Tara Music (formerly known as Tara Records) have been regarded for many years as one of the leading traditional Irish music recording companies. The label was set up by Jack Fitzgerald and John Cook back in the early 1970s.
Their first release was an album called Prosperous by a young Irish Singer 'Christy Moore', at that stage a lowly cult figure. There was quite a gap between that album coming out and anything further being released. Then in the early eighties there were two albums from Planxty 'After The Break' and 'The Woman I Loved So Well', two solo albums from Christy Moore 'The Iron Behind the Velvet' and 'Live In Dublin' as well as two albums from Clannad 'Crann Ull' and 'Fuaim'. These were followed by the first of numerous albums from a promising new act called Stockton's Wing. All four acts above are now legendary names in Irish music.
In the late seventies, Tara recorded Shaun Davey's 'The Brendan Voyage' a ground-breaking album which featured Liam O'Flynn on uilleann pipes and a full orchestra. The Brendan Voyage launched Shaun Davey as a contemporary orchestral composer of international standard and led to further commissions for work in a similar vein, several of which - 'The Pilgrim', 'Granuaile' and 'The Relief of Derry Symphony', have been released on Tara as well as his most recent releases 'May We never Have To Say Goodbye' and 'Beal Tuinne - Live at St. James' Church Dingle'.
Most of Shaun's works feature the truly exceptional vocalist Rita Connolly and the master of Irish piping Liam O'Flynn - both of whom have also recorded numerous solo albums for the Tara label under Shaun's supervision as producer.
Although the Riverdance show and its music appeared to be an overnight success, elements of the music had been developing over many years prior to the Riverdance event. One of the strongest of these musical elements was introduced by Andy Irvine who, returned to Ireland from The Balkans and introduced Eastern European music and time signatures to the 'Planxty' who then proceeded to record a number of these instrumental tracks. Andy together with Davy Spillane recorded the 'EastWind' album, which was produced by Bill Whelan, possibly the first seeds of what became Riverdance.
Tara also released Bill Whelan's first major orchestral work 'The Seville Suite'(and his most recent release The Connemara Suite). While albums such as Davy Spillane's 'Out of the Air' and 'Pipedreams' as well as 'The Storm' by Moving Hearts feature some of the musical elements and instruments that are easily recognisable in their influence on the Riverdance music.
In recent years most of Tara's releases have been the artists recordings with Tara acting as distributor and coordinating press and publicity on artists such as, The Voice Squad, Zoe Conway, Alan Kelly, Emma Kate Tobia, Mairtin O'Connor, Frankie Gavin, Beal Tuinne and Michelle Lally.
NOTE - The music samples offered above are all available for download from Amazon and iTunes.
