There's a very decent obituary in today's Guardian.

I have a fair old collection of Chieftains' albums. I don't play them these days, but that goes for so many, most, probably, of the hundreds of Irish music albums I've bought down the years. I suppose that has a lot to do with the fact that I played Irish tunes (until my hearing let me down) in sessions and parties for 25 years or more, and came to accept the edginess and fluidity of live playing as the antithesis of the repeated listening to records. Having said that, today we had to drive home from Barnstaple to Bude after a rather unattractive hospital mission. There was nothing great going on on Radio 3 or Classic FM, so I whacked on my copy of the Bothies live at the BBC. Mrs Steve is generally unimpressed with my musical predilections, but I secretly observed her tapping a foot extensively on the journey home. I'm not sure that The Long Black Veil would have elicited a similar response. I suppose that Paddy, Planxty and the Bothies took traditional Irish by the scruff of its rather staid neck and gave it a damn good shaking. It didn't change it but it did add a whole new dimension, and I was just at the right age to embrace it.

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