Why did I make an Album..........?
Lots of reasons really. Firstly I wondered what it might sound like if I did. I heard a quote from a famous composer who said, “Don’t compose anything, unless the not composing of it, causes unbearable irritation”. I felt a bit like that. I’d had tunes and ideas knocking around my head for a long time and I wondered why. What were they for? why did they reoccur? what is the point in having an idea if you don’t do something with it? Ideas beget ideas.
I love traditional Irish music and I’m passionate about the continuation of that tradition. This is not a traditional Irish music album, although the traditional content is relatively intact. I love the tunes that already make up the collective repertoire and there are already too many to learn them all in one life time. I’m a creative person but I find it difficult to be creative within the form of the tunes and I don’t feel I have anything to add to that collective repertoire. It is for that reason that I chose to use what you might term ‘core repertoire tunes’ and I’ve exercised my imagination around the tunes.
Infact, this whole project has been an exercise in imagination. I’ve let it run free and I’ve let it run riot. I’ve also tried to be entertaining. I set out to make everything you hear interesting to listen to, regardless of the content.
I’ve also reached a point in my life where I think it might be a good idea to start documenting ideas while I can, and before it’s too late. It’s time to get my imagination out and have a look, or indeed a listen to it.
Track 1 Jig Away the Donkey
Two Reels - I Learned these tunes from an old tape of “Cherish the Ladies”
Track 2 Whelan’s
3 Jigs. I originally had a slipjig to start this set but couldn’t get it to sit right. The last tune I learned from a tape of Cathal McConnell. I had a 15 year long break from traditional music and had forgotten almost everything. It was like starting all over again when my interest was rekindled after a fantastic touring holiday in Ireland. I bought a Low Whistle in Walton’s, in Dublin, that I couldn’t stretch my fingers wide enough to play, and a Cathal McConnell tape. The tape was a bit disappointing but I ended up learning the Gravel Walks as a Jig from it, before I realised it had been written as a Reel.
Track 3 Eleanor Plunkett
The front of this track features a ‘session race’. It occurred to me that music is one of the few activities enjoyed by humans, that requires cooperation. Infact the greater the level of cooperation the better the end result. So I imagined what it might sound like if musicians did race to see who could finish a tune first. This is based on a true story, some people appear to play their music like this.
There is a very long story about how I came to record Eleanor Plunkett with Clive Carroll, and it spans many years. As I mentioned earlier, I had stopped playing traditional music for a long time and I was trying to find a way back in. I found an ally in Niopha Keegan, who now plays fiddle with Rachel Unthank and the Winterset. She was also a lapsed player looking to get back into the music. She suggested we seek out renowned teacher and Fiddle player, Brendan Mulkere. I still haven’t got around to actually having a lesson with him even though I tried on many occasions. Once we went to one of his classes in the Irish centre in Hammersmith. We arrived late and the class had already begun. We were too embarrassed to go in, so we went to the pub instead and caught up with the class at a session up the road after. I went to quite a few of Brendan’s sessions in various parts of London, after that, and it was at one of these that I first encountered Clive. He had popped in to give someone a lift home and Brendan roped him into playing accompaniment on a terrible guitar that just happened to be available. Clive’s playing was amazing and then he was invited to play one of his own pieces and that blew me away. I spoke to him after the session and made a mental note that I would like to work with him in the future. Time past and I found myself playing in a band called Sleepingdogz, with the legendary Wild Willy Barret. Willy is a truly inspirational musician, multi instrumentalist and an astonishing Guitarist. What he doesn’t know about gigs and gigging, isn’t worth knowing. I’d lost touch with Clive but about this time I started receiving emails from an organisation that had Clive copied in. I didn’t feel I could just email him out of the blue, so I did nothing. More time went by then one night we were playing in the Hitchin folk club, and Clive turned up. He is good friends with the organisers and just happened to be in the area. We had a chat and he agreed to do some recording for me so a couple of weeks later, I got a little demo together and sent it off to him. It’s probably four years since I first encountered Clive by now, but more time past, maybe eighteen months, two years, and I didn’t hear anything. I hadn’t begun recording at this stage and I had my own distractions so I wasn’t hassling him. One rainy summer around two years ago we were staying with my Mother and Father in-law, in Bury St.Edmunds, Suffolk. We had planned to go to the beach at Southwold on the day in question, but the rain was so bad that we opted for a visit to the local indoor swimming pool instead. I was on the Flume rides with my older children, and after one descent, I clambered out of the splash pool to see a familiar figure standing next to a plastic pirate ship, up to his ankles in the kiddies pool. It turned out that Clive was only there with his kids by accident and coincidence, as his local pool had flooded over night. We had a rather stilted conversation but he did say that he had recently found the demo I had sent him whilst moving house and would still be able to do something. I thought it was becoming interesting how we kept bumping into each other in unlikely places. He popped up all over the place after that and even ended up sharing the bill with Willy Barrett and Gareth Pearson at the Hitchin Club. Possibly six or seven years since first hearing Clive play and thinking what a nice job he’d probably make of O’Carolan’s Eleanor Plunkett, the recording process had begun and a Date for Clive scheduled in. Clive was the first guest musician to play on the album. I really enjoyed the day, we played some trad tunes to warm up and just had the craic. We had to record both parts at the same time and although I wasn’t one hundred percent happy with the Flute’s tuning (I never am) I liked the end result. We wrapped the session up quickly and left. When I returned to the studio for the next session, we discovered that the files had some how become corrupted and couldn’t be used. So after all that, another date would have to be set and given that Clive is a very busy man, in demand all over the world, the delay was more than a little frustrating. It was three or four months before he could come back but I was much happier with the end result this time. Whilst playing some tunes together to warm up Clive played “O’Farell’s farewell to Limerick. We recorded it and that became track four on the album. Having an opportunity to work with Clive was one of the highlights of recording this album.
