Liam O'Flynn (Planxty) RIP

[Dagger Gordon]

Very, very sad news from Ireland.

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2018...7-liam-oflynn/

I think many of us here owe an enormous amount to the ground-breaking music of Planxty and the way they fused traditional Irish music with mandolins and bouzouki in a way that hadn't been heard before. I'm pretty sure my own life would have been quite different if I hadn't started playing the mandolin, becoming involved in playing Scottish music after being inspired by the wonderful music coming out of Ireland at the time.

RIP Liam, and thanks for the music and so much more.

[catmandu2]

Just saw this over on the session.

I loved Liam's playing. Maybe the first to interest me greatly in the pipes.

[Colin Lindsay]

Very, very sad news from Ireland.


I think many of us here owe an enormous amount to the ground-breaking music of Planxty

RIP Liam, and thanks for the music and so much more.

I just heard the news and it has really hit me... I was given the Planxty album as a present when quite young and like many it really influenced my musical development throughout my entire life. Liam was always worried that he would be rejected by purists for playing Planxty music when in fact he did so much to popularise the instrument, and I know that many of the tunes I play on guitar are played in his style after learning them from recordings. He's the only member of Planxty I never met in the flesh.
That's a bit of my childhood gone... but what a gentleman in every sense of the word, and a master player. We may never see his like again.

[David Kennedy]

Such sad news. Liam was one of the great pipers. His playing of "An Buachaill Caol Dubh" (the Dark and Slender Boy) would have to be one of the most moving pieces. I have just watched it again on YouTube and it brings me to tears. You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMvBnEvuBuA

[foldedpath]

A great loss, and not just for the Planxty history, but all throughout his career. I'm a huge Mark Knopfler fan, and Liam played on several of his solo albums.

"A Piper to the End," indeed.

[chuck3]

RIP. I'm not an expert on Planxty but their version of "The Blacksmith" on the Late Late Show just kills me ... Liam sits most of it out then comes in at the end to great effect. I'll have to do some more listening to him tonight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z3A5Tgy47M

[liestman]

He was the entire reason I took up uilleann piping, which now profoundly affects how I play mandolin in Irish trad. A huge loss.

[JeffD]

I think many of us here owe an enormous amount to the ground-breaking music of Planxty and the way they fused traditional Irish music with mandolins and bouzouki in a way that hadn't been heard before....

Amen!!

RIP Liam, and thanks for the music and so much more.

and Amen.

[Jill McAuley]

Terrible sad, such a wonderful piper. Slán Abhaile, Liam.

[Bertram Henze]

Always standing out as a sober, serious personality from the more whimsical Planxty crowd, he was the engine of the ship.

I hope they have handed him a full set upon arrival on the other side, and somebody familiar picked him up to show him around.

[JeffD]

When I was at the peak of my Irish and Scottish music passion, the mandolin was really new to the scene, and not often seen at sessions. Those big bouzoukis, made by Stefan Sobell and Joe Foley, (with those big as a house cases), were all the rage.

As a mandolinner I didn't have a mandolinny role model. I filled my head with fiddles, pipes, and button box accordions, for phrasing and emphasis and encouragement. Liam O'Flynn and Planxty were at the top of my list. Planxty albums were among the must have of the time, along with the Bothy Band.

I saw him live in concert a couple of times, in Edinburgh Scotland and in Ireland. And I will never forget being in the audience for Shaun Davey's Brendan Voyage, for orchestra and pipes, with Liam O'Flynn as the soloist. A piece that is still overwhelming to me.

I took the news of his passing unexpectedly hard, I guess because I hadn't fully realized or appreciated how much he had impacted my musical adventure.

And because as we grow up in this music our musical heroes are mostly older than us. And as we start losing them, inevitably, we realize we are soon to be at the head of the line. Go into denial about that, BTW. Play more, and louder, and laugh more and louder, and cry more and louder, and then ever before. Don't wait patiently to be serviced.

[Randi Gormley]

Truly a sad day for ITM.

[Shelagh Moore]

For me, he was a wonderful piper and one of the truly great players. He had a huge influence on ITM and he will be greatly missed.

[DougC]

Liam was the source for the 'pure drop' for me. If I needed to understand phrasing, or dramatic pauses and ornaments his playing was the best.

[Richard Singleton]

Very sad to hear this news. I got to hear him play some tunes solo on the pipes at a festival. I'm thinking I need to play bit of "Cunla" on my zook tonight.

[Jill McAuley]

Been wanting to learn The Dog Among the Bushes for ages and then came across this on Youtube - so great: