THE VOLUNTEERS: The Volunteers

The Volunteers

The Volunteers

© 1998 Henk Milne/Voluntary Music/ASCAP (634479327322)

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A top selection from Volume 1 of their catalog of original American Celtic tunes or, as they put it, "the 18th Century Scots/Irish folk tunes that we wrote last week," from that kick-ass gang of Celtic rockers, The Volunteers.

tracks

1 The Wild Western Sea
2 Marching to the Drums
3 Chains of Steel
4 Moreton Bay
5 The Last Chance Bar
6 The Bare-Ass Girl
7 Going Home
8 Shadow of a Gunman

notes

This excerpt from page 153 of "Drone On!: The High History of Celtic Music," Winnie Czulinski, (available on Amazon.com)

". . . a lot of Americans would argue their own kind, through that Scots-Irish influx, has dragged on Celtic musical traditions longer than the homeland. As well, Irish beats mixed with African rhythms to become rock music. The bodhran backbeat of jigs and reels also morphed into the train-beat of rockabilly, and hence to rock 'n' roll. That's the thinking of American longtime folk-rocker Henk Milne, known as the "big voice" of The Volunteers, a band equally inspired by the Volunteers who held Dublin against the British Army in 1916 and an LP by 1960s California acid-rockers Jefferson Airplane who held the age of psychedelia against the PTA. This folk-rock progression is why Milne and his crew have happily embarked on what purists would scream sacrilege, writing lyrics to Turlough O'Carolan's 17th- and 18th-century tunes, and rocking them out. O'Carolan, it seems, was a bawdy old jokester who actually penned words to a lot of his tunes, so welcome to keeping tradition alive in the new land. Milne's band Voluntarily takes time-honored Celtic themes into LPs like Whiskey, Love and Disaster, not a bad reference to Celtic history as a whole. They're also something of an anomaly in a south-Florida scene that's always gone for the Latin dance-flavored stuff, but as The Vols are called a full-throttle runaway locomotive of a band, that may have changed by now."
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reviews

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  • Cranking!
    author: Stiff McDonald

    Just f******************************************cking fantastic!

  • Listening to this cd is fun! The music makes me happy & energized.:)
    author: Christi
  • The Best Celtic Rockers in the Universe
    author: Phigg Newton

    The only Celtic band I have ever seen who write and play original music that really sounds like Scots/Irish folk standards. "Bare-Ass Girl" always makes me laugh my ass off and the live track - "Shadow of a Gunman" - proves that these guys are some of the hardest rockers around. Sounded so much like a Vols show that I could feel the hangover!

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