The Boys Come Rolling Home...

 

The Irish Rovers, a revered Irish-Canadian Folk group formed in the early1960s. Taking their name from the old Irish sailing ship “The Irish Rover”, The Rovers for short. Best known for their hit recording of "The Unicorn" (1968) penned by Shel Silverstein, The Rovers are also remembered for their appearances hosting several popular variety TV shows in the 1970s. "The Unicorn Song", in spite of having nothing to do with either Ireland or the Irish culture, it's still popular in Irish pubs the world over. Although they recorded many albums after that, they weren't as successful commercially as "The Unicorn" until 1980, when the band had a crossover hit with a cover of Tom Paxton's "Wasn't That a Party."

 

“The First Thirty Years” was recorded at the notorious Irish Rovers Free House “The Unicorn” at Expo86, by John Ellis & assisted by Jim Kent and mixed at Melodeon Studios on Vancouver Island with George Millar & Wilcil McDowell. This is a live soundtrack to a video production by Ken Gordon and Shooters.

 

A message from Will: To celebrate our first thirty years, we would like to invite you to a session with us at one of our Canadian Unicorn Pubs. We chose to record our 30th album and video production here, rather than in some fancy concert hall. It was in this kind of atmosphere where the Irish rovers received their education on our special brand of “Spirited Entertainment”. These first thirty years have slipped by so quickly and now we have reached some kind of show business milestone. We have toured continuously around the world, with the same members for all this time. Here is a collection of what we consider to be our “Best” of all hundreds of songs we have performed over the years, with a great lively audience on hand to add to the high energy festivities. We hope that you will join in and enjoy yourself.

 

From all of us…. The Irish Rovers… Will, George, Jimmy, Joe and Wilcil… to all of you who “Turned Up” to our concerts and sang and danced round to our rollicking reels and ballads, or sipped a glass with us, we thank you! Today, it's still a marvel to us that our recorded music spins away where ever Celtic music is played and we are proud of the way our contribution has been accepted. The first thirty years have been grand. We wouldn’t have all those musical years without you and we hope that you will join us somewhere along the way in the next thirty. May you live as long as you want to… and may you want to as long as you live.

 

Listen to "The Irish Rover"

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Article by John Ellis (1994)