Jackie Daly

Jackie Daly
Jackie Daly, 2007
Background information
Born	22 June 1945 (1945-06-22) (age 64) Kanturk, County Cork, Ireland
Genre(s)	Irish
Occupation(s)	Musician
Instrument(s)	Button accordion, concertina
Years active	1974–present
Associated acts	De Dannan, Patrick Street

See also : Jack "Jackie" Daly, Irish politician

Jackie Daly (Kanturk (North Cork, Ireland), 1945) is an Irish button accordion and concertina player. He has been a member of a number of prominent Irish traditional-music bands, including De Dannan, Patrick Street, Arcady, and Buttons & Bows.

Since the mid-1970s, Jackie Daly has been a highly influential figure in traditional music, widely credited with having rehabilitated the image of the accordion and establishing it as an acceptable instrument for inclusion in the line-up of concert groups. He launched the move away from the musette tuning of the 1950s and 1960s towards a sweeter sound with lighter tremolo. He has also fostered a significant upswing in the popularity of the C#/D accordion, which is played in the older "press and draw" style (in contrast to the B/C accordion, the predominant tuning system among Irish traditional accordionists, which is played "on the draw").

Born and raised in the area known as Sliabh Luachra, Jackie Daly is one of the foremost living exponents of the distinctive music of that region. Among his early musical influences were his father, a melodeon (one-row accordion) player, and local fiddler Jim Keeffe, under whose tutelage he began playing at "crossroads dances".

After working in the Dutch merchant navy for several years, Daly decided to become a professional musician on returning to Ireland in the early 1970s. In 1974 he won the All-Ireland Accordion Competition in Listowel, County Kerry. To qualify, he was obliged to play a B/C instrument, at the time the only system sanctioned by the competition organizers, but immediately afterwards returned to his chosen C#/D system. In 1977, his first solo recording was released by Topic Records of London as volume 6 of their Music from Sliabh Luachra series.

Jackie Daly's musical career is notable for outstanding partnerships with several fiddlers, beginning with Séamus Creagh. Their 1977 album, Jackie Daly agus Séamus Creagh, brought Sliabh Lauchra music to a wider audience and, with its tight unison playing, set the standard for future accordion and fiddle recordings.

Another influential partnership has been with Kevin Burke, on whose 1978 recording If the Cap Fits he made a guest appearance, and with whom he made another highly regarded fiddle-accordion duet album, Eavesdropper (1981). Along with Andy Irvine and Arty McGlynn, in 1986 Daly and Burke formed the band Patrick Street, with whom Daly played until 2007.

In the intervening years Daly made three albums with fiddlers Séamus and Manus McGuire, as Buttons & Bows. He also collaborated with fiddler Máire O'Keeffe, notably on the album Re-Joyce: Tunes and Songs from the Joyce Collection (2003).

Jackie Daly was the first of a series of accordionists with De Dannan, appearing on four of their albums between 1980 and 1985. It was his work with this band that is thought by many to have paved the way for the accordion to become a concert-stage, rather than principally a dance-band, instrument in Irish music.

In 2005 Jackie Daly was named Ceoltóir na Bliana (Musician of the Year) in the Gradam Ceoil awards of the Irish-language television station TG4.

Discography

Solo

• Jackie Daly: Music From Sliabh Luachra, Volume 6. 1977
• Many's a Wild Night. 1995 (with Maire O'Keeffe, Paul de Grae & Garry O Briain)

Duets

• Jackie Daly & Séamus Creagh. 1977
• Eavesdropper. (Kevin Burke & Jackie Daly) 1981

De Dannan

• Mist-Covered Mountain. 1980
• The Star-Spangled Molly. 1981
• Song for Ireland. 1983
• Anthem. 1985

Buttons & Bows

• Buttons & Bows. 1984
• The First Month of Summer. 1987
• Grace Notes. 1991

Patrick Street

• Patrick Street. 1986
• No. 2. Patrick Street. 1988
• Irish Times.
• All in Good Time. 1993
• Corner Boys. 1996
• Made in Cork. 1997
• Live From Patrick Street. 1999
• Street Life. 2002
• On the Fly. 2007

Arcady

• After the Ball. 1991

Other

• The 3rd Irish Folk Festival in Concert. (Live, with Séamus Creagh and other artistes) 1976
• Sail Og Rua. (with Dolores Keane & John Faulkner) 1983
• An Bodhran/The Irish Drum. (Colm Murphy, featuring Jackie Daly, Mairtin O'Connor and Aidan Coffey) 1996
• Re-Joyce, Tunes & Songs from the Joyce Collection. (with various other musicians) 2003

References

The Companion to Irish Traditional Music, ed. Fintan Vallely, New York University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-8147-8802-5.
"The kings of trad" in The Irish Times Weekend Review, by Siohbhan Long, Saturday, 24 September 2005.