Monthly Archives:

October 2007

Columns, How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish in Philly (and Thereabouts)

Try to imagine the ballad “Finnegan’s Wake” transformed into the Irish version of “Tony and Tina’s Wedding,” only in place of South Philly nuptials, there’s a funeral. Then you’ve pretty much got the gist of the show playing now through Thanksgiving weekend at The Showboat Casino in Atlantic City.

Better prepare your eulogies now. You may be called on to stand up and salute the dearly departed. Maybe even dance with him. It’s billed as interactive dinner theater, so the audience is part of the act.

And be prepared to hear some great music. “The Barley Boys” of Toms River, NJ, are providing the music. In fact, says their manager Carrie Auerbach, part of the play was rewritten to accommodate three original songs by the Boys’ Michael Babick, “I’m Sorry, Honey,” “Barley and Corn,” and “Maggie.” (The other Boys are Mike Kurman on bass. Dave Williamson on drums and Arty Artimiw on fiddle.)

“When they were looking for musicians, I sent the director some Barley Boys’ CDs and he loved the three songs so much he rewrote the story line around them,” explains Auerbach.

The show has been playing to packed houses just about every night, Auerbach says. “It’s absolute mayhem,” she laughs. ”People are doing eulogies, telling jokes, dancing with the dead body. It’s really fun.”

Show days and times are Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening from 7–9 PM and there’s a matinee on Sunday from 1:30 – 3:30. Tickets are $59.99 and are available online through www.harrahs.com.

It’s a busy weekend musically speaking. Singer-songwriter Francis Dunnery is performing Saturday for two shows at the Tin Angel in Philadelphia. The Waterboys are on the bill at the Keswick Theater in Glenside the same evening.

And Sunday is benefit day in the greater Philadelphia area. Starting at 12:30 PM at the Shanachie Pub and Restaurant in Ambler, an incredible group of musicians will gather to raise money for famed Irish balladeer Danny Doyle who has been laid up by serious illness since August. A fulltime musician, Doyle is having trouble meeting the bills, so his friend, Gerry Timlin, organized the benefit. Former Philly folklorist and musician Mick Moloney, Robbie O’Connell (who appeared at the Philadelphia Ceili Group’s Irish Music Festival in September), Timlin and Kane (Timlin is part-owner of The Shanachie), the Malones and others will be performing till after 5 PM. Donations of $20 are requested.

Mick Moloney will be cutting out early because he’s the headliner at the annual “Mick Moloney and Friends” benefit for St. Malachy’s Church and School in North Philadelphia. (Given the lineup at The Shanachie, we’ll be taking bets on who the “friends” will be this year–last year, famous Irish singer-songwriter and activist Tommy Sands tagged along with his old mate.) The event starts at 4 PM at the church, an inner city institution that was once the parish of many Irish immigrants and where poet-priest John McNamee has been pastor for many years.

Unfortunately, at the same time as the St. Malachy’s benefit, Blackthorn will be performing in Springfield, Delaware County, at the annual “Ceili for Kayleigh” to raise money for research into MMA, a rare inherited disease in which the body cannot metabolize protein. MMA can be fatal if not detected and treated. The event was founded and organized by a local couple, Marty and Kate Moran, whose daughter Kayleigh has the condition.

All worthy causes–and maybe worth burning up the gas to hit them all, carbon footprint be damned.

October 23, 2007 by
Music

CD Review: “Four Cups of Coffee” by Seamus Kelleher

Seamus Kelleher at Blackthorn's Wildwood bash.

Seamus Kelleher at Blackthorn's Wildwood bash.

Seamus Kelleher’s first solo CD is tailor-made for my demographic: the baby boomer with eclectic musical tastes.  Before he went off to record it in Nashville a few months ago, a friend advised him, “Be yourself,” and Kelleher says he was. Clearly, he’s a baby boomer with eclectic musical tastes.

