Julian Goodacre - Some of Me Pipes

This is a CD of English bagpipe music.

No, don’t be put off by that!

The tunes are played by a stalwart of British bagpiping, Julian Goodacre. Not only is he an excellent piper but he has been making bagpipes for over 20 years so, not surprisingly, the pipes on this recording are made by Julian and also were made from indigenous trees known to him. Seventeen of the 24 tunes on the CD were written by Julian. The music is played either solo or with other pipers or with a large cast of other instrumentalists. The accompaniment is on mandolin, the English great pipe, trombone, bouzouki, guitar, percussion, melodeon, hurdy gurdy, border pipes, harp, fiddle and sousaphone (thankfully, not all at the same time). Among Julian’s collaborators here is Matt Seattle, who has done so much to preserve our musical heritage. The accompaniment adds to the “listenability” of the CD to the non-piping listener.

Julian plays Leicestershire smallpipes, English great pipes, Cornish double pipes to great effect throughout. The waltz The Obvious Daughter is a favourite track of mine. To my ears, the Leicestershire smallpipes have the better tone and are featured on eight tracks.

To the listener who is unused to hearing this type of piping it can sound a little strange but there is some excellent music here and I recommend this CD to lovers of English music. If that wasn’t enough, it’s rather refreshing these days to hear a CD that is 74 minutes long; value for money or what? The production is very good and Julian has given us copious and interesting sleeve notes.
Andy Parrish
White House Musics WHCD04 www.goodbagpipes.co.uk Julian Goodacre, Bagpipe Maker, 4 Elcho Street, Peebles EH45 8LQ 01721 722539 julian|@|goodbagpipes.co.uk