Career
Sky was raised near the Lafourche Swamps of Louisiana). A contemporary of Bob Dylan and others in the Greenwich Village folk boom of the 1960s, following military service Sky released a number of well received albums from 1965 onwards and played with many of the leading performers of the period, particularly Buffy Sainte-Marie, Eric Andersen and the blues singer Mississippi John Hurt (whose Vanguard albums Sky produced). Sky"s song "Many A Mile" became a folk club staple, and has been recorded by Sainte-Marie and others
Becoming increasingly disillusioned with the music business and politically radical, Sky released the controversial and scabrously satirical Songs That Made America Famous in 1973 (the album was recorded in 1971 but rejected by several record companies before it found a home).
To this day he claims to have received no royalties for the album. Patrick Sky had honed his politically charged satire in earlier albums, but Songs That Made America Famous raised the stakes.
The Adelphi Records website describes how the content was, indeed, shocking. Yet, how several critics encouraged the public to rush to buy these timely and brilliant "explicit lyrics" while it could.
Sky gradually moved into the field of Irish traditional music, founding Green Linnet Records in 1973.
He has also published several books on the subject. In 1995, Sky edited a reissued version of the important 19th-century dance tune book Ryan"s Mammonth Collection and followed up in 2001 with a reissue of Howe"s 1000 Jigs and Reels.