Probably not for the first time, "Rip" McDonald takes the cake.
“Rip” McDonald’s career in the Mummers began casually enough. He was 15 years old at the time, and he knew how to play harmonica and guitar. “One day, some of the fellas said, ‘Hey, let’s join a string band,’” McDonald says. “I said ‘OK.’ So we joined the Uptown String Band. That was in 1938.”
Since then, James “Rip” McDonald’s commitment to the musical tradition that is Mummery has been anything but casual. He just turned 84 and has made more than 60 trips up Broad Street—with a few years off during the Second World War, when he was in the service. On New Year’s Day 2008, weather permitting, he’ll strut his stuff in his last Mummer’s Parade, marching with the unit he started in 1998, the Irish American String Band.
Before Irish American, Rip—a spry, talkative Bridesburg resident with a thick grey brushy moustache—was a member of the Ukrainian American String Band. “I was a member for five years,” he says, “and each year we came in last. I said to the guys, ‘If we come in last one more time, I’m gonna leave this band.’ Well, we came in last again. A few of the guys said, ‘Rip, whatever band you go to, we wanna go with you.’ But I said, ‘I’m not going to join another band. I’m gonna start the Irish American String Band. And in 1998, on St. Patrick’s Day, I started the band.”
Irish American is one of countless string bands that McDonald has belonged to, if not had a hand in starting. His devotion to the tradition is all-consuming. After World War 2, when Mumming was starting to become a bit more polished, he learned a new instrument, saxophone, which he still plays.
“When string bands first started, they were all string instruments—banjos, mandolins, guitars, violins. After the Second World War, they wanted harmony to get a better sound, so they started to add saxophones. You just can’t get the harmony sound with string instruments. So I had one of the great old-timers teach me sax.”
Not long afterward, observing the constant turnover in string band musical directors, he resolved to do something about it. “They had a lot of music directors, but they couldn’t seem to keep them,” he says. “So I went to the Granoff School of Music (at 17th and Chestnut in the old Presser Building, where Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane later attended) to earn an associate’s degree in music. It took me seven years. Then I became music director for several string bands, and started making arrangements.”
Since then, it’s hard to think of a string band leadership post McDonald hasn’t held at one time or another. It’s become something of a family tradition. One son Brian is the Irish American String Band’s music director (a position initially held by Rip).
Of course, being a Mummer is not a full-time position, and it’s far from his only extracurricular interest. Years ago, he owned a tavern at Rising Sun and Wyoming, the Sun House Tavern.
Rip has also served as chaplain of several veterans’ organizations. Not a bad set of accomplishments for the son of a one-time Girardville coal miner and, later on, Philadelphia paper hanger and occasional political speech writer. “That’s where I get my ‘gift of gab,’ from my father Joe McDonald,” he says. By all accounts, he says, his grandfather, who was born in Ireland, was at least equally garrulous.
Though he does not know where in Ireland his grandfather was born, Rip—like so many Irish Americans—feels a fierce attachment to the country. In 2002, when the Irish American String Band traveled to Ireland to perform in the Dublin St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Rip had an opportunity to reinforce those emotional bonds just a bit. It was his first trip to Ireland. “What a thrill it was for me,” he recalls. “I got off the plane, kissed the ground and said, ‘Grandma and Grandpop, I’m here.’ I never thought that would happen.”
(Bonus: The band won the “Spirit of the Parade” prize, a glittering Waterford cup.)
As memorable as that parade was, though, nothing can top the thrill of marching in the Mummers Parade for this longtime vet. “I’ve been playing for 70 years, but every year when I get to the judge’s area, I just fill up. I think: Here we are again. I love it.”
Update: In the 2008 New Year’s Day Parade, Irish American came in 16th out of 18 bands; the band’s Kelly Marie Mahon was ranked 15th of 17 string band captains. (One band, Pennsport, had no captain.)
