Solas: Shamrock City
With
Seamus Egan: banjo/guitars/whistles/percussion
Winifred Horan: fiddles
Mick McAuley: vocals/accordion/guitar
Eamon McElholm: guitar/harmonium/bass guitar/harmony vocals
Niamh Varian-Barry:Lead/harmony vocals/viola
Guest Musicians:
Rhiannon Giddens: vocals
Dick Guaghan: vocals
Aoife O'Donovon: Vocals
Natalie Hass: cello
Dirk Powell: 5 string banjo
Chico Huff: acoustic bass
Trevor Hutchinson:upright bass
John Anthony:percussion
Mike Brenner: electric dobro
The Allegheny Brass Band
We at Copperplate are delighted to re-release this groundbreaking CD by Solas, voted one of the best 10 CDs of 2013 by Mojo magazine. It also served as an introduction to the then unknown Rhiannon Giddens, who has fulfilled her talents in the interim, to become a major star.
About Shamrock City: In 1910, Solas band leader Seamus Egan's great-great uncle Michael Conway left his home in Co. Mayo, Ireland and boarded a ship for America. He was headed to the copper mines and boxing rings of Butte, Montana, aka Shamrock City (named so for the influx of Irish immigrants). Six years later, at the age of 25 and in a cloud of mystery, Michael was dead at the hands of local police.
Shamrock City as seen through the eyes of Michael, tells the story of the thousands of young men and women who left behind their homes and families for "the Richest Hill on Earth". It reveals their spirit, tenacity and humour, but also the hardships they faced: discrimination, corruption within the mining companies, an unknown and unforgiving land, a system that valued the few over the many. One hundred years later, it's their story, but the struggles of the working class and immigrants are the same. Shamrock City is for those then and now that believe in a better life, and are willing to risk it all for a chance at something more.
Join Solas, "Irish America's most influential band" (NPR's The Thistle and Shamrock) as they celebrate the release of Shamrock City, their 11th album and most ambitious project & live show to date. A family story of immigration, mining and murder, and the remarkable history of Michael Conway & Butte, Montana. Kim Ruehl of FolkAlley.com calls it "a deeply thoughtful, imaginative collection of songs which grapple with the wealth of ideas and emotions inherent in the immigrant journey". Special guests on the album include Rhiannon Giddens of GRAMMY Award winning old-time string trio, Carolina Chocolate Drops & Aoife O'Donovan of nu-folk trailblazers Crooked Still and Scottish folk legend, Dick Gaughan.
R'N'R Mag Jan/Feb 21 4star Review
"It's a stunning musical achievement, involving guests such as the iconic Dick Gaughan, Aoife O'Donovan and Rhianrion Giddens. Tight, complex, but deceptively simple at times" Nick Burridge
Audio
Track 1: Michael Conway
Track 2: Lay Your Money Down
Track 3:Labour Song
Track 4: High, Wide & Handsome
Track Listing
- Intro (Sarah & Rita Keane: Stor Moi Chro)
- Far Americay
- (Tap 'Er Light)
- Tell God & The Devil
- Michael Conway
- Girls on the Line
- (My Fancy)
- Lay Your Money Down (featuring Rhiannon Gidden's)
- (Columbia Gardens)
- Arbor Day (featuring Aoife O'Donnovon)
- Welcome the Unknown
- (And Now A Banjo Moment)
- High, Wide and Handsome (The Wagoner/28th of January)
- Labour Song ( featuring Dick Gaughan)
- Am I Born to Die
- No Forgotten Man]
Press Reviews
R’r’R Mag Jan/Feb 21 * * * *
The re-release of this Solas album of 2013 is to be welcomed. Voted one of the top ten folk albums of that year—an obligatory mention now that folk music is to be charted so determinedly — it merits both its original ranking and revisiting, not as representative of any commercialisation, or the perennial pushing of particular artists, but as an ambitious — in the best sense — project, which spawned a live show, and acted as both musical and historical ballast for the good ship Solas.
Shamrock City is based in the copper-mining community of Butte, Montana, the arrival there of one Michael Conway, and an imaginative exploration of his experiences at the 'Richest Hill On Earth'. Since this involves the full scope of what might be expected, the spectacle of police brutality towards those they feel at liberty to abuse becomes a particularly topical motif.
It's a stunning musical achievement, involving guests such as the iconic Dick Gaughan, Aoife O'Donovan and Rhianrion Giddens. Tight, complex, but deceptively simple at times,
it is what the inventive re-creation of traditional folk music should be about, benefiting greatly from revolving round a single subject, yet drawing on every kind of influence one can think of. Nick Burbridge
Froots Aug 13
I spit in the eye of those who claim Ireland has dried up as a musical force. In the case of Solas and Niamh Ní Charra, anyway, extra points for reviving the honourable but often derided art of the concept album, in both their cases looking backwards to move forwards and digging deep to do it.
In their long career Solas have previously dipped their toes into social history, but they’ve never before tackled anything quite like Shamrock City, the story of Michael Conway’s 1910 emigration from Ireland to Butte, Montana to work in the copper mines. Opening with a scratchy sample of the Co. Galway singers Sarah and Rita Keane singing A Stór Mo Chroi, the portents are good as the band’s outstanding current singer Niamh Varian-Barry assumes the role of guide along Conway’s fateful journey, with an emotional delivery of Far Americay over Winnie Horan’s appropriately mournful fiddle.
Some of the rockier, more countrified material we encounter en route falls well short of this sort of impact but the samples keep coming, a romping banjo is never far away and we get guest vocalists popping up all over the place (Rhiannon Giddens, Aoife O’Donovan and Dick Gaughan with a ferociously good Labour Day) to accommodate the mood swings in what evolves into a cracking story. It’s a match for Tom Russell’s The Man From God Knows Where album on a similar theme…and that’s saying something. Colin Irwin
The Guardian
Solas have become Irish America's most inventive band by mixing their Celtic roots with country and Americana in their sturdy, melodic and thoughtful songs.
Their latest album is an emotional and angry concept work chronicling the life of Michael Conway, the great-great-uncle of the band's co-founder, multi-instrumentalist Séamus Egan. Conway left Ireland in 1910 to work in the copper mines of Butte, Montana, and was killed six years later in a confrontation with police, and his story allows for songs about immigration, hard times and escapism in the mining community known as Shamrock City, along with political comment.
The emotional ballads Far Americay and Welcome the Unknown are helped by fine instrumental work (especially the fiddle playing of Winifred Horan), and there are appearances from Rhiannon Giddens of Carolina Chocolate Drops and the Scottish folk veteran Dick Gaughan, with the angry Labour Song. Impressive. Robin Denselow
