Irish Folk, Trad &
Blues
with Trevor Hodgett
Irish Folk, Trad
& Blues: A Secret History
By Colin Harper
& Trevor Hodgett
Some time in 2000 or 2001 I was lucky enough to spend a week at the
Tyrone Guthrie Centre, an ‘artistic retreat’ in County
Monaghan. I’d won a bursary for two weeks from Belfast City
Council and my plan for one of the weeks was to gather interviews
and other material together to work on the story of Sweeney’s
Men, an Irish folk group of the late sixties - little-known but
influential. I envisioned the end product as a kind of stand-alone
section of a potential book project I was working on with legendary
Irish musician Andy Irvine, who had of course been a member of
Sweeney’s Men, and also thought it might be made to work as a
feature in Mojo
magazine.
After three days I had an 11,000 word piece which I was rather
pleased with. The Mojo
editor of the
time was keen but not at that length, while Andy wasn’t
entirely sure the approach would fit within his book (though he
later felt differently). Thus, in short, I needed to find a way to
use this piece at its full length. And so, it came to pass, that
the concept of
Lost Gods Of Erin, which later
became
Irish Folk, Trad & Blues: A Secret
History, was
formed.
With the estimable Con Collins of the Collins Press interested, I
brought my friend Trevor Hodgett - an expert on Irish blues
musicians, in particular - on board. The plan was to pull together
previously published pieces from our collective ‘back
catalogues’ which would fit thematically within the concept
of a book on lesser-known byways in Irish music. The concept, of
course, twisted and turned a few times during the course of what
became a rather more involved gestation period than we’d
first imagined. Pieces came and went in the running order; old work
was tweaked, added-to, edited; new work was done, some of it
substantial; first person prologues were written giving personal
background or context to the essays which followed.
Eventually, we came up with a ‘patchwork narrative’
that made sense to us and which was do-able in terms of page count.
Dominic Carroll, the designer and editor on the project, was a
tremendous help in bringing it all together and rock
star/broadcaster Tom Dunne wrote a wonderfully generous foreword,
with Christy Moore providing a similarly generous cover quote. It
is by no means the ‘complete’ or
‘definitive’ history of Irish music, or indeed of
anything else, but it’s a lot of foothills conquered, with
great affection and the best of our abilities, for the next guy who
fancies scaling the mountain.
Featured below is an interview with Trevor and myself, by David
Roy, published in the Irish
News in December
2004, shortly after the book came out - and thanks to David and
the Irish
News for permission
to use it here. Following that I’ve reproduced the
book’s Introduction along with a few review quotes.
Secret Sounds Of The ‘60s
By David
Roy
published
in
The Irish News, December 4
2004
Eire
Apparent. Mellow Candle. Sweeney’s Men. These are not names
which burn brightly in the popular consciousness when it comes to
Irish music. However, all three acts have a story to tell and a
role to play in the evolution of modern music in this country. Just
because you haven’t heard of a group is no reason to write
them off – just ask Colin Harper and Trevor Hodgett.
This pair of music nuts have been conspiring for the past two
years, plotting an ambitious re-write of our until now
under-reported musical history. Their mission was to focus on
unsung heroes, to champion the dedicated underdogs beneath the more
established names, to paint a more complete picture of what went on
way back when and its effects on the present day.
Packed full of amusing anecdotes and colourful characters,
Irish Folk, Trad and Blues: A Secret History
should appeal as
much to the casual music fan as to the die-hard record
collector.
For every startling fact to be filed away under pub quiz trivia
(for example, did you know that the first and only album by Belfast
band Eire Apparent was produced by Jimi Hendrix?) there’s a
fascinating tale of life in an era of excitement and
opportunity.
Fully
illustrated with 130 photographs, the book is a virtual portal to
another time and place, when musicians regularly had an impact on
the worldwide music scene.
The reader will learn about both pioneers from every era; Ottilie
Patterson in the ‘50s, through Sweeneys Men in the ‘60s
and on to the likes of Them, Horslips, Mellow Candle, Skid Row,
Clannad, Rory Gallagher, Paddy Keenan, Shaun Davey and Martin
Hayes. Visits to these shores by legends such as Muddy Waters, Arlo
Guthrie and Bob Dylan are also accounted for, giving a broad
picture of the influence and impact of some of Irish music’s
marginalised talent.
With a foreword by former Something Happens man turned Today FM Pet
Sounds presenter, Tom Dunne,
IFTB: A Secret History is the first
authorative account of its kind.
“Sean Body from Helter Skelter Books in London suggested to
me that there might be a gap in the market for a serious but
popular book on Irish music,” explains Colin. “Not an
academic book or a coffee table book, but something in
between.
