Planxty Reunion Concert in 2004

As I mentioned in my previous post, Mike Jeanneau was helping me anchor the sessions at McMenemy’s over Memorial Day Weekend while Bob and Dave were traveling. We had a lot of fun — as we often do — and we were joined by our friends Eamon Coyne, Kevin Sheehan, Ramona Connelly and Bill Zecker on Thursday, and Kevin, Ramona and Reagh Greenleaf  on Saturday night.

The start of Thursday night was a bit quiet since there weren’t a lot of diners and people were saving their money for the long weekend…so we had the opportunity to play some stuff we don’t normally get to play. One of my favorite songs to play with Mike is “The Ballad of Little Musgrave” and, since the place was kind of quiet, we launched into it.

Man, I love that song and Mike’s playing on it is always great…and I was listening to a version of it on the ride to work today and wanted to share it.

If you’re not familiar with the song, it’s a traditional ballad (F.J. Child’s Ballad #81) that is known by several names and variations, including “Mattie Groves,” “Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard,” and the version we do, which is based on Planxty’s arrangement…which you can see on their live 2004 concert here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When you come across really great songs — especially really old ones — it’s always fascinating to learn a little more about them. There’s a lot out there about “Little Musgrave”, but last year, I found a cool post on Rational Delight. It’s worth checking out if you like the song, especially since it has the audio of Nic Jones’ version…which I can’t find anywhere else.

We had a chance to play the song, and we took it. If you have a chance to check out the video and the post, you should take it as well.

If you weren’t able to make it Saturday, you can hear a few samples that we’ve posted on our website’s music player…the first five tracks are from Saturday’s session.