From vinyl to obscurity ( The many classic Irish folk albums that never made it to cd)

I have many wonderful memories of Irish folk music that enriched my collecting and would be the basis to how I got into the music in first place. I play the bodhran and I formely lived in Galway for fifteen years, playing many sessions in the town. I now live in Edinburgh and I am doing a course in journalism at Napier University. To get back to music collecting, one of the reasons I took up the humble goatskin was through hearing the likes of Christy Moore, Planxty, Bothy Band and De Dannan and of course, The Cheiftains. Some of these artists are still easy to find and have made a smooth transference to the CD medium, but some have never seen the light of day since the vinyl records were deleted.

Two cases in point would be De Dannan and the Christy Moore period between the two Planxty phases in the seventies.

1) De Dannan's first album simply titled De Danann (spelt differently in the mid-70s) from 1975 (Polydor and Boot Records) has hardly ever seen a CD release, if for only the occasional 200 limited edition CDs once in a while, but it has never had a proper re-release on CD. The same for their following album, Selected Jigs,Reels and Songs (1977 Decca), yet both albums are masterful classics and like the famous Velvet Underground and Nico debut album, inspired many people to learn an instrument and form a group, though in De Dannan's case a trad group. The excuse apparently for the second De Dannan album not making it on to CD was that someone had lost the original master.

2) Christy Moore, now you can still get his debut album Prosperous (1971 Tara) and his 1977 and 1978 albums Live in Dublin (Tara) and The Iron Behind the velvet(Tara), but for a long, long time his two mid 70s albums were unavailable, Whatever Tickles Your Fancy (1975 Polydor) and Christy Moore (1976 Polydor) also known as the black album. In 1982 a compilation of these two albums was released called Nice N' Easy (Polydor), that was the last that was heard of these records for at least twenty three years, at least until the boxset in 2004, which featured a handful of tracks from both albums. The albums were to only see the light of day again as a double package CD released by the Austrailian record label Raven in 2004. Still, it was only a limited release so there are not many copies floating around, if you do find them on the net, you will pay a few bob more than his normal releases.

What I don't understand is why they weren't released before 2004 in like say, the mid 80s, this was a seminal period in Christy Moore's career, it was his third and fourth solo albums, and his first after leaving Planxty after their first phase. His 1976 album Christy Moore had seminal Irish hits such as Nancy Spain and classics like Little Musgrave and featured the likes of Barney McKenna, Jimmy Faulkner, most of Planxty and a few members of the Bothy Band too. Perhaps now, more little folk gems will be uncovered.

This is my very first blogging piece, so I'm still trying to work out what and what not to include. I'm definitely going to add more to this particular piece, such as other long lost vinyls like Inchiquinn and numerous others that I don't remember for the moment. Give me feedback and tell me what you think.