Ryan's Fancy,
What a Time! A Forty Year Celebration
(Singsong, 2011)
The members of Ryan's Fancy carried the music of their homeland, Ireland, to their new home, Canada, and made a rousing success by blending the two.
Now, nearly 30 years after the Irish-Canadian trio disbanded, their music is gaining new life through the band's first-ever CD release. What a Time! A Forty Year Celebration is a two-disc, 42-track collection that gives this gone-but-not-forgotten band its due.
The band -- Denis Ryan, Fergus O'Byrne and Dermot O'Reilly -- grew out of the Toronto music scene in 1971, when fragments of previous Irish-Canadian bands (Sullivan's Gypsies and Sons of Erin among them) shifted their base to St. John's, Newfoundland, and reformed as Ryan's Fancy. They performed for two decades, producing 12 LPs and headlining a national TV series, before calling it quits in 1983.
I'll leave it to the scholars to explain -- in great detail, if you look around -- just how influential these boys were on Newfoundland's strong musical tradition, to say nothing of the broader scope of Canadian music. Suffice it to say, these 42 tracks are the tip of a much larger iceberg that I would love to see released soon.
The songs here range from the common to the obscure, including (to name but a few) "Feller from Fortune," "Cape Breton Dream," "Sweet Forget Me Not," "The Star of Logy Bay," "West Country Lady," "Sea People," "Bold O'Donahue," "The Cliffs of Baccalieu," "Ban Chnoic Eireann O," "Coal Town Road," "Farewell to Nova Scotia," "Mist Covered Mountains of Home," "The Rocky Road to Dublin" and "The Parting Glass." There's a happy balance between the traditions of Ireland and the Atlantic coastal provinces of Canada (primarily Newfoundland and Nova Scotia).
Ryan's Fancy has an earnest, pleasant sound that is well polished, yet retains a rough, earthy feel. The lads take turns singing lead or work together in harmony, offering plenty of variety. And, although recorded a few decades back, these tracks sound clear and freshly minted. All in all, I'll number What a Time! among my favorite releases (so far) of 2011!
March 24, 2011
ALBUM REVIEW FROM THE DOWNHOME and INDEPENDENT.CA
And the newly relaunched INDEPENDENT.ca did a review of "What A Time!" as well.
Click here to read the review
March 19, 2011
ALBUM REVIEW FROM STEPHEN COOKE AND THE CHRONICLE HERALD
"Calling What a Time!: A Forty Year Celebration 'long-awaited' is an understatement. It's been over a quarter century since Ryan's Fancy stopped recording and touring and these songs have been sorely missed ever since. There's never been another vocal blend like Fergus O'Byrne, Dermot O'Reilly and Denis Ryan, whose music spanned the Irish and Atlantic Canadian tradition with incredible heart and soul. They could sing and play with the best of them, but the beauty of these recordings lays in the rough edge of peat smoke and strong whiskey that rose up out of the grooves, as if there wasn't that great a distance between the pub and the recording studio. Ryan's Fancy could summon moments of beauty without making the music too pretty, and play the drinking songs rough and ready without letting the seams show. Many of these renditions are definitive, The Ryans and the Pittmans and Mist Covered Mountains of Home come to mind, and are more than ready to be rediscovered."
March 12, 2011
MARCH AND APRIL TOUR DATES
MARCH DATES - Fergus O'Byrne & Fergus Brown-O'Byrne
Mar. 16
Potluck Live Arts and Culture Centre, St. John's
http://www.artsandculturecentre.com/stjohns/events/2011/potlucklive.html
Mar. 17th 7:30 am - 9:30 am
O'Reilly's St. Patrick's Day Breakfast http://www.oreillyspub.com/
Mar. 17th
6:30 pm Evening show at Raymond's Restaurant
http://www.raymondsrestaurant.com/new.php
APRIL DATES - A Crowd Of Bold Sharemen
Fergus O’Byrne, Daniel Payne, Jim Payne & Gerry Strong
SHORE TO SHORE TOUR 2011
http://www.wrenmusic.co.uk ( go to news page )
2nd April
Exeter Northcott Theatre concert
7.30pm £12 (£6 concs) www.exeternorthcott.co.uk 01392 493493
6th April
Poole Lighthouse concert
8.00pm £10 (£8 concs) www.lighthousepoole.co.uk 0844 406 8666
7th April
London Cecil Sharp House concert
7.00pm £14 advance, £17 on the door www.efdss.org 0207 485 2206
8th April
Hartlepool Town Hall Theatre concert (with special guests The Young 'Uns)
8.00pm £10 (£9 concs) www.thesagegateshead.org 01429 890000
9th April
Hartlepool Maritime Experience workshops
11am – 1pm Songs of the Sea and the Shore workshop. All voices and abilities welcome.
2pm – 4pm Tunes from Newfoundland. All acoustic instruments – no reading required.
Workshops open to adults and young people from 14+.
Tickets for each workshop £8 (£6 concs) www.thesagegateshead.org 0191 443 4661
10th April
Birmingham Midlands Arts Centre music workshop
1 - 4pm Newfoundland music workshop. All acoustic instruments – no reading required.
£12 (£10 for concert ticket holders) www.macarts.co.uk 0121 446 3232
10th April
Birmingham Midlands Arts Centre concert
7.30pm £12 (£10 concs) www.macarts.co.uk 0121 446 3232
12th April
Bristol Colston Hall song workshop
1 - 4pm Songs of the Sea and the Shore workshop. All voices and abilities welcome.
£10 (£8 Music Leader South West members, £8 for concert ticket holders)
www.colstonhall.org 0117 922 3686
14th April
St Mary's Church, Bideford, Devon concert
7.30pm £10 (£8 concs) from Bideford Tourist Information Centre, Burton Art Gallery, Kingsley Road, Bideford, North Devon, EX39 2QQ 01237 477676
16th April
Bristol Colston Hall concert
8.00pm £12 (£10 concs) www.colstonhall.org 0117 922 3686
17th April
South Petherton, Somerset, David Hall concert
8.00pm £12 (£10 concs) www.thedavidhall.org.uk 01460 240340
March 11, 2011
#1 SALES CHARTS
We're very excited to hear that "What A Time!" debuted at number one in Newfoundland sales charts. Thanks to all of you who bought a CD and helped make this happen.
See the chart here
March 10, 2011
CD REVIEW
We recently had a review of "What A Time!" in The Muse.
"Songs have always been an integral part of the lives of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. It’s not just the ocean, the forests, and the farms that have provided inspiration; the tunes that have become canonical were also written with a passion for a rocky land rife with hardships but with an easily discernible charm."
"No doubt, songs have always been important, but it wasn’t until 1971, when three Irish emigrants—Fergus O’Byrne, Denis Ryan, and the late Dermot O’Rielly, to whom this album is dedicated—assembled in St. John’s as Ryan’s Fancy, that people from this province understood just how good those songs were..."
Read full story here
March 8, 2011
HERALD FEATURE
Here's a three page feature in The Newfoundland Herald that appeared this week - thanks to The Herald and Kevin Kelly for taking the time to talk with us.
