“For two hours on a damp Saint Patrick’s Day evening in 1963, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem rocked and reeled Carnegie Hall with their saga songs of rebels, outlaws, lovers, and rovers. The performers were well-established stars, though not yet at their peak. The high-spirited audience – consisting mainly, as near as anyone can remember, of Irish-Americans from the New York boroughs and suburbs – overflowed the stalls into seats placed onstage, back behind the spotlights.” – Sean Wilentz, from the liner notes to THE COMPLETE 1963 CONCERT

In the springtime of 1963, with John Fitzgerald Kennedy in the White House, the rise to fame of the Clancy Brothers (Liam, Paddy and Tom) and Tommy Makem was a wonder to behold on the American musical landscape. Their recognition as the premiere exponents of authentic Irish song - ballads, sea chanteys, folk songs, drinking tunes, and most of all, songs of rebellion - made the Clancys and Tommy Makem the most visible sons of Ireland in America.

"How fresh the songs were then - morning bread from the oven - new lamps for old, making their magic." - Liam Clancy, from the liner notes to THE COMPLETE 1963 CONCERT

Assisted by a fifteen-minute appearance on the influential Ed Sullivan Show in 1961, the group's ascendance to a pinnacle of popularity and respectability was affirmed at Carnegie Hall in New York City on St. Patrick's Day 1963. The sold-out, overflowing, nearly two-hour concert was recorded by Columbia Records and issued six months later as a drastically re-sequenced 38-minute, 11-track LP. Brevity notwithstanding, the record has never been out-of-print in the Columbia catalog for four and a half decades. A landmark recording, but as Princeton University's Sean Wilentz writes, "the larger work of art was lost." With introductory notes by Liam Clancy and a three thousand word essay by Wilentz, THE CLANCY BROTHERS AND TOMMY MAKEM IN PERSON AT CARNEGIE HALL: THE COMPLETE 1963 CONCERT finally restores the night in its entirety on two CDs, complete with between-song dialogues and introductions, and 29 musical tracks.

“The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem,’ Wilentz sums up, ‘still powerfully influence artists ranging from Dylan and his devotees to Irish singers and songwriters as different as Paul Brady and Shane McGowan. Their music and its spirit retain an enthusiastic following across the globe. More’s the reason to celebrate the full recovery of their art, as they superbly performed it one Saint Patrick’s Day evening in Manhattan long ago.”