Sex, Sca & Sedition: The New Ballads
Free State Records CD Alt 001; 74 minutes; 1999
As Fintan Vallely records in
his introduction to this collection, “If video killed the radio star, the radio
had already done much to kill off the ballad singer. And indeed the cinema, and
in particular, the newspaper and literacy had a hand there too.” Bearing the
intriguing subtitle “Subaltern elements in contemporary Irish ballads”, Sex,
Sca & Sedition was the brainchild of the Cork singer Jimmy Crowley and
appeared on his own Free State Records as the first and so far only release in
its ‘Altruistic Series’. 
The album features seventeen
then recently composed new ballads ‘recorded with an active audience’ at the
Cork Arts and Theatre Club and at Barr a’Cuma, a pub near Kilgarvan, Co. Kerry
(better known as “The Top of Coom”). The ‘active’ part of that description is
worth remembering since the two audiences had little hesitation in singing
along with the choruses or shouting an order for a fresh pint.
Though no information is
given regarding the singers who almost all sing their own compositions, it
would be fair to say that the majority do not earn their living through public
performance, though the vocal quality is much better than one might expect and
even when the singer does not have the best of voices, the balance is redressed
by the quality of the song itself. A particular example would be John Maguire
whose vocal shortcomings are more than compensated by the sheer wit of his two
songs Me Floppy, Floppy Drive (which Jimmy Crowley himself has recently
recorded) and The Roving Irish Pound. All the singers are male bar the duo
of Máirín Uí Lionáird and Síle Ní Riordáin (who sing the only Gaelic song on
the album – a bawdy ballad about the Clinton-Lewinsky incident).
Humour permeates much of the
material here, especially in the songs of Gus McLoughlin who sings variously
about the declining morals of the young, the digging of a new sea tunnel and,
on Chandelier Charlie, about a boisterous sexual relationship. Sport
also figures on Dennis McGarry’s Mick Barry from Waterfall, a paean to
the Co. Cork star of road bowling while other subjects range from The
Ordnance Survey Man from Deaglán Tallon to tourism in The Heritage Trail
by Jerry O’Neill. Music is also considered too in Cliff Wedgbury’s eulogy to
the late Pete Bellamy in Concertina Man and Don Murphy’s The Pub
Musicians’ Complaint (inspired by a pub customer who demanded a Guns ‘n’
Roses number from a group of traditional musicians) which will strike a chord
with many a session regular. A personal favourite is Jerry O’Neill’s Ger
Mac’s Crubeens, a tribute to a Cork delicacy (savoury pig’s trotter):
You
can have all your pizzas and burgers,
I’d
rather a juicy crubeen.
Finally, there is one word
of warning. Many of the references in the songs are Cork-specific and some of
the local argot may be impenetrable to anyone not born in the city. Indeed,
after four years this reviewer is still none the wiser as to the meaning
of ‘sca’ in the album’s title – a
definition would be very welcome!
This is an original review by Geoff Wallis.
More information about Free State Records can be found at www.jimmycrowley.com.