Irish American Music of Days Long Gone and Ever With Us from the Winch Family

This Day Too, Music From Irish America

Terence Winch, Michael Winch and Jesse Winch

Produced by Celtic Thunder Music www.terencewinch.com

Free Dirt Records www.freedirt.net

Reviewed by Bill Nevins

“Season One will leave you befuddled and Season Two a hundred times more!” Imagine what might result if a wry poetic Irish wit were to comment upon the shameless (and confusing) goings on that do transpire during every episode of the hit HBO show, “Game of Thrones”!  Laughter and mighty craic would ensue, surely! Toss in some top shelf satirical musical deviltry–a mashup of “Lannigan’s Ball” and “Brian Boru’s March” “enticingly served up with sex and with gore”–  and you have just one of the highlights—aptly titled “Lannister’s Ball (Game of Thrones Song”)— of this fine recorded outing by some of Irish America’s most treasured talents.

Terence Winch, the widely published Washington DC- based poet and fiction author, has been featured via his verse on Garrison Keillor’s public radio poetry celebrations. Yet, Terence, a master of the button accordion, and his brother, bodhran demon Jesse Winch are perhaps best known in Irish American circles as founding members of the ORIGINAL Celtic Thunder band (now renamed Narrowbacks) which has delighted East Coast audiences for decades and recorded stunning albums that included Terence’s famous, beloved and oft-covered song, “When New York Was Irish”.

This fine album, on which the Winch brothers are joined by Terence’s son fiddler Michael Winch, picks up where the Original Celtic Thunder left us a few years ago, wandering about in hard New York days with a bunch of Irish American reprobates, musicians and bards conjuring times long past and waltzing us into this new century.

This is music that celebrates immigrants and their essential contributions to America, and does so in fine dancing style. Also along with the Winches for this wild joy-ride are an all star cast of musicians including Patrick Armstrong, Tina Eck, Eileen Estes, Brian Gaffney, Conor Hearn, Seamus Kennedy, Nita Conley Korn, Zan McLeod, Brendan Mulvihill, Conor Murray, Dominick Murray, Madeline Warner and (posthumously via recordings) the late Paddy Winch and PJ Conway. Professor Mick Moloney contributes lovely introductory notes to the cd package.

From the wistfully sad reminiscence of a lost Bronx neighborhood, “Childhood Ground” to the quietly joyful songs “Welcome Home” and “This Day Too” to such rousing instrumental work outs as “The Wonder Hornpipe” and “The Thunder Reel”, this is a collection of music to enjoy many times over again and again.  Highly recommended.