“It did strike me that not a lot of serious music journalism
had been collected together on Irish music in general. You’d
get the odd biography of a popular figure like Christy Moore or
Moya Brennan, but that was about it.
He continues: “For some reason there didn’t appear to
be the same tradition of music writing on Ireland as there was
elsewhere, like America or Britain. Usually, any half decent artist
has a biography these days.
“I
went away and had a think about it. I looked at my back catalogue
of published work for magazines and newspapers, including
the Irish
News, and tried to
decide what I could bring together or tweak into an anthology which
would form some kind of a patchwork narrative on Irish
music.”
Enter
Mr Trevor Hodgett, journalist, teacher and music fan
extraordinaire. Having grown up in the thick of Belfast’s
music scene in the ‘60s, Trevor was perfectly placed to add a
little balance to the project.
“Once Collins Press were interested, I went back and looked
at the work again. It was fine as far as it went, but I decided it
would be even more impressive if there were certain gaps
covered.
“I knew Trevor would be the ideal man to cover the whole
Belfast R’n’B and blues scene of the mid-60s and some
of the ripples from that particular pond,” says Harper.
“Consequently the book covers all sorts of ethnic fringes of
Irish rock.”
As Hodgett explains, both he and his co-author were driven not just
by the desire to fill a glaring hole in the marketplace, but by
their own enthusiasm for the material at hand.
“One of the major motivations for the book was that we had a
real desire to celebrate the careers of musicians we were
passionate about,” enthuses Trevor.
“We’re trying to give credit to people who so far
haven’t got the credit they deserve. This book is full of
untold stories. We know of trailblazers and pioneers like Rory
Gallagher and Gary Moore who have had successful careers, but there
are many others who enjoyed only fleeting fame or simply failed to
achieve the success they deserved.”
Launched
last month, the book has already caused something of a stir in
local circles – not only has it caught the imaginations of
aficionados of Irish music, it has also been embraced by those who
simply had the privilege of growing up during those special
times.
“What’s really blowing us away is how the book is being
received,” explains Trevor. “We knew music freaks like
us would like it, but actually it’s proving popular in a much
wider circle.”
Colin elaborates: “There seems to be a lot of people in
Belfast who were kind of half-interested in music in the
‘60s. Back then, live music was a much more all-encompassing
thing. It was more of a social norm to go out and see a live band.
It’s become much more marginalised these days.
“Some of the R’n’B people Trevor is writing about
who were involved in the Maritime Club scene would often play two
or three venues in one night, which is hard to imagine these days.
Back then there was live music on offer six nights a week. The idea
of the specialised music fan didn’t even really exist at that
stage. Music was something that everyone was aware of.”
However, it’s the stories of the characters behind the music
which really make the book a compulsive read, as Hodgett explains:
“The careers of some of these guys are real sagas,” he
says. “Take guitarist Henry McCullough for example. He tells
stories of being in one band where the five of them were living for
months at a time in the back of a van, then later he’s
playing in front of 500,000 people at Woodstock. Later still
he’s off in a private jet on holiday with Paul McCartney to
Morocco for two weeks, but later again he’s having more hard
times.
“The story of Them is fascinating. Everyone knows about Van
Morrison, but the other guys in that band have all had interesting
careers as well. For example, Jackie McAuley went on to write songs
for Status Quo. It wasn’t just Van and a bunch of faceless
session musicians.”
He adds: “These guys showed incredible dedication. They
pursued their music with all their heart and soul for all these
years, and this book is a celebration of that.”
Epilogue: A Plaque For Van Morrison
Irish Folk Trad & Blues: A Secret History
Introduction
Colin
Harper
Like Irish
mythology, the popular music of the twentieth century has its own
legends, heroes, kings and conquerors and, like European history,
its own dark ages – a time of great deeds made more wondrous
still through the tantalising opacity and dearth of the written
record. Though it barely covers a period of fifty years, some of
the truest pioneers and ground-breakers in post-war popular music
ploughed their lonely furrows at a time when there was little in
the way of recording industry or media to document and acclaim
their adventures. Nowhere more so than the Ireland of the sixties
and seventies.
Received wisdom would have it that before U2 and the exponential
growth of the indigenous music industry that followed,
Ireland’s contribution to the worldwide history of rock
comprised Van Morrison, Rory Gallagher and Thin Lizzy. Reverential
doffs of the cap may have been reserved, by more informed
observers, for Planxty or The Bothy Band, but that was folk music,
so no matter how many units they shifted (and ex-Planxty man Andy
Irvine believes the figure to currently reside in the millions) it
didn’t really count. As for Horslips, well, has anyone who
wasn’t Irish ever heard of them?
If a time traveller could zip back and tell the music world of 1970
or thereabouts - driven as it was by the rewards of the here and
now and the thrill of finding musical limits and barriers that
could still be leapt for the first time – would anyone really
believe the idea that a generation down the line, many thousands
would be employed in the industry of musical retrospection?
