Mountain Road: A Song History

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"The Mountain Road," or "Bóthar an Chnoic" in Irish, is a reel in D major credited to the fiddler Michael Gorman.[1][2] Gorman (1895–1970) was born in Glasgow to Irish parents and grew up from 1905 at Doocastle on the Mayo–Sligo border, then moved to England, living in London from 1918 and, after a return to Ireland in 1930, again by 1939.[3] Reviewing Topic Records' Gorman collection The Sligo Champion, which comes with Reg Hall's musical biography of the fiddler, Geoff Wallis singles out this reel as the best known of Gorman's own tunes.[4] The Traditional Tune Archive notes that a real Mountain Road runs out of Tubbercurry in County Sligo, and passes on, as rumour only, a story that Gorman had in mind its use as a quiet back route for carrying poitín past the police station on the main road.[2]

A sandy road winding between tall trees under a cloudy sky

Meyndert Hobbema, Woodland Road, oil on canvas, about 1670. A country road through woods, shown for the road of the title; it is a Dutch scene, not Sligo.

Sources differ on its shape: the Traditional Tune Archive says Gorman first wrote it in six parts, later trimmed to the two now usually played, while Daniel Neely, writing in the Irish Echo, describes a two-part original and a later six-part version, both heard on a collection of Gorman's recordings that he reviewed in 2020.[2][5] The earliest recording in Alan Ng's tune index is Gorman's own from about 1955, with Willie Clancy on pipes, released on Topic Records' 2001 set The Sligo Champion.[1][6] Gorman's pupil John Vesey, a Sligo-born fiddler who settled in Philadelphia, recorded it around 1961, and it has since been recorded by Denis Murphy, Sharon Shannon, Dervish, Kevin Burke and many others.[3][2][1]

A "Mountain Road" arranged in DAD tuning appears in Aaron O'Rourke's Irish Session Tunes, Volume 2, a 53-page Fingers Of Steel book of jigs, reels and polkas for mountain dulcimer, issued with MP3 recordings of each tune.[7]

Our book that contains the song "Mountain Road"

Sources

  1. irishtune.info: "Mountain Road" (Tune ID 1350).
  2. Traditional Tune Archive: "Mountain Road (1) (The)".
  3. Musical Traditions: Ken Ricketts and Marya Parker, review of "Michael Gorman: The Great Fiddle Player".
  4. Musical Traditions: Geoff Wallis, review of "Michael Gorman: The Sligo Champion".
  5. Irish Echo: Daniel Neely, "Multifaceted picture of fiddler Gorman".
  6. Mainly Norfolk: "Michael Gorman: The Sligo Champion".
  7. Fingers Of Steel: "Aaron O'Rourke, Irish Session Tunes, Volume 2".
  8. Image: Meyndert Hobbema, Woodland Road, oil on canvas, about 1670. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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