Horslips at Home

Horse Lips? No, Horslips! The pronunciation is the same either way, and it still sounds like a silly name to some, but the music of Horslips is nothing to snicker about. During their relatively brief recording career, this Irish band produced some vital, influential music.

 

Horslips were one of the very first bands to combine traditional Irish folk music with contemporary rock sounds. Imagine the Chieftains meeting Thin Lizzy, with perhaps some Byrds and Jethro Tull thrown in for good measure. They were that eclectic, that different. Horslips utilized guitar, flute, keyboards, fiddle, and drums to produce a unique, thrilling sound. Studio albums, such as The Book of Invasions, Aliens, Dancehall Sweethearts, and Happy to Meet … Sorry to Part were wonderful examples of this heady fusion of musical styles. By the late 70s, when they released The Man who Built America, Horslips had shed most of their folk trappings and were veering towards a more rock style, albeit with their Irish roots still showing.

 

The band’s last studio album, Short Stories/Tall Tales, was released in 1979, and followed by the live album The Belfast Gigs in 1980. And after that … nothing. After ten years together, Horslips had broken up. A strangely quiet end to a most wonderful band. They got back together temporarily in 2004 to release a new studio album, Roll Back, but rather than recording new compositions, the album was comprised of acoustic “reworkings” of some of their more popular songs. But then in 2009, after a nearly 30 year hiatus, Horslips reformed for a series of concerts.

A live recording of some of those shows, Live at the O2, was released in 2010. I recently bought a copy of that live album, a 2-CD set, and have been enjoying it for the past month. This is a musical feast for Horslips fans to savor and appreciate; a Celtic hoedown with all the trimmings. The band members are all now in their sixties, but on this live recording they sound absolutely on top of their game, spinning reels and jigs with rock and roll fervor. Most all of the old favorites are included here: “Mad Pat” … “Power and the Glory” … “The Man Who Built America” … “I’ll Be Waiting” … “Sword of Light” … “Trouble with a Capitol T” … “Sideways to the Sun” …. “Ghosts” … “High Reel” … and many more. They end the album with a rousing version of “Shakin’ All Over,” I’m sure that after hearing this tremendous concert document, many Horslips fans felt the same bliss that I did. You can’t help but be very impressed. They are still a great band!

 

I was lucky to have seen Horslips in concert one time, during their 1980 US tour at the Great Southern Music Hall in Orlando. We had front row seats, but few of were sitting during the wildly energetic show, cheering on the band as they dished out an incredible variety of musical fireworks. Great, great show by a great, great band. If you want to know what all the fuss was about, and why so many listeners still adore them, listening to live recordings such as Live at the O2 or The Belfast Gigs would be a good way to discover the magic.

http://www.horslips.ie/

 

Largo: from Dvorak to Taj Mahal

Here’s another one of those great albums that totally slipped under the radar when it was released. The fact that so few people have heard of this album — much less listened to it — is all the more puzzling due to the plethora of well known names on the album. Among the musicians involved are Taj Mahal, Cyndi Lauper, Levon Helm, Joan Osborne, the Chieftains, Willie Nile, Rob Hyman and Eric Bazilian of the Hooters (Hyman wrote many of the album’s songs), and the long-lost David Forman. Looking at the lineup of artists on Largo, the wide mixture of styles would seem to make for a clunky fit, but it all gels fabulously. Carole King even pops in for a harmony vocal of a stunning version of “An Uncommon Love,” a song that Osborne absolutely transports with her emotive singing. “Freedom Ride,” sung my Taj Mahal, is a glorious anthem of a song, one of the best he’s ever recorded … and that’s saying a lot.

According to the liner notes, the music on this album was inspired by Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony From the New World. I’m not a classical music fan, so it puzzled me as to how this music was somehow inspired by a Dvorak symphony. More details in the liner notes enlightened me:

“In 1892 Czech composer Antonin Dvorkak left his European home to spend two years in America. The New World inspired him; he loved the big cities, the open plains, the steam locomotives, the Wild West, and perhaps most of all, American music. Spirituals, folk ballads and native dances were some of the influences most deeply felt in his symphony From the New World. The familiar “Largo” theme endures to this day.”

And what is this mysterious Largo theme? It turns out that “Largo” was the name of the second movement in that symphony. So, there you go. That sense of wide–eyed wonder and discovery mentioned in the liner notes is definitely conveyed in the music found on the Largo album. Close your eyes and it’s easy to imagine the wide open spaces and busy cities that inspired Dvorak. This is music that moves, soothes, and inspires. Largo is an album that you need to hear.