McPeake family photos from 1952

[dunnp]

The other O'Mealy I've seen photos of with these 'fiddle back' reg keys is a D set I think.

There is a boxwood chanter with that 'combed' wooden top you see on the McPeake O'Mealy
pictured in the Sean Reid article.

As an aside does anyone know where the McPeakes got the tune they play called "Juanita"?
Something they composed or took from somewhere else? I haven't heard the recording in a while but I remember that tune off it.

[john]

do the mcpeake's get paid when 'wild mountain thyme' gets recorded by van morrison, rod stewart or any of the other dozens of famous singers who have covered it?

[Kevin L. Rietmann]

Thanks for chiming in, Mark. Always loved that story. Jones sounds like a really cool guy.

Juanita is a popular song from the 1850s, melody by that redoubtable Spaniard, George Frederick Handel. McPeakes no doubt picked up from Robin Roberts or some other folkie. Or perhaps it made its way over the ocean on its own. There are threads at mudcat.org about Wild Mountain Thyme that will give you the scoop on that song, or anything else folkie related.

[Mr.Gumby]

At a tribute to Francie McP at WCSS 2010 there were quite a few references to the song's copyright issues when the song was performed. The McPeakes still claim ownership but I don't think the courts agreed.

[rorybbellows]

James Earl Jones does indeed play the pipes, but he had to change to GHB because the Uiilleann pipes kept slipping down his leg when on his unicycle and of course the problem all Uilleann pipers have, the flames shooting out of the drones tend to burn passers by.


RORY

[Kevin L. Rietmann]

Oh God that dude.

I used to play the fiddle or flute, sometimes the pipes, in the middle of the night in the lobby of the the salmon colored skyscraper directly behind Darth. Night watchman job. Good times. Guess I was helping to Keep Portland Weird in doing so, before they put up billboards advocating to do so in so many words.

Used to post never ending screeds here at that job, too.

[Colin29]

The John Lennon set was made by Alf Kennedy in Cork.