When did acoustic guitar get a foothold in Celtic music?
The guitar appeared in the music along with the ballad boom of the early ’60s—at the same time the folk revival was happening in the States. The collision of pure tradition with the folk revival brought guitar players into contact with fiddlers and pipers, but almost exclusively in a backing role. It wasn’t until the late ’60s that the instrument was featured in a lead role, when Paul Brady and Mick Moloney recorded an Irish instrumental on two guitars. It’s worth noting that Brady is best known as a singer-songwriter, and Moloney as a banjo player. What was the situation when you began playing? The guitar still hadn’t really found a voice as a lead instrument. Arty McGlynn was the first guitarist whose playing was front and center, and McGlynn’s Fancy [1979] was the earliest album of traditional Irish music on guitar. And a couple of years before that, Scottish singer Dick Gaughan recorded an instrumental guitar album called Copper and Brass. Tony Cuffe was another Scottish singer who