Because of that, “Four Cups of Coffee” defies pigeonholing. Though Kelleher comes from Galway, it’s not entirely Celtic. Though he plays a mean rock guitar, it’s not entirely rock. Though it was recorded in the birthplace of country music, it’s not country. Not entirely. But because he decided it would reflect who he is, it is entirely Seamus Kelleher, which makes listening to “Four Cups of Coffee” a strangely intimate experience. It’s not unusual for performers to reveal some hidden part of their personal lives in their work, but “Four Cups of Coffee” is like an autobiography set to music.

On this CD, you’ll quickly pick up on Kelleher’s own musical influences. He does a rocking blues cover of “What’s Going On” by the late Donegal songwriter and guitarist, Rory Gallagher,  whom Kelleher met once, at the age of 15, as Gallagher was coming out of a concert hall. The brief encounter–Gallagher talked to the teen musician for about 20 minutes–led him to consider himself “somewhat keeper of the flame with Rory,” Kelleher told me a few weeks ago. “It was a kindness I’ll never forget–he was probably dying for a drink.” In 2005, Kelleher helped organize a tribute to Gallagher in New York. A film of the event was released on DVD.

On “Dust My Blues,” he channels a black blues guitarist from Mississippi, Elmore James, known as “king of the slide guitar” who was dead by the time Kelleher was nine but who nevertheless still exerts his influence on guitarists everywhere–like Rory Gallagher–who admire the way he electrified the moaning Delta blues sound. Kelleher came to James through an even older musician, Robert Johnson, who recorded “Dust My Blues” in 1936.

 “Missing My Hometown” could have been written during any of the waves of the Irish diaspora–or by anyone of a certain age whose thoughts turn to years gone by and the people loved and left behind. An instrumental reprise at the end of the CD reveals a tune that’s just as poignant without lyrics. Kelleher also remembers two long-lost friends, one with a tune he wrote to memorialize a 35-year friendship (“My Friend Ben”) and the other, “Madame,” by his friend Kevin Garvey, which he and Garvey had recorded 30 years before in his apartment. 

“September Skies,” which also appears on Blackthorn’s “Push and Pull” CD, is poignant to the point of painful. It’s a song Kelleher wrote after 9/11 about the effect of the tragedy on his town, Cranford, NJ, which lost six people that day. Kelleher, who was teaching at NYU at the time, found himself more a counselor than a teacher because so many of his students lived in dorms across from the World Trade Center. “This is definitely my story,” he says. “My wife and I worked in the World Trade Center back in the late ‘90s and we knew every inch of the towers. We knew some of the people who were killed there, six from our town. My neighbor across the street just got out of the towers before they fell. He said to me, ‘Seamus, I’ve seen things today no man should.’”

It’s the CD’s title tune, “Four Cups of Coffee”– a raunchy bluesy riff on personal demons, including but not limited to caffeine–that’s been getting the most requests at Blackthorn gigs. It’s funny, catchy, and feels uncomfortably like Kelleher’s stab at true confession. (He admits it is.)

 But where I keep hitting the back button are on Kelleher’s instrumentals. “Spanish Lady,” which he wrote, is his first attempt at “finger-picking, Chet Atkins style.” I can’t get enough of it. He admits that he had to “stretch” for this one, and took a major risk putting a finger-picking piece on an album produced by a US finger-picking champion, Peter Huttlinger. It could have been a humbling experience–and in many ways, Kelleher says, it was. But if he wasn’t going to take some risks at this point in the game, when was he? It’s a great piece. It will be the track that wears out first on my CD. 

“Aran,” is another, an evocative, very Celtic piece that calls to mind the limestone cliffs and crumbled ruins of the islands Kelleher could see from his native Galway. “Corinna” is the only song which seems to absorbed the Nashville influence: It’s a little bit Celtic, a little bit country, very jaunty and lyrical. It’s named for his nephew’s girlfriend who liked the tune. Alas, that romance is no more, but a lovely little song lives on.

