The '99 and the '98 Marches - Recorded by fiddler Randal Bays

The YouTube video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUH5NC9RA8Q

Randal Bays website

Download these marches now (from "The Salmon's Leap" CD) from iTunes or CDBaby

A few years ago, a video was posted on YouTube, of me playing fiddle in a concert in Colorado, with the brilliant Scottish guitarist Tony McManus accompanying. Nearly 200,000 people viewed the video and I had email from all over the world asking about the tunes we played. The original poster (who had neither asked permission to record the performance nor to post it) took it down, and after many requests I reposted it myself in June 2008.

The first tune is my own composition, which I call "The '99 March". It came into my head in November, 1999, as I was marching in the great anti-WTO demonstration in downtown Seattle. Whatever anyone tells you, that first day of marches and speeches was very inspiring, non-violent, and it looked like the whole town was out for it. We were having a voice in the big doings of the international movers and shakers, and it was a powerful feeling to see so many groups involved. Having seen it with my own eyes, I would say that the violence and destruction was initiated by the police and possibly some provocateurs in our midst.

Anyway... I was in the midst of recording my "Salmon's Leap" album at the time, and I wanted to include this tune so I looked around for something to put with it in a medley. I'd been given an old manuscript of music collected in Ireland around 1900, and there were several tunes whose only title was "a '98 march".

If you know Irish history, it's clear that these were tunes dating from the tragic 1798 rebellion against English occupation, the so-called "Year of the French", when the Irish "insurgents" hoped to finally evict their oppressors with the help of a French army.

One of those '98 marches seemed a perfect match in spirit to the one I'd come up with, so I recorded them together. I feel there's a similar feeling of sadness, hope and defiance, all mixed together in both of these tunes. They're recorded on my "Salmon's Leap" CD which can be ordered from CDBaby

Best wishes,
Randal Bays