Magazines, reissues, compilations, books, digital remasterings,
bottom-drawer ransackings of demos, rehearsals and dodgy live tapes
by the momentarily famous and websites dedicated to the causes of
those who lived the dream testify to the power of the rock era in a
popular music world now regulated to within an inch of its life by
accountants, marketeers and the transient wiles of multi-channel
television format people.
In a business now geared towards homogenising, crushing or
banishing to the margins those whose go-getting nous doesn’t
at least equal, if not outstrip, their creative worth, or whose
face simply doesn’t fit, there is no longer a place for the
fragile artist or the raw talent which might take an album or two
to realise its potential. Taking the example of traditional singer
Cara Dillon’s five years with Warners - wherein whole
albums’ worth of would-be pop recordings were created and not
one note of it released to the public - the potential musical
heroes of today are likelier to spend their time traversing the
alternate universe of the ‘development deal’ (which
could last just about as long as The Beatles entire career) than
anywhere remotely adjacent the public domain. Few mistakes are made
in public anymore, and if they are you’re probably
finished.
The lost gods of
Irish music are those free spirits who bucked the system, rode the
lightning and paved their way long enough to leave some kind of
legacy which merits acknowledgement and respect. Some have taken
their place already in the rose-tinted annals of
rock’n’roll; others may yet need a leg up. We hope this
book will go some way towards doing that and that, cumulatively,
the seemingly disparate tales we’ve brought together will
combine as a patchwork history of sorts. It won’t be
definitive by any means, but we hope the whole will seem greater
than the sum of the parts and that a sense of time, place and the
joys of discovery may be found.
Some of those we celebrate, like Anne Briggs, Sweeney’s Men
and Davy Graham, can be viewed with hindsight as the shadowy
foundation of much that would follow and find greater fame in the
seventies and beyond; some, like Henry McCullough, John Wilson,
Eric Bell and Jim Daly would be sidemen at the courts of kings; the
likes of Ottilie Patterson, an all but forgotten pioneer; Horslips,
like Something Happens years later, home-grown heroes whose magic
was doomed to work only on the island. Others, like Shaun Davey and
Martin Hayes, and even to some extent Paddy Keenan and Kevin Burke,
remain maverick stylists whose now assured reputations could surely
never have been predicted - and certainly not guaranteed.
From the phenomenal, sustained success of Rory Gallagher –
who was, in his own phraseology, the ‘last of the
independents’ – to the momentary brilliance of Mellow
Candle and Skid Row, or the painfully long caterpillar roads to
butterfly careers taken by Clannad or ‘honorary
Irishman’ David Gray, this is a book of outsiders who won. It
matters not that Mellow Candle’s one album has the
simultaneous virtue and ignominy of being the rarest (least bought)
folk-rock album to have found release on a major label – all
that matters, at this remove, is the quality of the work. Van Gogh,
they say, sold only one painting in his lifetime.
On a purely technical level, the way we have chosen to present this
book needs some explanation. It is not quite an anthology of two
writers’ previously published work, but nor is it a
straightforward work of thematic biography, and certainly not an
attempted encyclopedia that somehow careered wildly off the rails.
No, the bibliography of Irish music already has quite enough
encyclopedias peddling potted histories, quite enough academic
perusals on the hallowed tradition and quite enough coffee table
manuals on the genuinely famous. At the very least, let this claim
the novelty of being a coffee table book on the largely
obscure!
Much of the work included here has been previously published in
some form, although several pieces are entirely new to this volume.
Of those pieces that have seen daylight before, every one –
without seeking to disguise their original remits as stand-alone
features - has been fine-tuned, generally shorn of purely ephemeral
references, updated with postscripts or preambles and expanded by
anywhere between a few lines and many thousand words. Several
pieces are, indeed, several times their original length –
bolstered either by material that wouldn’t fit the available
space first time around or, in some cases, by material gathered
specifically for this book. For example, with regard to my essay on
Davy Graham and Trevor’s epic Them and post-Them sagas, the
tales as presented here are composites of several previously
published pieces on the subjects in question. The result, we hope,
will be a patchwork history of Irish music woven of many fine
tapestries.
But what of the added spice, gall or distraction of what can only
be described as slabs of autobiography in the guise of prologues?
Why have we dared to do this - opening ourselves up to accusations
of giving the world an unasked-for sequel to the
Diary
Of A Nobody? Well, as Roy
Harper once put it to me, so simply and yet profoundly, any time we
meet somebody we do so historically
– we each
of us influence, to a greater or lesser degree, the course and
substance of others’ lives. Were Trevor and I the sort of
writers whose subjects were hugely successful, popular artistes of
the world-conquering U2 variety it would be highly unlikely indeed
that anything we could say to or about such people would have any
lasting impact whatsoever on either them or their audience.
