You still can see them on the back roads and major highways of Ireland. The travellers, or Irish gipsies, don't migrate in colorful, horse-drawn wagons as much as they used to, relying more often on mobile homes and trailers.

Songs of the Travelling People is a collection of 26 tracks recorded by Peter Kennedy from 1951 to 1968. He tracked down street singers, buskers, hawkers, tinkers and caravan drivers in England, Scotland and Ireland to capture their troubadour tradition before it disappeared.

The liner notes provide all the lyrics, if very little background on the songs or singers. A few photos of the performers show working-class people, visibly timeworn, who were willing to share their music with an outsider. A brief note from Kennedy provides some insight into the traveller culture and his methods for recording them, but it's scant information compared to the rich stories which must be waiting to be told.

Without the text, we must rely on the songs themselves, and indeed they do tell a riveting story. These are the voices of people raised with music, people for whom music was a primary form of entertainment, and you can tell it's a beloved tradition. Some of the voices are rough, some broken with age and years on the road, but the passion remains strong.

There are merchant songs, ("Won't You Buy My Sweet Blooming Lavender"), songs of romance ("The Blarney Stone," "Kathleen"), songs of thievery ("The Beggar Wench"), songs of betrayal ("A Blacksmith Courted Me," "On the Bonny Banks o' the Roses") and work songs ("The Muckin' o' Geordie's Byre"). Perhaps the best are the communal songs, with lyrics describing the travellers' life on the road ("Come A' Ye Tramps an' Hawkers," "The Berryfields of Blair," "The Moss o' Burreldale").

Some of the singing might make you wince a time or two, but I found I didn't mind. This isn't a highly polished studio recording by any stretch; it's a musical heritage preserved for future generations to experience. And for preserving that piece of dwindling Celtic and British culture, I'll call this disc a winner.