Cork's David Murphy marries slow Irish airs with dreamy pedal-steel guitar, in debut solo album 

‘Cuimhne Ghlinn’, the debut solo album by Buttevant-originating multi-instrumentalist David Murphy, has a leg in each of two worlds. One, of Murphy’s prior experience and influence, with Americana influences present and immersive throughout, from John Blek and the Rats to The Lost Brothers. Another, in experimentation and cross-pollination of ideas, leading Murphy to the work of iconoclastic and singularly important Irish composer/arranger Seán Ó Riada.

Emerging from a pandemic-era series of recordings and collaborations, it unfurls gently, electronic and acoustic ambience setting a light tone for dreamy, swelling pedal-steel guitar perhaps best-known to casual listeners for its place in American folk and roots music.

The album trades on Irish melodies old and new, recast in this hybrid form of European ambience and the American tradition - Seán O’Riada’s ‘Aisling Gheal’ opens side A of the LP, while his son Peadar’s ‘An Draigheann’ does the same for side B, while works by Turlough O’Carolan sit alongside Murphy’s own composition, the eponymous title track.

“I guess, in my early to mid 20s, I was in a lot of rock bands, and I was a great lover of American folk and blues music and, y'know, naturally, eventually, it just led me to the pedal steel guitar. I just wanted to get to grips with it, really, just to use it in a musical way. I wasn't really trying to get into country music in a big way or anything, but a lot of bands that I really liked were using it. Bands like Calexico, Richmond Fontaine, they were using it in really musical, tasteful ways, which was intriguing to me. That was my intention, really, y'know, just to use it as another tool in the arsenal, I suppose.

“But as I got deeper into it, I just gravitated more towards it. I would be booked for gigs to play guitar and I'd show up with a pedal-steel instead, and, you know, I threw myself in at the deep end, but that's where I came to it, definitely more of a contemporary thing at the time. And then as I got more comfortable with it, as I got more interested in it, I started to seek out a lot more of the older players, the history of it, and how it evolved.”

While North Cork, specifically the corridors of villages and towns along the spine of the N20 that connects Cork and Limerick cities, lies at the very fringes of the Sliabh Luachra area, and isn’t without its history of sessions and céilí bands, Murphy didn’t have so much of a background in the living tradition.

His point of entry was a collaboration with Dublin composer Neil O’Connor, who enlisted Murphy to add pedal steel to his own homage to O’Riada, ‘Nomos: O’Riada Reimagined’ (also discussed in these pages in December of 2022), which started him thinking about the instrument’s own places in further meditations on inherited songforms and works.

“I've always been a great lover of Irish music, I would go to see a lot of trad gigs and even though I wouldn't play it, I would be a huge appreciator of it, I would be aware of what's going on. It just kind-of came during the pandemic, I was obviously not doing any gigs and I was doing a lot of recording projects from home for people, which I do regularly anyway. I just started messing around, just playing, picking up some tunes to learn, and I picked out some Irish tunes.

“'Aisling Gheal', actually, the first one on the album, I just started playing it one evening at home, and I thought, 'lovely', y'know, 'there's something here'. I had two or three other tracks figured out, then, no intention of making a record. But as I started thinking more, and just getting on the hunt for more tunes, ones that worked nicely, before I knew it I had a handful worked up and I thought 'God, there's the record idea, here'.

“It just seemed to tie in with a lot of my own interests, that kind-of seemed to be a natural convergence, in terms of the sound of the record that I had in mind. I'm into a lot of ambient music and modern classical stuff, traditional Irish music, and then there's a whole 'cosmic Americana' thing that's happened in the past five or ten years as well in America, William Tyler and other psychedelic guitar players.

“It just seemed to be a matter of convergence of all those things for me, in terms of making this record. And I knew, I think, getting older, I knew I wanted to make a record on my own at some point, and I knew that I wanted to do something with pedal steel that wasn't 'American', that was very different. These tunes just really stood out to me that they need to be recorded. And now was the time to do it.”

The record, though it centres Murphy’s arrangements and ideas of the material via his guitars, keys and electronics, is, by nature and necessity, a deeply collaborative one.

Steve Wickham, a longstanding violinist for The Waterboys, founder member of In Tua Nua and the violinist on U2’s ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ was an enthusiastic supporter of the project, lending his talents to two of the tunes. O’Connor returns the favour with an appearance on the title track, while harpists Alannah Thornburgh and Aisling Urwin each appear, their instrument’s delicate nature acting in turn as compliment and counterpoint.

“It was a mix of people who I'd worked with before, and also people I've never worked with before, which is really, really lovely. So, for example, Laura McFadden who played the cello on the album, she was a big part of it really, I played a lot with her, with Arborist and Malojian, Northern Irish bands, and also with Mark McCausland from The Lost Brothers, I would have done recording for his solo projects as well. So I worked it out with Laura, and I knew she would be a big part of the sound of the record.

“Rory McCarthy, I never played with before, but I know Rory from around Cork, y'know, wonderful piano player. Peter Broderick, a big, big fan of Peter, had never worked with him, but I think I went to, probably, his first gig in Cork in 2007, maybe, and every time he's been back since. So I reached out to him, he was very interested. The harp players, Alannah and Aisling, I'd never worked with before, but admire them for what they do, and was really excited to work with them.

“Steve Wickham played fiddle as well, y'know, God, like, we all heard him growing up, 'Fisherman's Blues' and everything else. I worked with Steve a little bit with the Lost Brothers as well, and when I pitched the idea to me, he was really, really keen as well. So it was lovely, a lovely mix of people.”

David Murphy’s ‘Cuimhne Ghlinn: Explorations in Irish Music for Pedal Steel Guitar’ is available online at https://davidmurphymusic.bandcamp.com, and on 12” vinyl at independent record shops via Rollercoaster Records.

The record was made possible with support from Cork City Council Arts Office.