Hi Kieron,
wow, Great site !
I'm 50 now, but when I turned 45, I took a trip to Albuquerque to see
Patrick Street play, which involved a short jet flight from my home
near Phoenix to Albuquerque. Nothing like your trip! The concert was
just great and a perfect ending was in store, in that I got to talk
briefly with Andy about the influence he had on my musical life. What a
nice guy, and it is still a memory I treasure.
I grew up in Chicago, and Irish music to me was (I thought) awful pub
renderings of drunken ballads about redhaired lassies--I stayed far
away from it. But I drifted into folk music, playing guitar, then
English folk music, then bluegrass. One day in 1986, in a Chicago
record store, I bought Parallel Lines (Dick Gaughan and Andy Irvine's
duet recording) simply because of the way it looked. Suffice it to say,
I became utterly and completely possessed by the sound of that bouzouki
weaving its way among the guitar lines. Then I discovered other zouk
recordings like Planxty's, Patrick Street, DeDannan, etc. Finally, I
bought my own in 1996 from Graham McDonald in Australia, and I've been
happily playing ever since.
Rick
(USA)