Published words on an artist of such stature will generally only
serve as a long-winded advert to let people know that some product
is out there, upon the sales of which the opinion of some
little-known writer will have no meaningful effect either one way
of the other. But the lower one sets one’s sights down the
scale of success, the more likely it is that a writer can,
intentionally or otherwise, make a difference.
It would be
inappropriate to list any examples of how my enthusiasms for this
or that artist, translated into the written word, have had a
tangible effect on the course of that artist’s life or
career. But there are several examples I could
give, and
perhaps many more that I’m as yet unaware of. And I’m
sure that Trevor’s position is just the same. In a way, the
story of, say, Martin Hayes contains within it the story of Colin
Harper writing about
Martin Hayes;
similarly, the story of all those (bar Van) who spent a few months
of their lives in Them – and have consequently, for better or
worse, been defined by it – contains the story of Trevor
Hodgett writing about
Them.
How and why did we come to embark upon these crusades –
crusades which have, by now, spanned several years of our own
lives? These are questions which I know that I, as a reader, would
be fascinated to hear answered. Indeed, just before work on this
book was completed I chanced upon a second-hand copy of Peter
Guralnick’s anthology of essays on early blues and
rock’n’roll, Feel Like
Going Home. If I had been
at all worried that the concept of using first-person introductions
to largely third-person portraiture was an untried or unacceptable
device, I should have known better – Guralnick’s work,
with its fascinating introductory essay on his own experience of
growing up in the fifties and sixties, specifically given to
provide the reader with a sense of where his biographical
perspective was coming from, was first published in 1971 and
deservedly received acclaim. If a literary device is good enough
for Peter Guralnick, the master, it’s good enough for
us!
Insofar as the enthusiasms, aspirations and adventures of Trevor
and myself have increased the public’s knowledge about the
people we’ve chosen to champion, to chronicle and to
celebrate – initially in diverse newspapers and magazines,
now revamped and re-presented in the relative immortality of book
form - I hope that we’ve managed to share a little of how, in
the first place, these people have had an impact on us. In simple
terms, there are easier ways to make a living (and certainly more
obvious ways to spend one’s leisure time) than writing about
the time Kevin Burke met Arlo Guthrie, the weekend Sweeney’s
Men rocked Cambridge or the day Muddy Waters came to Belfast. But
there are surely few that can be spiritually so rewarding.
This book is, in short, a celebration of free spirits –
musical priests who came from or to Ireland, and mostly did so
during a loosely defined golden age of music where TV shows were
not the making or breaking of careers but rather an occasional,
transient diversion from the real business of touring, of taking
music to the people. Even records took second place – airwave
adverts for the live experience. And now all we have, in many
cases, are the records. In some cases, not even those. So in the
terminology of rock, then, let us glorify these people as the Lost
Gods of Erin, and find herein the reminiscence of how it all
happened and where it all went to, in an Ireland long ago and far
away.
Irish
Folk Trad & Blues: A Secret History
Some
Reviews
“There’s plenty of interest here, and anyone who thinks
Irish music begins with Thin Lizzy and ends with U2 could
definitely use this as an education.”
*
* * Nigel
Williamson,
Uncut
“If your record collection contains just one release by
Horslips, Sweeney’s Men or Planxty this book will be an
essential acquisition.”
Fred Dellar,
Mojo
“This hefty and heavily illustrated book is a sort of
greatest hits with bonus tracks, in that much of the material has
appeared elsewhere but has been reworked with new intros and codas.
I had intended to skim through it… but having settled into
the first of the ten themed sections that proved to be impossible.
Colin Harper is a man after my own heart: a music-lover and an
enthusiastic amateur who became a professional writer…
I’ve devoured the book and, more importantly, it’s
drawn me back to some CDs that have languished unplayed in my
collection for far too long, and suggested several that I really
should own. Orders have already been placed.”
Dai Jeffries,
Songbook
“Exhaustively researched, it is 420 pages long and packed
with more than 100 archive photographs, many of which have never
been seen publicly before… An endlessly fascinating volume
which succeeds in being both entertainingly and authoritatively
written, it is required reading for anyone interested in the music
which really matters in Ireland and the background from which it
emerged. The two authors are to be congratulated on what is
undoubtedly a major achievement.’
Neil Johnston,
Belfast Telegraph
“This is first rate and you should own a copy yesterday, I
cannot recommend it highly enough. A true achievement, destined to
be read time and again.”
Simon Jones,
fRoots
“In short? Required reading for anyone who professes to have
an interest in Irish music.”
Tony Clayton-Lea,
Irish Times