Séamus Ennis - Ceol, Scéalta Agus Amhráin (CD)

First released on Gael Linn in 1961, this is the master piper as complete tradition bearer: music, stories and songs, exactly as the title promises. Ennis inherited the pipes from his father James and spent the 1950s travelling Ireland and Scotland collecting from the great Gaeltacht singers, first for the Irish Folklore Commission and then for the BBC, where he presented the pioneering programme As I Roved Out. This record gathers the fruits of all that back into one voice.

Sean-nós songs like Bean Dubh an Ghleanna, Dónall Óg and the Connemara famine song Johnny Seoighe sit alongside virtuoso piping on An Fáinne Óir and the Salamanca reel set, with tin whistle turns and Ennis's storytelling woven between. Few musicians have ever stood so close to the source, and fewer still could carry it with such command. An essential document from the man every subsequent piper measures against.