie himself attributes much of his inspiration to the musicians and recordings of the ‘20s; James Morrison, Coleman, the Flanagan Brothers. In making this album, he was consciously returning to those touchstones, and seeking to offer an alternative to what he sees as the ‘trendy’, nouveau trad recordings so prevalent today. Other musicians are Brian McGrath, Alec Finn, and Sean Gavin, Frankie’s brother, on accordion, but the album is all Frankie.

Frankie Gavin: Fierce Traditional