In
this anthology drawn from and revised after their
previous journalism, two critics from Belfast, Colin
Harper for trad and folk and Trevor Hodgett for
the blues, recount how these genres have both spawned
their own Irish artists and how similar musicians
from overseas (Ornette Coleman, Muddy Waters, John
Fahey, and Bob Dylan the most notable) have influenced
the Irish music scene. The book concentrates on
the resurgence of these genres in the mid-Sixties.
Entries favor musicians first prominent during this
decade. They fought for gigs when the showbands
still dominated ballrooms. However, Van the Man
only is glimpsed from the rather jaundiced perspective
of his former bandmates in Them, for example.
U2
peers momentarily from the fringes, Sinéad
O'Connor or Michael Flatley not at all, and Clancy
Brothers, Pogues, and Chieftains pass by quickly.
Rock music overlaps erratically with the book's
titular genres. Yet, folk is never distinguished
from trad. The blues tends often towards blues-rock.
No Wolfe Tones, an iota of Seamus Ennis and Joe
Heaney, barely a nod to Fureys, and the showbands
lurk more as what to be escaped from rather than
entered into. Harper notes, just as one of those
amazing asides, how in the late '60s there was a
band from the North named 'Therapy', believe it
or not. The book's title covers a diverse range,
as Altan, Anne Briggs, Johnny Moynihan, Thin Lizzy,
The Bothy Band, Henry McCullough, and Arlo Guthrie
share space with Martin Hayes, Clannad, Horslips,
Planxty, Sweeney's Men, Ottilie Patterson, Terry
and Gay Woods, and the ubiquitous Rory Gallagher.
Davy
Graham gains sustained attention for his blend of
what Harper characterizes as 'folk-baroque', as
this troubled guitarist, born to a Scots father
and a Guyanian mother, mingled raga, jazz, blues,
folk, African, Middle Eastern, and Tin Pan Alley
standards from 1962 into a sound on that generated
envy and awe among players who would adapt his inspirations.
Harper names Graham the father of what would later
be labelled as world music. As with so many from
the '60s, one wonders what Graham could have achieved
if it were not, in his case, a deliberate and consciously
taken decision to begin shooting up, leading to
drug addiction in 1964, lasting until '68. Jimmy
Page, Martin Carthy, Bert Jansch, Dick Gaughan,
and Archie Fisher are among those better known than
their predecessor who widened Graham's trailblazing
path, experimenting with new tunings and fingerpicking
styles that would become standard among British
folk, and some rock, guitarists. Harper credits
Graham as one of the first artists to travel in
North Africa, for example, to bring back in the
mid-1960s musical influences that until then in
the West had been heard on field recordings by only
a few travelers or musicologists.
If
such artists as the less renowned mentioned above
are familiar, such a reader will appreciate the
tales spun here. Some of those chronicled merely
passed through Ireland, others stayed, many more
left. This eclectic era, overlooked by music chroniclers,
by Harper and Hodgett is recreated through extensive
first-person interviews mixed with the two critics'
personal experiences. Harper, the biographer of
Bert Jansch, follows his study of the British folk-rock
movement by plotting its impact as felt in Ireland.
The
writing, gathered from disparate sources, has been
revised and annotated to enrich its depth beyond
the limits of the original entries written under
deadline for magazines. Occasionally, as in the
disastrous attempt by Harper to interview Townes
Van Zandt, or how both Harper and Hodgett separately
reviewed an inimitably dreadful John Fahey concert
in Belfast, the results diminish the book's focus.
Yet, from a fan's vantage point such entries do
document how smug talents from abroad treated their
Irish audiences. One wonders what Fahey thought;
did he regard his fans as a swarm of culchies? Musicians
a few decades ago seemed to leave a.s.a.p. for London,
and the a handful of the more favoured floated off
to California.
Few,
with the notable exception of a particularly 'guilty
pleasure' of mine from my late teens, stayed in
Ireland. Horslips, who conjured a glam-prog-folk
swirl of Celtic lore, fashion whimsy, and literate
lyrics, did. They also kept control of the pressing,
distribution, and copyright of their albums 1972-80.
Yet even they were sold down the Lagan when an unscrupulous
manager sold off the rights for four thousand pounds
to the nth-generation tapes of their LPs which emerged
as shoddy CD reissues via the Belfast dealer Outlet.
I did not know this years ago, and lived to regret
buying the inferior issues. Luckily, as of 2000,
the band gained back control, and has re-issued
their remastered albums on Demon/Edsel. (I wanted
to add their plug, no benefit to me, but out of
principle; the band deserves its due and its royalties.)
The Irish fought for recognition as talents and
innovators in an era that first pigeonholed the
musicians as purveyors of whimsy, and then as quondam
street fightin' men.
