Willie Clancy at Friel's bar, Miltown Malbay, February 1972.
From John Knight's Collection, Tape_063

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I've been working today to restore this old cassette tape recording of Willie Clancy made at Friel's Bar (now Lynch's) in Miltown Malbay back in the 70's. I'm really pleased with the way it's sounding now!

I inherited John's entire collection of tapes, which he made in folk clubs, singarounds and sessions throughout the British Isles back in the day. He left us about 400 of them! They've been sat in a box untouched since he died in the early 80's, but as of about November last year it has become our project to recover his life's work and make it freely available to those of whom it might be of interest.

There is what seems to be an endless stream of gems amongst this collection and the quality is usually quite incredible given the age of the tapes. The cassettes are often degraded to the point they won't play properly, but the tapes themselves are sound so I've been transferring them into new cassette bodies to get the best out the recordings. Most of the recordings are seriously flat and contain a lot of background noise. If someone planted a pint glass on the table next to the recorder the volume spike is several times louder than the music itself! Clapping is always very raucus, etc. So, as part of the recovery process I perform some basic mastering to tidy things up and I re-tune if needed. This recording was out by a whole key!

It's lovely to now hear this set the way it sounded and to be a fly on the wall in that pub. Enjoy!

John Knight's Tapes, Tape_063

Willie Clancy - Recorded by John Knight at Friel's, Miltown Malbay (February 1972)

‘Knight, Briggs et al’ has been set up to house archival recordings of the folk and traditional music associated with the Knight family of Surrey and the Briggs family of Newcastle upon Tyne.

The collection includes music from the Knight Brothers (Simon, Chris, Andrew & Patrick) and the Briggs Sisters (Anna, Lesley, Astrid, Gael, Stephanie & Claire), amongst others.

Furthermore, the archive serves as a platform for John Knight's culturally priceless 1970's and 80's folk club, tune session and kitchen table recordings, which are slowly but surely being digitised by his descendants. More info here - https://soundcloud.com/knight-briggs-et-al/sets/john-knights-tapes

Willie Clancy - Recorded by John Knight at Friel's, Miltown Malbay (February 1972)

Knight, Briggs et al.