Anniversary

This album contains a selection of the best tracks from the five vinyl LPs that The Whistlebinkies made for Claddagh Records (of Dublin, Ireland) between 1977 and 1989. The first LP was produced by John Wood and the rest by Cy Jack and The Whistlebinkies. The group had first come to the attention of Garech Browne, founder of Claddagh Records, in 1976 when they recorded a track for an LP of the poetry and song of Hamish Henderson. So this CD Anniversary, issued in 1991, celebrated those 15 years of association with Claddagh. The album features two Eddie McGuire compositions written specially for the group: Macbeth (a suite from his incidental music for a BBC Radio Scotland production) and The Fiddler's Farewell written for Yehudi Menuhin to play with six Scottish fiddlers and The Whistlebinkies at the Queen's Hall in the Edinburgh Festival on August 14, 1985.
The musicians on Anniversary are: Peter Anderson (Scottish side-drum, bodhran, sticks), Mick Broderick (voice, bodhran); Stuart Eydmann (concertina, fiddle); Charles Guard (clarsach); Mark Hayward (fiddle); Mary Ann Kennedy (clarsach, voice); Eddie McGuire (flute, piccolo, clarsach); Rhona MacKay (clarsach, voice); Jo Miller (fiddle, voice); Bob Nelson (fiddle); Judith Peacock (clarsach, voice); Rab Wallace (Lowland pipes, Scottish smallpipes).