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.

Same Ol' Blues Again...reflections on the death of J.J.Cale

I didn't catch the Sky News report. I heard of the death of J.J. Cale via a text message from my daughter, regretting his passing in deference to my lifelong devotion to the Oklahoman guitarist, the horizontal architect of 'laid back.' I have to say I was shocked, more so than when I heard of the death of Elvis or, indeed, John Lennon. Even Bob Marley. It was an ex-girlfriend who first tuned me in to him. She had gone looking for the writer of 'After Midnight' shortly after it became a hit for Eric Clapton in 1970. Ironically, Cale himself first learned of Clapton's hit when he heard it playing on the radio of his truck. He was a poor, jobbing musician and delighted to make some money, at last. He made 'Naturally', his first album, in 1971, inspired by the success of After Midnight. That album's opening track was 'Call Me the Breeze' which was subsequently recorded by Lynyrd Skynyrd, and launched Cale on a path to relative material comfort,as a successful songwriter, after a life of struggle. I saw J.J.Cale once. It was in the National Stadium on the South Circular Road, in 1977. It was my 21 st birthday celebration, too. We bought 14 consecutive tickets, an entire row, four rows back from front stage. Back then, the National Boxing Stadium was the primary venue in the country where one night you might see The Chieftains or The Bothy Band and on any another, Van Morrison, Lou Reed, Black Sabbath or even blues' legends like Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, B.B. King or Canned Heat. I know, because I attended those shows around that time, too. It's funny how the term 'eclectic' became fashionable in the '90s as a hip catchphrase for someone's musical interests when, in those days, good music was good music, same as today and same as always. The 'Stadium, that night, was engulfed in a warm, cloud of pungent smoke from bongs, pipes and spliffs as scruffily attired and tatted roadies with pony tails and prominent ass cracks scurried about the stage, adjusting lights, reassembling cables and wiring, tapping mikes and muttering, 'One - TWO, ONE - two,' in a blur of apparently frenetic activity and beneath the glare of the 'Stadium's houselights. It was just about then a bedenimmed figure emerged from the dimly lit backstage area and picked his way through the chaos, to the lead mike. This man had grey, curly hair and wore sunglasses but in his denim jacket and jeans, didn't look out of place when he picked up a guitar and began to strum and attune the instrument. Just another roadie, you might've thought, until he launched into the opening chords of 'Call Me the Breeze' and there was an audible, collective, gasp from the audience and, you imagined, from the roadies onstage, as they began to realize the show had started. The scramble to clear the stage took seconds. Then the lights came down and focussed on the lone figure onstage, his band, only now arriving and strapping in for their own performance. But by then, in his own inimitable style, J.J. Cale was already 'blowin' down the road.' Last night, I played every album I have of J.J.Cale's and I'm listening to 'Hey Baby', the opening track of Troubadour, his fourth album, as I write this and it sounds as though he was writing his own epitaph, at least, as I'll remember him and always cherish his music. Hey Baby, you're looking real good, You make every day a song, Like I knew you would.'

PictureHouse and Rod Stewart, a day in the life and a life in a day...

There is a spine chilling feeling you get at a live concert that never happens when you're listening to an artist's album, when all the elements surrounding the event combine, to make that moment 'magic', for want of a better word. 

I remember watching Van Morrison as he opened his headlining set with 'Moondance'on the last night of Feile in Semple Stadium, Thurles. A bright, shining, full moon hung in the August summer night above his head. Or the unassuming JJ Cale, when he strode onstage in the National Stadium, unannounced, picked up his guitar and launched into 'They Call Me The Breeze" while harassed roadies scurried about him to complete their tasks. There have been many others that I'll always treasure such as Bob Dylan at Blackbushe, The Clash in TCD and Bob Marley singing 'Natural Mystic' in London's Rainbow Theatre in 1977. 

You couldn't recreate it and it can never be bottled, but when it happens, everyone knows. I got that feeling last night at the PictureHouse show in Vicar St to mark the launch of the band's new album, Evolution and the relaunch of the band for whom the '90s was so full of sparkling, pop promise but who disappeared without trace amid bad decisions, contractual wrangles and changing fashions. 

It happened when they sang Heavenly Day, All the Time in the World and Somebody Somewhere and suddenly, the band was playing but the audience was doing the singing. There were young fans in the audience, people who'd come along on the strength of the airplay garnered by Some Night She Will Be Mine but the majority of them were people who first discovered PictureHouse in the '90s and these songs became the soundtrack for their first serious love affairs. 

By the time they got to Sunburst, the entire hall was standing, hands aloft and clapping, singing in one voice. I've experienced the same feeling just occasionally, at a Rod Stewart concert. And it wasn't when the stadium chorus crooned Downtown Train, Sailing or You're In My Heart; no, the hairs on the back of my neck rose with the opening chords of Mandolin Wind or You Wear it Well, both songs written by the tartan terror, himself.

 OK, so the latter song sounds suspiciously like another early hit of Rod's, Maggie May but it's still a great song. Dave Browne of PictureHouse is an incurable romantic; that's his strength. Evolution is aptly named as the songs on this new collection reflect a more worldly, even cautious and experienced approach to life's traffic bumps. But rest assured, Dave's lamp still blazes brightly for lovers. 

Rod Stewart's new album is called 'Life' and the opening track, 'She Makes Me Happy' is like a manifesto as he declares the love he's found has saved him. On the second track, 'Can't Stop Me Now', he reflects on how it all started and if you close your eyes, you can visualise that dyed mod mop of hair, sleeves rolled, perma-tanned, tartan clad pop star taking on the world and winning. He tackles divorce, fatherhood, wealth, religion and age.

 There's a freewheeling rocker called Beautiful Morning that should have a future as a Top Gear soundtrack or a Goal of the Month compilation. On both albums, Evolution's Every Step of the Way and Life's Live the Life, a father gives advice to a child. Rod has always been the lovable rogue, the football loving peacock clown who, you suspect, might have believed his own public image for too long. Now he's writing songs that say, here I am, take it or leave it. There is one song on the album's DeLuxe edition, which boasts three bonus tracks, that sums up this devil may care/fuck you, I'm here attitude. It's called Legless. "

I've been working all my life trying to make a dollar last but early this morning my telephone rang as I was putting out the trash It said Excuse me, sir, are you Mr Jones? I said, yes, I certainly am He said Congratulations, sir, you're a lottery winner you're a rich man the rest of your life chorus I'm in the mood, I'm in the mood, I'm in the mood to get legless tonight I'm in the mood, I'm in the mood to get loaded tonight

etc You think it's classic, Rod Stewart and you want to say, Cheers, Rod because with Life, I think you've hit a creative lottery jackpot. I like both these albums even if both are presented in a style to which I would not, as a general rule, hitch my wagon but what the hell? Rules, be damned, they make me smile.