Liam Clancy (1935-2009) and old-time music

Liam Clancy, who died on Friday in Cork, was buried today in Dungarvan, Co. Waterford. The Irish Times obituary can be read here, and the Irish Independent obituary here.

Overlooked in both obituaries is Liam Clancy's contribution to making more widely known the music of some of the best Southern traditional players of the mid twentieth century. With Diane Hamilton Guggenheim and Paul Clayton, he was in North Carolina and Virginia in the summer of 1956, recording the banjo and fiddle playing of Hobart Smith and the guitar playing of Etta Baker, among others. The recordings were released later that year on Tradition Records as Instrumental music of the southern Appalachians - a classic album which is still available on CD or in mp3 form.