Those
interviewed here, or nearly all certainly, sought
to transcend any sectarian diminishment or political
allegiance. Perhaps it is not so romanticised to
see musicians as, in the Troubles, the descendants
of the bards permitted to travel about and respected
by rulers cowered with the threat of enduring satire
and eternal invective? Even Christy Moore, persistently
the exception to most of his peers here discussed,
managed to scatter his targets broad, as other songs
aimed close to snipe. Censorship, of course, throughout
the island in the 70s onward undoubtably contributed
to the limitations on expression under which Irish
musicians and artists laboured if they wished to
remain at home. The island was— for all its
paramilitary, religious, and cultural tensions—
in the fine arts, perhaps mercifully, a less frenetic
place four decades ago, where all the creative types
seemed to know each other. Despite the traumas,
music offered an affordable escape for fans and
players. As an aside, the murder of the Miami Showband,
it may be recalled, perhaps seared deeper into Irish
collective memory: respected musicians, one sensed,
were seen to have deserved a free pass across borders
and battlegrounds. Little money was gained yet far
less than now was then needed to survive. Musicians
freely wandered, albeit half-starved, along the
roads playing to crowds in pubs, fairs, and festivals.
You do read these accounts with an eye and ear towards
what until not too long back was a provincial backwater
of the Anglo-American-European-Japanese media paths
trodden into muck by millions of fans, thousands
of musicians, hundreds of journalists, and maybe
a dozen promoters. Ireland rarely fueled the 60s
global pop explosion.
How
Graham directly influenced Irish trad, as opposed
to British folk-rock, needed direct explanation.
No elaboration develops how Moving Hearts sounded
as they fused jazz, rock, and trad. Stockton's Wing's
failed move from folk into pop tunes is mentioned,
but no details enlighten one who has never heard
these songs. Therefore, this book suits best those
already cognizant with 1960s and 1970s progressive
music. Repetition of material due to the inclusion
of multiple entries on the same artists occurs;
the index lacks complete references. A necessity
in providing guidance to artists interviewed whose
legacy may survive only unpredictably on backlists,
an annotated discography is a welcome feature.
But,
if you do not know what distinguishes Cara Dillon,
Shaun Davey, or Tamalin on record, you find barely
a hint here. The coverage drifts away from how the
songs sound. Instead, recollected tensions and joys
of touring and playing grab Harper and Hodgett's
attention. Due to the small native scene, greater
intensity results from the struggles of Irish-based
musicians who found cherished homegrown and sometimes
British success, if minimal compared to arena-fillers
touted by Anglo-American media.
Hodgett
opens one chapter with a powerful vignette—the
best passage in this book—of waiting to hear
'world-class' music after braving a typically sinister
night to enter a notably down-and-out pub, the Pound,
at city center on Townhall Street in 1974 Belfast.
Although Harper remarks a tense showdown with one
musician who kicked with the other foot, but who
approved Harper after the encounter—only the
second from across the divide (East Belfast, for
Harper) in that punter's career apparently to be
granted this privilege! The Troubles enter only
tangentially here, as it should be, Hodgett implies.
Throughout the book, the emphasis, if slightly detouring
into a chapter on Christy Moore, remains on music,
fans, the stage, and how such venues could allow
Irish men and women a chance to simply enjoy themselves
when outside the clubs so much sadness persisted.
Both writers convey, despite their unwieldy array
of disparate subjects, the energy and creativity
sparked when musical styles swirl together in a
small nation up until recently largely ignored for
many of its contemporary rock, blues, and folk innovators.
Before
as after Riverdance, Irish musicians yearn
for spotlights. The fact that worldwide audiences
exist for Irish music can be credited to talents
from the renaissance of the '60s and '70s. These
artists dominate coverage here. The younger generation
interviewed tends to follow those earlier feted
rather than veer off onto uncharted terrain. Still,
the presence of a fresh cohort of players and fans
eager for trad, folk, and blues-influenced Irish
music attests both to the success of the earlier
musicians and the passion of those who continue
to find listeners. Making a living as an Irish recording
artist, a half-century ago, would have been nearly
impossible. This book's diverse styles a half-century
ago most Irish musicians would have disdained, their
audiences would have ignored, and the island's showband
promoters would have rejected.
Investigating
the careers of many artists who worked in between
the U.S. and Britain, touring in, living in, or
passing through Ireland for more than four decades,
Harper and Hodgett stitch, in Harper's phrase, 'a
patchwork history of Irish music interwoven of many
fine tapestries'. Given the camaraderie easily found
among a more intimate gathering of homegrown or
transplanted talents, the authors suggest how their
book can advocate for these worthy artists, whereas
coddled chart-toppers tend to provide pre-fabricated
interview responses and press kits. While this work
deals with mostly the non-rock element, although
crossover appeal's inevitable, it does have a notable
predecessor that has pioneered a similar track through
the now obscured rock heritage of Ireland.
Following
the method of Mark Prendergast's groundbreaking
1987 account of the modern Irish music scene, Isle
of Noises, Harper and Hodgett include first-hand
testimony, as lifelong fans able to make careers
now as critics, of how mid-20th century stodgy showbands
and staid dancehalls began to open up to folk-rock,
blues-rock, and world music categories as their
musicians shared tunes at their Irish crossroads.
As fans as well as critics, Hodgett and Harper share
their enthusiasm. The book may be a bit rough about
the edges and in its assembly, but the double perspective
the authors provide enables greater depth to be
entered into as they seek to recapture the emotions
of playing, touring, and inventing music. The authors
compile and expand their earlier reviews of concerts,
features for music magazines, and interviews with
artists into a sampler of two fans- turned- journalists
and their writings over the past fifteen years rather
than a dry musical history or pithy record guide.
(An
edited version of this article will appear in 'RootsWorld:
the online magazine of the world's music'.)
