Ed Jr. and Joe Reavy join in the tribute to their father.
It wasn’t Ed Reavy’s house in the old West Philadelphia neighborhood known as Corktown. Ah, but if you closed your eyes and just listened—to be caught up in the swirling reels, hornpipes and jigs, the rhythmic stomping of shoes against the Irish Center’s hardwood floor, and the background chatter of the folks at the bar—you could imagine what a house party at the Reavy home on Haverford Avenue might been like. At least, the four talented Baltimore-area musicians who visited Philly on Saturday night to pay a musical tribute to the late fiddler and composer tried hard to make it feel that way.
Jim Eagan on fiddle, banjo player Peter Fitzgerald, guitarist Andy Thurston, and Myron Bretholz on bodhran did the honors. Starting early in the evening, they treated the audience in the jammed Fireplace Room to one set of tunes after another, most of them composed or arranged by Reavy—including many of the hornpipes for which the man is justly famous.
Born in the village of Barnagrove in County Cavan, Reavy came to Philadelphia with his parents in 1912. He clearly brought the music and the tradition with him, and he took great delight in passing it along.
His sons Joe and Ed Jr. also were on hand for the occasion—adding a nice note of continuity to the evening. Joe—praised by Mick Moloney as “the single biggest force in the popularization of his father’s music”—introduced the second half with his own tribute. The elder Reavy became a one-man tune machine after arriving in the States. He had hundreds of tunes filed away in his memory bank. Joe Reavy took note of his father’s extraordinary talent, saying that, here in Philadelphia, “he experienced an eipiphany and this great gift became Ireland’s treasure. It is our privilege to be of his lineage. No children could be more blessed than havng been born of Ed and Delia Reavy.”
Our treasure, too.
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