 And “Nashville Ceili Band?” Imagine a bunch of top musicians who are used to backing the likes of Garth Brooks and The Dixie Chicks sitting in the pub, nursing frothy Guinnesses, playing a string of Irish trad tunes (which aren’t trad at all–Kelleher wrote them, and they’re the most Irish of all the tracks on the CD). You’ll be hitting the back button too.

To order the CD or download a track, go to www.seamuskelleher.com

October 23, 2007 by
Music

After the Fall

Seamus Kelleher on lead guitar.

Seamus Kelleher on lead guitar.

He learned guitar at 14 and at 15 he was playing gigs around his native Galway. Then it was onto the local band circuit and eventually, to a 14-year stint with Sean Fleming in New York. In 1995, he joined the hot Philly-area Celtic rockers, Blackthorn, as lead guitarist.

He’s been in the music business since Nixon was president, so why, at the age of 53, is Seamus Kelleher just getting around to putting out his first solo CD? “I just wasn’t ready,” says Kelleher, whose independently produced “Four Cups of Coffee” is getting both critical claim and airplay.

“I just didn’t have all the tools to say what I wanted to say,” he tells me over his cellphone while he’s driving home to north Jersey after a Blackthorn gig a few weeks ago. “I didn’t feel my voice or my songwriting was in the right place. I’m highly developed as a lead guitar player. It took me a while to get the confidence in all the rest. I didn’t want to do a CD where there were five or six good songs and all the rest junk.”

And this is the spot in the story where you find out that he succeeded. There’s not a clunker in the dozen tunes on the CD, from Kelleher’s touching “My Friend Ben,” a tribute to his late friend, Brendan Glyn, to the direct-to-trad “Nashville Ceili Band” on which he’s accompanied by musicians who usually sit behind Garth Brooks, Vince Gill, or LeAnne Rimes. In fact, the CD was produced in the home of country music by Pete Huttlinger, 2000 national finger pick guitar champion who played with John Denver and can be seen and heard on YouTube backing up Rimes. Huttlinger also arranged some of Kelleher’s tracks.

“I was so intimidated having someone of that skill producing my CD, but I felt it was a chance to really open my eyes and it did,” he admits. “Pete elevated my playing and I came back a better musician, not just a guitar player.“

In fact, Kelleher was awestruck by the caliber of the musicians Huttlinger assembled, most of them Grammy winners. “And not one of them was ego-driven,” he says. “I was talking to one guy who never told me he plays with The Dixie Chicks. We talked about how he has this new house in the woods that he loves and oh, he goes out on tour every once in a while. ”

And he was totally blown away when Huttlinger invited him to a birthday party for one of Huttlinger’s friends, country megastar Vince Gill. “It was toward the end of the week and I put on my one remaining shirt, a silly Hawaiian thing, and we get to Vince’s house and this beautiful lady answers the door,” he says. It was singer Amy Grant, Gill’s wife. “She smiled and put her arms out and said, ‘Congratulations on finishing your CD!’ I was speechless.”

There was a tent set up in the Gills’ backyard and Kelleher mingled with people whose work he’d long admired from afar–songwriters whose credits included “The Gambler” and “Mr. Bojangles,” singers like Janis Ian. “One guy got up–he looked like a tramp–and started singing. I never heard a voice like it. He sounded like a 90-year-old blues guy. Then Vince and Amy sang together. I said to someone next to me, ‘If the Lord were to take me, this probably wouldn’t be a bad time.’ Six weeks later, he almost did take me.”

“Four Cups of Coffee” was just five days old when Kelleher, drinking with some friends at Kildare’s Irish Pub in King of Prussia, tumbled down a steep flight of stairs as he was leaving to go home. “Someone called me, I looked back, and the next thing I remember I was in a chopper. I had fractured my skull, several ribs, and hurt my back,” he recalls. He was taken in critical condition to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital where he remained in the intensive care unit for three days.