TRACK 4 THE BUTTERFLY and O’FARELL’S FAREWELL TO LIMERICK
In 2002 I undertook a traditional Irish music teaching course, in the Headquarters of Comhaltas Ceoltiori Eireann, in the Monkstown area of Dublin. I’ll return to my experiences during the course later. On completing the course I took a bus to Miltown in County Clare, to catch the final weekend of the Willy Clancey Festival. I’d bought a mini disk recorder prior to my trip and made many recordings during my time there. I’ve surprised myself by how many of the recordings made at this time have been used on the album. The track opens with a recording I made in “The Blonde’s” on the final Sunday of the festival. The track opens with a song from a fine Clare Flute player called Mick. He was one of a group of around six local musicians that always come into town for the final Sunday of “Willy Week”, once the crowds have all but gone. The craic was fantastic, great old tunes, stories, jokes and songs. This song was the “Beautiful Hands of a Priest”, and I found it a bit unnerving given their track record in Ireland in recent years. The “Shusher is also based on a true story. This is where a person, so passionate about singing that they must achieve absolute silence to enjoy it, actually makes more noise than anyone.
This arrangement of the Butterfly is for a five armed Piper, playing a twin chantered, multi-chromatic regulatored set. Just before we go into the second tune, I’ve recorded the sound of every note on the chanter played simultaneously. It’s a blessed relief when Clive kicks in.
The slipjig Clive plays was one we played together whilst warming up, and decided to record a version of it. We all liked it so much that I tagged the Butterfly on the front and added pipes later, and it made it’s way on to the Album.
TRACK 5 THE PARTING GLASS
The singer here is Katherine Rogan. Although it was Katherine’s first experience of a recording studio, I found her very professional to work with. I had originally visited Katherine at home, hoping to get a recording on my laptop that we could treat in the studio. Unfortunately I couldn’t get a good enough quality recording. I love her sensitive and relaxed style and this unaccompanied version is light relief from all the crashing and banging in the other tracks. Bryan has also made an immaculate recording. I wanted to go for that intimate sound, as if she were in the room with you.
TRACK 6 FROM MONKSTOWN TO MILTOWN
I had a good idea of the tracks that would make up this album before I started but I wanted to create one unplanned thing, in the studio, that would be as a direct result of having undertaken this project. This track is it. It starts with a Reel, The Wise Maid. I learnt this tune as a kid from a Paddy Carty recording, under the name All Around the World, which I prefer. I couldn’t honestly say this is my favorite reel, but if an alien landed and demanded I play him one tune to demonstrate Irish music, or he would fry us all, it would probably be this one. I think it has a particularly lyrical second part. There is a little bit of the Banshee before we hit the body of the piece.
In 2001-02, I was teaching traditional Irish music in schools in Luton, and as part of my career development, the education authority agreed to send me on a teaching course run by Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann, in their head quarters, in the Monkstown area of Dublin. The course ran for a week and was without doubt the most intense educational experience of my life. There were lectures from some of the finest exponents of traditional music on every instrument, associated with it. We also had lectures on Accompaniment, Improvisation and Music theory. We had to teach for two hours every day, prepare our own teaching resources, evaluate our experiences. take tutorials and stay up all night playing tunes, drinking and generally carrying-on. After the 3 hour exam on the final Saturday morning, I walked down to the sea front to reflect on it all, with the overwhelming urge to soak my brain in a bucket of cool water. Most of the folks I’d met over the week were leaving and I remembered that I’d planned to meet up with few folk I know living in Ireland, and catch the last weekend of the Willy Clancey Festival in Co Clare. This track tells a little part of my experiences over that time.
