Skip McKinley – Traditional Irish Flute

• Release Date: June 18, 2009
• Genre: Traditional Irish

Tracks

Track Title	Composers		Time
1 Morrison’s Jig	Traditional		(2:12)
2 Clean Pease Strae- Captain Rock	Traditional		(2:50)
3 Paddy’s Green Shamrock Shores-Doherty’s-Tie the Bonnet	Traditional		(5:09)
4 Prelude to a BBQ-Barbequed Leprechaun-The Girl of the House	Original/Trad		(3:42)
5 Boys of Balisodare- Rocky Road to Dublin	Traditional		(2:57)
6 Maids of Michelstown- Mrs. Judge	Traditional		(6:05)
7 Father Kelly’s-The Rookery-Master McDermott’s	Traditional		(3:53)
8 The Song that Know One Knew- Boys of Tandermagee-Padraic O’Rafferty’s	Original/Trad		(6:17)
9 Paddy’s Rambles through the Park	Traditional		(3:29)
10 When Kathryn was Anna-Spiddal Reel-The Twelve Pins	Original/Trad		(5:10)
11 Bill Hart’s Favorite	Traditional		(1:28)
12 Sporting Paddy-The Call and the Answer- New Custom House	Traditional		(4:04)

Rick Koster, writer and music critic for the New London Day, says…

“Mystic’s McKinley is one a very interesting Music Dude: a massive fan of indigenous Irish music and, a guy with a very fine career outside music. Irish flute has been his passionate hobby and for years. The thing is, he’s gotten extremely good at it.

”Fairytales” is a diverse buffet of jigs and reels – traditional and original – such as one could expect to discover in a survey course of Irish music. But the CD isn’t a dry recitation for the sake of demonstrating what he’s learned. It’s an effortlessly pleasurable and evocative collection.

McKinley is a dexterous player who infuses affection and emotion into his virtuosity. His accompanying players – including ex-Fairport Convention drummer Dave Mattacks and former Touchstone guitarist Claudine Languille – are the real deal.”

A few reflections…

Skip McKinley’s first solo release, “Executive Session” was completed in a matter of months. This second release took years. “It was a huge discovery process,” reflects flutist Skip McKinley who after a year and a half in the studio realized, “I wanted to create music as well as play sets of traditional Irish tunes.”  The recording stopped and the critical listening and thought began. The notion of each track becoming a musical fairytale came gradually to the surface.

When recording resumed the creative process was in motion. “Fairytales” developed an architecture by “contrasting sets of tunes, stand alone pieces and original compositions” says Skip. His own compositions were arranged into sets and they include Barbequed Leprechaun, The Song that No One Knew and When Kathryn was Anna.  His guest musicians are long time friends from around New England.

Among other things, this recording is a character study of the 19th century wood flute.  Skip’s 10- keyed granadilla wood flute was made by the exceptional London based James Pask circa 1850 and was primarily used for baroque and classical music. “There’s something in this flute that always rewards you for hard work.” The voice of the baroque flute is clearly present in Mrs. Judge. This piece was composed by 17th century Irish harpist Turlough O’Carolan. He was greatly influenced by baroque composers such as Vivaldi.

Skip’s alter ego architect, Michael McKinley brings his design sensibilities to his music, saying “Music is architectural and architecture is musical.” In individual pieces such as Morrison’s Jig and Bill Hart’s Skip explains, “The shape of the tune becomes all important.”

Percussion plays a big role on the recording. Dave Mattacks, former drummer for Fairport Convention, was intrigued by adapting a drum set to traditional tunes.  “I have long been amazed by the simple and primitive sound of bodhran (goatskin drum) and wood flute” says Skip. He and percussionist Mance Grady explored this on the hop jigs Boys of Ballysadare and Rocky Road to Dublin.

“Like good architecture, music should be balanced and represent the creation of a whole composition,” Skip adds, “It may have taken nearly a decade but in ‘Fairytales’ I think I’ve finally achieved that.”