The Bothy Band

"The Bothy Band (1st album)" 1975


[Uilleann piper Paddy Keenan] began playing around Dublin with singers Micheal and Triona Ni Dhomhnaill. Fiddler Paddy Glackin then joined them followed by flute player Matt Molloy. Next came accordion player Tony MacMahon and then Donal Lunny. They called themselves Seachtar, the Irish word for seven. [Ronan Nolan]

The band, featuring Lunny on bouzouki, piper Paddy Keenan, flautist Matt Molloy and fiddler Paddy Glackin had originally come together to back accordionist Tony MacMahon on a series of RTE radio broadcasts. Micheal and Triona O'Domhnaill (brother and sister) soon joined on guitar and clavinet respectively. MacMahon soon departed to concentrate on TV/radio production, and the band proper debuted in concert at Trinity College, Dublin, in February 1975. [Colin Harper]

Micheal O Domhnaill had recently returned from Scotland, where he happened across a photograph taken in the 1890s of a group of tattered musicians. The Bothy Band, it was titled, in reference to the migrant Irish laborers who worked in England and Scotland and were housed in stone huts known as bothies. [Shamrock Irish Music]

By the end of the year Glackin had left to be replaced by the legendary Tommy Peoples, and it was this line-up that recorded "The Bothy Band 1975." [Harper]

Although The Bothy Band's concerts and recordings both contained their share of vocal highlights, often drawn from the vast store of Neilli Ni Dhomhnaill - the singer's aunt - they're remembered most vividly for their instrumental firepower, in an all-traditional repertoire of Irish and some Scottish tunes. The magnificent wildness and ferocity of Paddy Keenan's piping, the fiery verve of People's fiddle, and Molloy's supple, muscular flute meshed triumphantly with compellingly forceful yet fleet-footed rhythm work, in which Lunny's self-styled hacksaw bouzouki technique, fusing rhythmic attack with elements of harmony and counterpoint to generate extra lift, played a crucial role. [Geoff Wallis, Sue Wilson]

The front-line powerhouse trio of Keenan's pipes, Peoples' fiddle and Molloy's flute resulted in the release of an awesome and explosive musical energy that has rarely been equalled. Their devastating live concert appearances at home and abroad, coupled with their ground-breaking album releases, won scores of new fans for the Bothies. Many of these were rock or pop music lovers with no previous interest in, or indeed knowledge of, Irish traditional music. Witnessing the group live, in full spate, was an experience never be forgotten. Unquestionably, their innovative fire-brand approach to the music represented, as did Planxty's mixing of traditional and contemporary, a supreme example of the urbanisation of Irish rural music. It was music that moved artists such as Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Emmylou Harris to seek out their albums and marvel at the band's instrumental firepower and declare themselves firm fans of the group. [Curtis]

At the same time, where Planxty had borrowed from a rock-band format in their arrangement of instruments within a band, the Bothies went a stage further and harnessed the power of rock'n'roll rhythms to traditional material and acoustic instrumentation. [Wallis/Wilson]

The Bothy Band were instantly lethal. You knew instinctively and immediately that here was a band on another planet to all the others. Hearing them for the first time was a bit on the where were you on the night Kennedy was assassinated? lines. [Colin Irwin]

The lead-instruments - fiddle, pipes and flute: they were raucous - the standard of playing was just incredible, and then the backing was so intense it was unbelievable. They were revolutionary in sound, yet the lead instruments were basically just playing straight, but they came with a fire in their belly. [Frankie Kennedy, Altan]