I’d bought a mini-disk recorder just before I left and made many recordings of sessions, stories and conversations. The first voice we hear is that of the great Seamus Macmathuna. Flute player, singer, historian,raconteur and all round authority on traditional arts. We were sitting in a room waiting for a lecture to start when a Fiddle player from the UK, whose name escapes me, asked about Seamus experience of recording the playing of Donegal fiddler Johnny Doherty. I thought it was the album “The Floating Bow” that was being discussed but on researching it I can find no mention of Seamus. However, the story he told us, was that as well as tunes, they recorded anecdotes and stories. One was the story you hear Seamus telling of a haunted fiddle, that would play itself once everyone had gone to bed. The father of the house thought the children were playing tricks on him, so he would creep down and hold a match up to their eyes to see if they were awake. Eventually he got fed up with this and put the fiddle on the fire. Seamus was lamenting the fact that the story didn’t make it on to the album, so I thought it might be poetic for it to make it on to mine. I love Seamus’s conversational and story telling style. Another thing that struck me as interesting about this story, is the cultural difference in a story’s construction. We were always taught that a story had a beginning, a middle and an end. In the case of this story, it’s the telling of the story that’s important, then suddenly it’s over. It’s not climax or ‘Punch Line’ led, unlike most western culture. I think this connects to stories translated from Gaelic.
From there we move to a magical evening I had during my week in Monkstown. The tune in the background is ‘The Spike Island Lasses’ , and it was recorded in the Herschel arms, Slough, one Monday night. Not just any Monday though, it was the last Monday session to be attended by my old friend, singer,songwriter, Guitar wizard and Monday night cornerstone, Frank Doherty, before he moved back to Cavan. I’ve had many musical adventures with Frank and miss him dearly. Back to Dublin - It was a beautiful summer evening and a small group of us had escaped the madness of the session in the bar for some fresh air. Again Seamus was there and, in between renditions we were discussing the origin and background of songs. This lovely American lady was questioning Seamus on the allegorical meaning of some songs and their approach to matters romantic. Seamus explained that a lot of songs were lost down through the years, when the language was all but stamped out. Also, that those songs that do still exist in English that were once in Gaelic, have not always been well translated. Somethings can only be said in Gaelic, and lose meaning through translation. He said that a common poetic device, and a way by which to identify translations is a ‘Triple Motif”, where something is said three time to add emphasis. In my recording he gives us several examples “I thought to entice you with words. I thought to entice you with promises. I thought to entice you with oaths”. Comically, it sounds like he says “Oats”, and I had visions of trying to entice a woman by waving a bushel of oats in her face. This section ends with Seamus singing a verse of one of my favorite seanos songs, Donal Og (young Donal or Daniel). This song is one of the better translations from the original Gaelic that survives today. The song is often sung, one gaelic verse and then the translation, one after the other. I gave it a Bodhran backing just to see how it would sound, and it worked much better than hoped.
From there we’re in Miltown Malbay, County Clare, in the ‘Blonds’ on the final Sunday night of the Willy Clancy festival. A lot of my Irish music experiences have been in pubs so I wanted to try and bring a little of that atmosphere in to the Album. The Craic was mighty this particular evening. We played loads of great old tunes, laughed and drank in to the wee small hours. This starts with a great character, Flute player and singer, telling us that “those who never drank or smoked died too you know”. Someone had said something about his smoking, it was allowed in in-doors in those days. That prompted a well known banjo player to tell his story about the man "Who made Jogging fierce popular". It’s just the sound of folk having the Craic and it’s juxtaposed by some music I created in the studio, based on other influences.
After Caz’s beautiful sax break, we’re back in to the tune, the session and the pub, and the circle is complete.
TRACK 7 MY OLD FRIEND THE BLUES
This track was an idea I’d had for a while. It is an exercise in extremes. I found it on an Eddie Reader CD, and I apologise to the author (Steve Earle) for this version. Bryan and I had a lot of fun putting this together.
TRACK 8 THE MAIDS OF MOUNT CISCO/THE MOUNTAIN ROAD/ MR MCLEOD’S
3 Reels - I wanted to include some good old tune playing. Nothing fussy or complicated. I’ve called the last tune Mr McLeod’s, in honor of Alan, because he suggested it and I don’t know what it's called.