The Story:
None of this would have happened without Leo Moran. It started when he asked if I would be interested in doing a few little gigs with him around the place. The gigs went well, but we felt we needed a song on record and played on local radio to get a few more gigs.
So we went to Sun Street studio in Tuam, where after a few false starts we settled down to some serious recording. It took almost a year to get the album finished.
A lot of people became involved along the way; Ken Ralph at Sun Street took great pride in making everything sound good, and demanded the best performances from everyone.
The Whileaways came in like a whirlwind, they took over and wrote all the vocal arrangements, a very creative and talented group who added much to every song they sang on.
Along with the Whileaways came Pauline Scanlon, we were so honoured and delighted to have her and her glorious voice in the studio.
Will Merrigan has matured into a top-class session bass player He had to downshift a few gears to accompany our simple musical template, but with great professionalism built a strong foundation for the sound.
My friend Rosina Joyce is a wonderful fiddle player. She can improvise on any piece of music, and it was this ability – along with her luscious fiddle sound - that we wanted to record. She brought her A+ game to Tuam.
Máirtín O'Connor is a musical maestro , he was inventing 6 part harmonies for The Murmuring as he played. We listened in awe .
Mary made soup.
Jim Higgins kept his usual eagle eye on proceedings, always supportive, and very helpful with his advice on track listing and sequencing.
And Leo of course. Can't forget Leo's part in the story. As well as being the instigator he brought calm and focus with his innate producer skills, He came up with creative solutions and kept us all on track. And as always he shaped the sound with his innovate playing on guitar, keyboard, banjo and glockenspiel.
Thank you one and all.