The Lark in the Morning...memories of The Bothy Band

The first time I saw Planxty was in the National Stadium in the early '70s when they played support to Donovan. The first time I saw The Bothy Band was at as lunchtime show in Lecture theatre 'L' in the Arts building in UCD, Belfield. Although there could be no greater contrast in venue; the charged atmosphere of anticipation surrounding the return of a '60s icon like Donovan in the National Stadium on a hot summer evening and the lunchtime lethargy of academia and bored students, vaguely curious to hear a band born from the ashes of a legend, Planxty, that support act from the National Stadium. I'm not even sure if the name 'Planxty' had been coined before that night in the National Stadium in 1972. To those who knew of him, Christy Moore was the most recognizable figure among the support crew on stage that night, the others were Donal Lunny, Liam Og O'Flynn and Andy Irvine. They only played a handful of tracks, including the Raggle Taggle Gypsy which was to become one of their signature tracks. I went to the show with my brother and he had bought a copy of Prosperous, a 'solo' album recorded by Christy Moore with the same personnel in an old house in his Kildare hometown and, if that album was to be the template for future Planxty albums, that first performance in the National Stadium stamped their authority and presence in the public mind.

Significantly too, Irvine was a former member of Sweeney's Men, an earlier, trailblazing Irish band, cut from the same cloth. Sweeney's Men was a ballad group in the style of The Dubliners and The Clancy Brothers but they derived inspiration and style from further afield that Irish balladry and explored multi-instrumental and non-ballad arrangements that set them apart. Similarly, Donal Lunny had cut his teeth in the folk world with Emmet Spiceland and both he and Moore were boyhood friends. It was Lunny who taught Moore to play guitar and bodhran.

Christy Moore carved out a name for himself on the English folk club scene in the '60s. He hung up his tie and left his bank job during a bank strike and never looked back. With only his guitar and a suitcase, he took the boat to England and cut out a new life and career for himself as a ballad singer. Moore met up with his old pal, Donal Lunny and they brought Andy Irvine and Liam Og O'Flynn together to record Moore's second solo album, Prosperous for what was to become the future blueprint for Planxty. When Donal Lunny left Planxty in 1973, Dubliner Johnny Moynihan joined the band. Moynihan was another former member of Sweeney's Men and is often credited with introducing the six string bouzouki to Irish folk music. Liam Og O'Flynn, the fourth member of the original quartet, was a well known solo instrumentalist who had learned his trade at the hands of Seamus Ennis, widely regarded as one of the finest proponents of the uileann pipes, past or present. O'Flynn's distinctive style set Planxty apart and his instrumental tracks, influenced to a large degree by the arrangements of Sean O'Riada, often made up the b-sides of their first single releases. It was those instrumental leanings that prompted the formation of The Bothy Band by Donal Lunny. The original line up included Paddy Glackin on fiddle, Paddy Keenan on pipes, Matt Molloy on flute, Tony McMahon on button accordion and the brother and sister team of Michael O'Domhnaill and Triona Ni Dhomhnaill. Tony McMahon left to become a producer with BBC and Paddy Glackin was replaced by Donegal fiddler, Tommy Peoples for the band's first album, '1975'. Two more studio albums followed and further personnel changes, most notably, Sligo fiddler, Kevin Burke whose inimitable style became a signature sound. I first heard Kevin Burke play on two tracks of an album by Arlo Guthrie (son of Woody Guthrie) - Last of the Brooklyn Cowboys, 'Farrell O'Gara' and 'Sailor's Bonnet'. The O'Domhnaills, Michael and Triona, had played together along with their other sister, Maighread in a group called Skara Brae that had often supported Planxty on their tours. They had a wealth of songs they'd learned from a blind, maiden aunt while Michael was an accomplished guitarist and Triona played Clavinet and harpsichord. There had to be artistic tensions, the fountain of creativity but these, one can only speculate might have been based on more than just musical direction. Planxty and The Bothy Band emerged at a time in Irish history when that Irish cultural identity appeared to have a greater urgency than ever before. In my youth, we listened to The Walton Show on radio when we were admonished/advised that if we felt like singing a song, 'do sing an Irish song' and, ironically, one of that show's most requested songs was Katie Daly, an American folk song. Planxty, in particular, emerged in the days of internment in Northern Ireland and later, Bloody Sunday, when one of the most popular songs was 'The Men Behind the Wire'. In 1972 John Lennon performed 'The Luck of the Irish', a damning attack on British imperialism's impact on its neighbour and just a year later, Paul McCartney was singing, 'Give Ireland Back to the Irish.' Planxty's songs were noticeably non-political as though they'd made a collective decision to avoid acknowledgement of the very historic events happening on their doorstep that some argued, were the lifeblood of 'folk' music. It's a dilemma, I imagine, that concentrated the mind of Christy Moore in particular and may have prompted or at least, influenced his return to solo work. Indeed, Moore released an album of songs later, that was sold outside the GPO and whose proceeds went to dependents of interned Republicans. Whatever the circumstances, Planxty and The Bothy Band gave a new generation an introduction to an indigenous culture they could embrace without political baggage. Of course, there was the other tension, the musical disapproval of their syncopated arrangements led by the so called and self styled 'purists' who tut tutted and 'ciunas'd' their way through every gathering of musicians as though it was their own private club that brooked no changed or embraced any novelty or innovation. For five years in the '70s I followed these bands and their music and they prompted me to delve deeper into the roots of the tradition that was the core of my own interests but simply hovered like a ghost or an itch I couldn't scratch. Their own leanings drove me to explore music from further afield such as American and British folk, European and African folk and what has, since then, become more fashionably known as 'world music.' But no study or studious collecting could replace the blood soaring excitement of standing in a sweaty marquee in Ballisodare and listening to The Bothy Band let loose with Rip the Calico or that medley of reels, The Salamanca,The Banshee and The Sailor's Bonnet.