Once he was weaned off morphine, the pain hit him with a vengeance. But that wasn’t his biggest concern. “The hard part was wondering if I would get better,” he says. “I had a brain injury and not everyone comes back from that. These were very tough days, to be honest with you. I even had trouble remembering my kids’ names. I covered it up because I didn’t want anyone to know. I knew I was fighting a battle.”

When he came home, he was besieged by constant headaches and excruciating back pain, and for a time was mostly bedridden, though he would force himself to get up and walk back and forth in a hallway with the aid of a cane. “I was determined to get better,” he says. He realized he had so much to live for — “four lovely kids, a wife, my CD and a great band” — that he just couldn’t quit. “It’s amazing what you can do when you want to do it,” he says.

One thing he did quit was drinking. The title track on his CD–a bluesy riff on addictions both harmless (coffee) and not (3 shots of gin and two Irish whiskies)– turned out to be a little more autobiographical than he intended. “I was poking fun at myself, my own demons, and I’ve battled alcohol to some degree, I don’t mind saying,” he admits. One line goes, “Lord I’m all alone, I don’t know where I’m going. Can you help me so I can see.” Kelleher now considers it an unwitting prayer.

“I haven’t taken a drink since my fall,” says Kelleher. “This was my ‘come to Jesus’ meeting, though,” he adds with a wry laugh, “I wish he’d put his arms out before I hit the concrete.”

Kelleher was back on stage with Blackthorn six weeks after his accident. The first gig, he admits, was a little shaky. “I was really scared driving up to the gate, petrified really. Was I going to be able to do this or that? Could I bend down to pick up my guitar? Would I remember the songs? I was still in a lot of pain and I knew it could be deadly if I moved the wrong way. And standing next to McGroary (button accordionist John McGroary) you never knew when you were subject to attack.” He laughs. “But after one song, I knew everything was going to be fine. I still had a ways to go, but I was back.”

October 23, 2007 by
Columns, How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish in Philly This Week and Beyond

If you’re hankering to hear the lyrical lilt of an Irish accent, the next few weeks are the answer to your prayers.

On Tuesday, the Dublin-born singer Sinead O’Connor will be performing at the Keswick Theater in Glenside. We’ve heard reports from Boston, where she appeared with Damian Dempsey, that her show was a killer. “I saw her last night at Orpheum in Boston and it was awesome!” said our correspondent. “ She played lots of old songs, a few from new CD “Theology.” The crowd loved her.”

Now, here’s where we have to synchronize our calendars. (In fact, our calendar will actually tell your calendar where you have to be to hear the best Irish performers in the country. Give it a try!) November is shaping up to be a great month for the Irish.

On November 2, “Angela’s Ashes” author Frank McCourt is giving the keynote speech at Montgomery County Community College’s annual writers’ conference. We’ve heard him speak and he’s a hoot. Worth a trip even if you don’t want to be a writer. MC3 is on Route 202 and Morris Road in Blue Bell.

At the Tin Angel in Philly that night, you can hear the wonderful Francis Dunnery, who is technically British but with a name like Dunnery, you know it can’t be natural. Fabulous voice (Peter Gabriel-like), great songwriter, very funny guy. And we say that from experience.

On November 4, there are two annual Irish-themed benefits, unfortunately at the same time. Former Penn folklore professor Mick Moloney–who helped raise Irish culture in Philadelphia from the near-dead–will be performing with “friends,” yet unnamed, at his annual benefit for St. Malachy’s Church and School in North Philadelphia. Last year, one of his friends was legendary Irish songwriter and performer Tommy Sands. Expect a few tears and some Irish sentimentality this time. Father John McNamee, St. Malachy’s longtime pastor, will be retiring soon.

At the same time in Springfield, Delaware County, Blackthorn will be performing at the annual Ceili for Kayleigh, a fundraiser for research into MMA, a rare inherited disease in which the body cannot metabolize protein. MMA can be fatal if not detected and treated. The event was founded and organized by a local couple, Marty and Kate Moran, whose daughter Kayleigh has the condition.

