Show Me the Way Home, Honey

Gormacha:
Alison McGuinness, Singer
Rohan Young, Bodhran
Dermot Rooney, Dobro/Guitar

Gormacha play original compositions and their own distinctive arrangements of early folk and blues classics and lesser known works. There was a range and a complexity to much of the early blues music. At its best it seemed almost to issue forth from musicians; more something they were, rather than something they did. Gormacha play in an authentic American blues style, drawing on influences from the 1920s and 1930s. Yet their music also reflects Irish and indeed Belfast roots.

Alison McGuinness imparts songs with an acceptance of the message, rather than a need to convince and she has the most beautiful upper-mid range quality to her voice. Her reading of Blues is both elegant and fluent. She opened for Joan Armatrading during the Irish leg of her 2013 tour, but gormacha is her first major collaboration.

Rohan Young’s bodhrán work is breathtaking and he has adapted his drum expertly to the very different textures and patterns required from blues, sitting in rather than always driving the beat. Rohan performs with many of the finest Irish traditional players and works regularly as a session musician. He designs and builds his own bodhráns and is a highly respected teacher of the instrument. Rohan is also a master of the PANart Hang, a rare Swiss made drum.

Dermot Rooney plays slide guitar in a traditional Blues style that is both distinctive and unique. His main instrument is a Dobro, but he also plays acoustic guitar. Dermot was a founding member of the celebrated Belfast Balladeers, which was created by Glenn Simpson. He was for a time resident guitarist at the Rotterdam’s Sunday Blues night and he later toured ‘Sean Nos meets the Blues’, a project based around his slide guitar work. At the time Siobhán Long of the Irish Times described him as ‘an astounding bottleneck blues guitarist’ whose ‘ style...is marked by a modesty and attention to the fine detail that sets him apart’. Dermot was a regular contributor to the Castlebar Blues Festival, which was established by the late Larry Roddy.

The percussive rhythms of slide guitar can work extremely well with bodhrán and in more sparse material the drum can provide a voice somewhat like a bass guitar. Gormacha has been about roots musicians finding meaningful ways to present traditional blues music afresh. With the rapport between Dobro and bodhrán established throughout a range of material, the vocal story is told in a beguiling, yet understated way. This first recording is entitled Libation.

Libation includes several original compositions and the album updates a number of traditional American blues pieces as well as a couple of folk songs. Those tracks with guitar and vocal or with guitar and bodhrán were recorded in the studio together live; and, for tracks involving all three, the instruments were recorded live and vocal thereafter. So gormacha are able to play all that is presented here live. In mixing and in mastering great care has been taken to retain the intimate experience of a live recording.