Way back before there was Boyzone

Irish music Difficult as it may be to believe, there really was a time before the U2 iPod, before the galling plasticity of Westlife and before the wave of generic emoting singer-songwriters.

Time has a way of zipping by - and commerce a way of slipping us a chill pill - so that it's a wonder some of us can even recall the innocent sight of Boyzone dancing the dance of the deranged on the Late Late Show.

This book could not be more timely, for it reminds us that prior to Irish music suffering from a self-inflicted malaise, there were people who made it for reasons other than self-service. Over the past 20 years there have been a few other books on Irish music history (notably Mark Prendergast's excellent Irish Rock: Roots, Personalities and Directions from 1987, and 1992's serviceable Irish Rock: Where It's Come From, Where It's At, Where It's Going, co-authored by Richie Taylor and, er, me), but Colin Harper and Trevor Hodgett appear to have upped the ante somewhat with a work that combines minutely detailed research and a wealth of interview-led source material.

Its title makes it quite clear that it stops at Irish rock. Them, Rory Gallagher and early Thin Lizzy make it by virtue of their historical and musical connections with blues and folk; Van Morrison, later Thin Lizzy, The Boomtown Rats and U2 barely warrant a mention. Anything beyond U2 that doesn't have a direct lineage to the late 1950s and 1960s is not even touched upon.

But that's OK. By focusing their acute critical faculties on the very early days - in effect the "secret history" of the book's subtitle - Harper and Hodgett have managed to bring to the fore many of those foot-soldiers who served and slogged but have been more or less forgotten. For this alone, the co-authors deserve a round of applause and drinks.

The format and structure is slightly unusual, however: if one were to be cynical, one could say that using previously published articles across a range of magazines, newspapers and other media (including Q, Mojo, The Irish Times, Record Collector, the Irish News, the Independent, Blueprint, Blues In Britain, Jazzwise, the Avenue and various CD sleeve-notes) is taking the easy way out. On the other hand, why waste such a treasure trove?

Ingredients are one thing, of course, but the end result is down to the making and baking, and this is where the co-authors have come up trumps. Hodgett's knowledge of Them, for instance, and that band's many post-Van Morrison line-ups, makes for a sequence of excellent "Where Are They Now?" articles.

His work on the career of guitarist Henry McCullough is just as compelling.

Yet it's Harper's rather more eloquent and lengthy articles on the likes of Sweeney's Men (an amazing story that deserves its own book), Annie Briggs (this, in particular, is quite superb), Davy Graham, Skid Row, Rory Gallagher, Altan and Cara Dillon that provide the book's more cerebral, serrated edge. More importantly, the chronology is precisely mapped out from start to finish. There are, however, more repetitious overlaps between various articles than there ideally should be, and some surprising typos; these aren't fatal flaws but they take from the overall impact.

Ultimately, though, the book's heart lies not so much in the writing as in the people written about. These days it's all about Bono, MacGowan, Morrison (the last two have contributed little of significance to Irish rock music in the past 15 years) and the anodyne purveyors of celebrity-driven music releasing albums that should really be called "Allow Us To Be Rank". In the old days (and they were by no means the good old days), it was clearly more about the music than the bank balance. The downside of such ambivalence towards the business end of things was that people got shafted and were left on the slagheap to pick themselves up (if they were lucky) or rot (if they weren't). The good, the bad and the survivors populate this book, and their stories provide a salutary lesson for us all, believe me.

Stories and social (dis)graces are here in abundance, too: how working girlfriends were a crucial element in furthering the progress of Irish folk pioneers; how Levi's jeans played their part in formulating Irish folk/rock; how Andy Irvine can be blamed for Riverdance.

In short? Required reading for anyone who professes to have an interest in Irish music.

Tony Clayton-Lea writes on rock/pop music and its associated areas for The Irish Times. He is also editor of Cara, the in-flight magazine of Aer Lingus

Irish Folk, Trad & Blues: A Secret History By Colin Harper and Trevor Hodgett Collins Press, 422pp. €25