Earlier the same day, Moloney, Robbie O’Connell, Timlin and Kane, The Malones and several other performers will be doing a benefit concert at the Shanachie Pub and Restaurant in Ambler for Irish balladeer Danny Doyle, who has recorded 35 albums and performed at Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, the National Concert Hall in Dublin. Surgery in August for a carotid blockage has left Doyle unable to perform, so friend Gerry Timlin, co-owner of the Shanachie, organized the benefit to help Doyle meet the bills. The event runs from 12:30 to 5 PM. Donation is $20.

You’ll have to be making another tough choice come Friday November 9. At the Sellersville Theater, all-Ireland fiddle champ Eileen Ivers and her group, Immigrant Soul, will be bringing down the house with their stew of international music. (One lucky Mickmail subscriber, Gerard Devine, will be going as our guest. Read his story.) And at the Irish Center, legendary singer-songwriter Derek Warfield–who blew away the crowds in Wildwood this year–and his group, the Sons of Erin Band, will take over the ballroom stage. No matter which you choose, you can expect to have a memorable evening.

See our calendar for details.

October 22, 2007 by
People

Hibernians Salute Our Veterans

On Veterans Day, Nov. 11, the Ancient Order of Hibernians of the Notre Dame Division will host its Annual Salute to Our Veterans. The ceremony will begin at 12 noon in front of the AOH clubhouse, 342 Jefferson St. in Swedesburg, Upper Merion Township.

Father Andy McCormick, chaplain of the AOH Notre Dame division and pastor of Sacred Heart Church, will open the ceremony with a prayer. The Irish Thunder Pipes & Drums will provide patriotic music, along with vocalist Sarah Agnew.

Many VFW, American Legion and Marine Corp League veterans will also be a part in this event. Other guests will include Congressman Joe Sestak, State Sen. Connie Williams and State Rep. Daylin Leach, along with many other officials.

Guest speaker will be Christopher Young, who resides in Bridgeport. Christopher Young is a 27-year-old United States Army Ranger who has served in the 1st Infantry Division out of Fort Riley, Kansas, and the 1st Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, based out of Savannah, Ga. He served honorably in Operation Iraqi Freedom from November 2003 through February 2005. He has attended Army Infantry School, Airborne School, Combat Lifesaver Course, Ranger Indoctrination Program, Pre-Ranger course thru the 75th Ranger Regiment, Ranger School, Advanced Drivers’ School, and Stryker School.

In February 2007, Spc. Young was diagnosed with malignant thyroid cancer and was unable to deploy with his unit due to his condition. After a summer of surgeries and treatment, his cancer then spread to his lymph nodes. Today, Spc. Young’s doctors’ are quite confident that after a massive dose of radiation, his cancer should have been eradicated. You can find out more about Chris’ cancer and his efforts to raise money for children with cancer at http://www.rangerforacure.info

The AOH asks that everyone hang out their American flags in support of our veterans and our troops overseas and take part in this community event.

October 22, 2007 by
People

Do You Hear Singing in the Library?

The beautiful Sarah Agnew making beautiful music.

The beautiful Sarah Agnew making beautiful music.

By Gwyneth MacArthur

On October 13, 2007, Sarah Agnew and some talented companions performed a benefit concert for the Bucks County Celtic Library. Organized and MCed by the library’s Tom Slattery, who did a wonderful storytelling performance, this annual event was held in the beautiful auditorium of Bucks County Community College.

The audience was treated to a reception afterwards that featured foods from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.

On display were plentiful books, CDs, and videos from the Celtic Library’s collection, covering such things as cooking, art, poetry and history. Many looked so interesting that, lacking my library card, this photographer was caught by a lady librarian actually photographing pages of Irish poetry! (Don’t tell my kids!)

