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Randal Bays (born 1950) is an American fiddler, guitarist and composer. This Irish-style fiddle and guitar player first gained international recognition through his recordings and performances with Co. Clare fiddler Martin Hayes in the early 1990s.
Born in Indiana in 1950, Bays relocated to the Pacific Northwest as a teenager and has made his home in Oregon and Washington since then. He began playing music at the age of eight, and his musical life included serious study of the classical guitar, prior to taking up Irish fiddling in the 1970s. At the time, he lived in Portland, Oregon, and was strongly influenced by Co. Cavan accordion player Michael Beglan, also fiddler Kevin Burke and guitarist Mícheál Ó Domhnaill.
Since then Bays has recorded and performed with many of the leading Irish traditional musicians, including James Kelly, Martin Hayes, Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin, John Williams, Aine Meenaghan, Dáithí Sproule and James Keane. He now tours mostly as a solo performer and with various duet partners. In 2002 Bays co-founded the Friday Harbor Irish Music Camp in Washington's San Juan Islands, and served as Artistic Director until the camp's demise in 2011. He is now Program Director of the Cascadia Irish Music Week a yearly music week in Washington state.
In 1995 Bays began releasing his own albums under the Foxglove Records label, which he founded, including Out of the Woods, The Salmon's Leap, House to House with Roger Landes — voted best traditional album of 2005 by the Irish Times - Overland with Dáithí Sproule, and several more. In 2011 he released his first solo fingerstyle guitar CD, Oyster Light, which has been highly praised by such guitar luminaries as Tony McManus and Daithi Sproule.[ citation needed ]
Don Meade wrote in The Irish Voice (New York, Jan. 2001) that Bays is "still best known to many for his beautiful guitar accompaniment on fiddler Martin Hayes' early recordings, [but] Randal is himself a marvelous fiddler, one of the best in the country."[ This quote needs a citation ]
The Irish Examiner deemed Bays "a rare beast, a master of both the fiddle and the guitar,"[ This quote needs a citation ] and Fiddler Magazine said he is "among the best Irish style fiddlers of his generation." [1]
Altan are an Irish folk music band formed in County Donegal in 1987 by lead vocalist Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and her husband Frankie Kennedy. The group were primarily influenced by traditional Irish language songs from Donegal and have sold over a million records.
Green Linnet Records was an American independent record label that specialized in Celtic music. Founded by Lisa Null and Patrick Sky as Innisfree Records in 1973, the label was initially based in Null's house in New Canaan, Connecticut. In 1975 the label became Innisfree/Green Linnet and Wendy Newton joined Null and Sky as operating officer. In 1976 Newton took over control of the now Green Linnet label and moved it to Danbury, Connecticut in 1985. Newton became sole owner in 1978. Newton's love of Irish music had been sparked during a visit to Ireland where she heard traditional music for the first time in a small pub in County Clare.
Kevin Burke is an Irish master fiddler considered one of the finest living Irish fiddlers. For nearly five decades he has been at the forefront of Irish traditional music and Celtic music, performing and recording with the groups The Bothy Band, Patrick Street, and the Celtic Fiddle Festival. He is a 2002 recipient of a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Martin Hayes is an Irish fiddler from County Clare. He is a member of the Irish-American supergroup The Gloaming.
Mícheál Ó Domhnaill was an Irish singer, guitarist, composer, and producer who was a major influence on Irish traditional music in the second half of the twentieth century. He is remembered for his innovative work with Skara Brae, the first group to record vocal harmonization in Irish language songs, and The Bothy Band, one of the most influential groups in Irish traditional music. His reputation was enhanced by a successful collaboration with master fiddler Kevin Burke, and his work with the Celtic groups Relativity and Nightnoise, which achieved significant commercial and critical acclaim.
Harvest Storm is the third studio album by Altan, released in April 1992 on the Green Linnet label.
Island Angel is the fourth studio album by Altan, released in 1993 on the Green Linnet label. In 1995, Q included Island Angel in its publication "In Our Lifetime: Q's 100 Best Albums 1986–94", a list compiled to celebrate its 100th issue. It was also the final album to feature founding member Frankie Kennedy who died a year after its release.
Tommy Peoples was an Irish fiddler who played in the Donegal fiddle tradition.
Dáithí Sproule is a guitarist and singer of traditional Irish music. He is the grandson of Frank Carney and uncle of singer Claire Sproule.
Liz Carroll is an American fiddler and composer. She is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship Award. Carroll and collaborator Irish guitarist John Doyle were nominated for a Grammy Award in 2010. She is considered one of the greatest contemporary Irish fiddlers.
Manus McGuire is an Irish fiddle player.
Catriona Macdonald is a fiddler, composer, researcher, and lecturer from Shetland, located some 320 km north of the Scottish mainland. She is considered to be among the world's leading traditional fiddle players, and one of the top exponents of the Shetland fiddle, a branch of traditional music with clear connections to the music of Scotland, but which features differs slightly in its overall feeling. The music of Shetland has been shaped for centuries by visitors and various musicians from abroad, including Scandinavians, and has been influenced by styles such as the music of Orkney, Norway and Ireland.
James Keane is an Irish traditional musician and accordion player. The Italian Castagnari company issued and continues a line of signature instruments called keanebox in his honor.
Fingal are an Irish traditional music band, based in the United States. The group was formed in New York City in 2006, regularly tours across the United States and Europe, and released their debut album in October 2008 to critical acclaim.
Paddy O'Brien is an Irish accordion player and memoirist, author of The Road from Castlebarnagh: Growing Up In Irish Music and creator of the Paddy O'Brien Tune Collection: A Personal Treasury of Irish Traditional Music, the first published oral collection of Irish traditional music.
The Widening Gyre is the twelfth studio album by Irish folk music group Altan and their eleventh studio album of original material, released in February 2015 on the Compass Records label. It was released to critical acclaim.
James Kelly is an Irish fiddler, composer, collector, researcher and teacher from Dublin. He is the son of County Clare fiddler, John Kelly, and has played with various groups including Patrick Street and Planxty. Kelly has been described by The Journal of Music as "one of the greatest Irish traditional fiddlers alive today" and by Cathy Benton, Professor of Music at Missouri Baptist University, as "one of the top 10 fiddlers in the world".
Dennis Cahill was an American guitarist who specialized in Irish traditional music. He was born in Chicago of parents from County Kerry, Ireland. He began playing guitar at the age of nine and studied the instrument at the Chicago Musical College. He was active in the Irish traditional music scene in Chicago in the 1980s and 1990s.
Seamus McGuire is an Irish fiddle player born in County Sligo now residing in County Donegal. In 1966, he won Sligo's prestigious "Fiddler of Dooney" competition. He is a founding member of Buttons and Bows, as well as The West Ocean String Quartet. The quartet reflects his classical training and his love of exploring spaces where classical and traditional musics can meet. Like his younger brother Manus McGuire, another renowned fiddle player, he is a medical doctor.
The Gap of Dreams is the thirteenth studio album by Irish folk music group Altan and their twelfth studio album of original material, released in March 2018 on the Compass Records label to critical acclaim.
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