History of the Paolo Soprani in Irish Traditional Music in London
From Anthony Buffery
At the ongoing Return to Camden Town festival in London I taped
(with his knowledge) Reg Hall's lecture, "Paddy in the Smoke- A
History of Irish Traditional Music in London, 1850-1965".
... here is a brief extract that may interest box players
"The rise of the button accordion dates from the tail end of the Gasra
na Gael ceilidh band era. The Paolo Soprani B/C accordion was first
imported to Britain in about 1949. They were absolutely new, they
were big red pearloid monsters and they made a lot of noise. They
became popular very quickly as a solo instrument and dominated the
Irish pubs in London throughout the 1950s.
In 1950 Waltons of Dublin imported just three of them, one of which
was purchased by Paddy O'Brien. His famous recordings for Irish
Columbia were made in about 1952 and took Irish music by storm.
Suddenly everybody wanted a red B/C Soprani to play off Paddy
O'Brien records.
The owners of the big London dance halls (the Pride of Erin, the
Emerald, the Blarney), which offered a strange hybrid music,
realised they also had to entertain the recent flood of immigrants
from the West of Ireland; so they brought in the new box players to
play traditional music between the sets. The players included
Jimmy Hogan, Eddie Bolger, Christie Ryan and Kit O'Connor.
It was their job to sit close in front of a microphone and blast out
the music solo.
Back in Ireland, musette soon tuning went out of fashion due to
the influence of Joe Burke, who preferred a drier sound. However,
some musicians who played mainly for dancing, such as Johnny
O'Leary, stayed with the Italian tremolo.
The D/D# and C#/D variants of the Soprani were the usual choice
of former melodeon players, but they did not appear until after
the O'Brien B/C craze had created a market".
Tony
anthony.buffery@rrc.co.uk
