This is going back a while, as I mentioned on the forum I’ve been listening to tracks that I used to play on the station and re-introducing some. This album from Bohola, their self-titled debut, is one that stood out. The album manages to sound like a session and feels very vibrant. Something that many musicians fail to accomplish as re-creating that feel in a studio setting is hard going.
Bohola are accordion virtuoso Jimmy Keane and the bouzar player and vocalist Pat Broaders. They were hailed by The Irish Herald as Irelands new Supergroup and described their music as
a driving, muscular, and yet very emotive style of Irish music with deep roots in the ‘pure drop’ tradition, infused with the raw and gritty urbanized musical vernacular of the Irish and Irish-American experience.
Bio
Born in London of Irish-speaking parents, Jimmy Keane’s accomplishments are far reaching. The son of a sean nos (old style) singer, he is All Ireland accordion champion for five consecutive years. He is a composer and arranger of Irish music and has produced and recorded numerous albums. Many regard Keane as the premier exponent of Irish music on the piano accordion. Noted University of Limerick Professor, composer, and musician Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin praised Keane as the “savior of the piano accordion.” Emusic described him as “one of the true giants of Irish traditional music of the past fifty years.”
Keane has performed and recorded with some of the best musicians in Irish music over the years including Liz Carroll, Michael Flatley, Mick Moloney, Eileen Ivers, and Seamus Egan. However, it was not until he started playing with Pat Broaders that the style of Irish music that Keane plays “really started to jell and this big huge raw and powerful sound came out of nowhere,” reflected Keane. “We were like a glove - instinctively darting in and out of the music as if we were “as-one” playing the same big instrument.”
Pat Broader arrived in Chicago from Ireland in the 1990’s. “Pat is a real veteran of the Irish music scene both here and abroad, playing, recording, and performing with many artists and bands over the years,” said Keane. “Pat has this acute sense of music and rhythm that enables him to “lock in” his bouzar (bass bouzouki & guitar hybrid) playing to whatever I might do musically and rhythmically. The synergy that results spurs on bohola and draws in the audience. And his singing is brilliant - if I could sing, I’d love to sing like Pat.”
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