The entire collection is cataloged online and everything is available through interlibrary loan. Meaning that if you see something you like, you don’t have to make a trip to get it. It will be delivered right to your own local library! Although I suspect that the trip is well worth the effort, just for the chance to put your hands on so many interesting treasures in one place.

October 21, 2007 by
Columns, How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish In Philly This Week and Beyond

You have some diverse choices for the rest of this month, depending on where you’re going to be. This weekend, you can help Blackthorn raise some money for the Avalon String Band’s 2008 gear. Avalon will be strutting out with an Irish theme on New  Year’s Day, and those feathers and sequins can cost into the six figures. That will be happening Saturday at the Lagoon in Essington.

If you’re planning to be in Havertown on Saturday, the AOH Dennis Kelly Div. 1 is holding a beef-and-beer night to benefit AOH charities (one of them being The Hibernian Hunger Project, which was born right in Philadelphia). Oliver McElhone will be performing.

If you’re up in the Poconos, Pancho, Kevin and Jimmy will be providing the music for the ceili sponsored by the West End Irish American Association on Sunday.

Looking ahead a little, Irish Northern Aid is holding its annual testimonial dinner on Friday, October 26, at The Irish Center. Honorees this year include Kathy McGee Burns of the Philadelphia Donegal Association, Charlie Schlegel of I.N.A. and A.O.H., and Bob Grover of Clan na Gael. The Vince Gallagher Band will provide the music for dancing.

And on the day before Halloween, consider this scary thought: Sinead O’Connor will be in Glenside at the Keswick Theater for a concert. Pretty girl, lovely voice, but as unpredictable as Britney. Who knows what will happen? Anything interesting, let us know.

Check out our calendar for more information.

If you know of an Irish-flavored event coming up, let us know! We’ll put it on our calendar and maybe even crash it so you might see your picture on www.irishphiladelphia.com.  That’s the kind of people we are.

October 17, 2007 by
News

Memorial Mass Honors St. Pat’s Parade Chaplain

New parade chaplains, from left, Father Kevin Gallagher, Bishop Joseph McFadden, and Father Chris Walsh.

New parade chaplains, from left, Father Kevin Gallagher, Bishop Joseph McFadden, and Father Chris Walsh.

The late Father Kevin Trautner, for 30 years the chaplain of Philadelphia’s St. Patrick’s Day Observance Association, was remembered at a memorial mass on Sunday, October 14, as a dedicated priest whose “smile was infectious and whose eyes would light up” when he talked to people, said Bishop Joseph McFadden.

“The last weekend I saw him he was so full of joy. He lived for the mass on St. Patrick’s Day,” said the bishop, who officiated at the special mass held in the ballroom at the Irish Center in Mt. Airy. Instead, in the ultimate irony, Father Trautner, 57, and pastor of St. Francis of Assisi parish in Norristown, was laid to rest on St. Patrick’s day last year. He died of a massive heart attack while jogging in Valley Forge Park just days after marching in the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

“We will miss his joy and happiness,” Bishop McFadden told the more than 60 people who gathered at the memorial service. “But we know that he is truly with us here today.”

And if he was, said parade director Michael Bradley, he was surely thrilled to see that he was replaced by not one chaplain, but three, including Bishop McFadden, who was named emeritus chaplain of the organization that runs what is the second oldest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the country, now more than 235 years old. “He would have loved the idea that he could only be replaced by two priests and a bishop,” Bradley joked with fondness.

Father Chris Walsh, chaplain and church history teacher at Archbishop Wood High School in Warminster, will be sharing parade chaplain duties with Father Kevin Gallagher, parochial vicar at St. Denis Church in Havertown. “Having two of us will make life easier for both of us,” said Father Walsh, who participated in the memorial mass along with Father Gallagher. “One of us will always be there for meetings.”

Philadelphia’s 2008 St. Patrick’s Day Parade will be held on Sunday, March 8.

October 17, 2007 by