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July 2009

Columns, How to Be Irish in Philly

How to Be Irish in Philly This Week (And Next!)

Great weekend—and a great two weeks ahead—if you’re trying to be Irish. (We’re hoping many of you are now getting good at that.)

First, on Saturday night, Black 47 is coming to Sellersville. If you’ve never heard Larry Kirwan and his gang, you’re in for what they used to call a rollicking good time. They’re a hard-charging rock band with a Celtic flavor and atty-tude. We love ‘em.

Then, on Saturday, there’s the Guinness Seafood Festival at Tirnanog in Trenton, the great pub owned by the late Irish Billy Briggs. It’s a fundraiser for the Irish Billy Briggs Memorial Scholarship Fund, sponsored by the AOH Joe Cahill Division, to honor Trenton’s beloved publican. In my youth, I spent some good times at Billy Briggs’ pub. He was a great guy. Anyhow, seafood and Guinness. You can’t go wrong.

On Sunday, we understand there are GAA football games on the field at Cardinal Dougherty High School and that you might catch the winning Donegal team that usually plays in New York. Head over to 6301 N. Second Street in Philly around 3 PM.

On Sunday night, hear the incredible harp-guitarist-storyteller John Doan in a multimedia Celtic Pilgrimage at the Temperance House in Newtown, Bucks County. Read our story.

If you’re in Jersey on Sunday, it’s Hibernian Hunger Project Day at Keenan’s Pub in North Wildwood (or, as we like to think of it, Port Richmond, Southern Division). From 3 PM to 7 PM, your $30 will buy you beer, wine, soda, and music–as well as the unending gratitude of the people who are served by this AOH national program that got its start in Philadelphia.

It’s July, sure, but it’s not too early to be thinking about Christmas. On Tuesday, the Waterford Wedgwood Royal Doulton story in Rehobeth Beach, DE, (love that place!) will be hosting Master Artist Vincent Rellis who will sign your Waterford purchases. We almost lost this icon of Irishness this year, but a last-minute save by an investment company has kept this crystal maker in business (though, alas, not the store in nearby Limerick, PA).

On Wednesday, master flute maker and performer Skip Healy and noted bodhran maker and player Albert Alfonso will be offering a workshop on their respective instruments in Lansdale, followed by a session at The Mermaid Inn in Philadelphia. Then they’ll be performing a house concert on Thursday in Lansdale. They’re here thanks to Spring Hill House Concerts, the brand new venue founded by Indiana transplants Bette Conway and Bob Hendren.

Were you a fan of American bandstand? Then you might be interested in Irish Bandstand—actually, a six-week course in jive, quickstep, waltz, and ceili dancing offered by Geraldine Trainor at the Irish Center starting on Wednesday. You don’t need a partner, so if concerns about coming solo is the only thing stopping you, put on your dancing shoes.

Since I’m not going to be around next week, and the last time I went out of town our calendar went into a sulk and crashed, I’m going to tell you how to be Irish next week too. Two for the price of one! (Oh, that’s right, you don’t pay for this. . . .)

On Saturday, July 25, come out to support the MacSwiney Club in Jenkintown, where they’re holding a fund-raising picnic and raffle for their building fund.

In the fundraising mood? Also on Saturday, there’s a benefit concert by six-year-old fiddler Haley Richardson and her brothers to raise money to send Haley to the All-Ireland competitions in Tullamore. She finished first in the under-12s in the Mid-Atlantic Fleadh Cheoil in Pearl River, NY, this year. The event will be at Bain’s Deli/Fuelhouse Coffee in Vineland, NJ. Come out to hear this pint-sized major talent.

Looking ahead: The Young Dubliners are going to kick of the festivities in August at the Sellersville Theatre. There are more football games, radio show benefits (including one at Ambler’s Shanachie Pub on August 2), concerts, and dances coming up too. Then September will arrive with the Philadelphia Ceili Group Music Festival, the Celtic Classic in Bethlehem, the Scottish-Irish Festival in Green Lane, PA, the AOH Irish Weekend in N. Wildwood. There’s also going to be a bus trip from the Irish Center to Gettysburg where you’ll learn about the role the Irish played in the war between the states. That’s why I’m getting out of town. I need to rest up.

July 16, 2009 by
Music

Following in the Family Trad

Shawna and Angelina Carberry, after their show on July 11 at the Irish Center in Philadelphia.

Shawna and Angelina Carberry, after their show on July 11 at the Irish Center in Philadelphia.

Her great-great grandfather Peter played the melodeon and her great-great grandmother crooned traditional tunes to her grandchildren in “The Holla” near Kenagh, County Longford. Her great-grandfather Kevin played banjo for County Longford ceilis and house dances alongside his pipe-playing brother, Peter. Her grandfather Peter is a stalwart of Irish traditional music, renowned for his accordion and banjo playing, as well as the Manchester trad bands like Toss the Feathers, Skidoo and Good Tradition that he formed. 
And her mother Angelina has performed with the all-girl trad group The Bumblebees, and is an outstanding banjo player whose flowing confident style is celebrated for being steeped in the tradition.
So it should come as no surpise that there’s a new kid on this musical block now, and she got to shine onstage at The Irish Center last week alongside her mother, Angelina, and her stepfather Martin Quinn. Shawna won’t turn 12 until August, but she has already discovered her own passion and talent for playing the fiddle.
“I’ve been playing the fiddle for about 7 years I think. I played the piano, too, but I got bored with it. I know 3 or 4 tunes on the banjo, and I took Kathleen Coneely’s class on the whistle at The Swannanoa Gathering in North Carolina,” Shawna told me when we sat down for a chat after her lovely performance. “I don’t really read by music, I learn by ear. Listening to the tunes and then learning them. Most days I practice for an hour. I did get really lazy for a bit, and went off it for a month,” Shawna laughed, “but now I’m always playing.”
Her teachers have included Connemara’s highly acclaimed fiddler Liz Kane, as well as step-dad Martin. “I like playing with him and my family. It’s more fun practicing with them.”
Shawna has so much fun playing with her family, in fact, that she has started a band with her aunt Roisin Carberry, 10, on the box, and her cousin Hannah Lane, 12, who sings and is learning the banjo and whistle. “We play in the pubs and at sessions. I like doing it, it’s really fun. We need more practicing but since we moved to County Longford from Galway last year we’re closer now and see each other more.”
Moving back to Longford also means she gets more lessons and encouragement from her grandfather Peter, as well. “Whenever I see him, he always asks ‘How are ya hon, have you been practicing?’ and if I say no, he says ‘Why not?’ and starts giving it out to me,” Shawna giggled. “But if I say yes, he says ‘Good woman. What tunes have you been learning?’”
All that practicing is paying off in a big way; Angelina revealed that Peter is going to ask Shawna to play on the CD that he’s currently recording. Pretty exciting stuff, as Shawna’s hazel eyes grew wide and her smile beamed even brighter, “He is? I didn’t know that!”
But for the next few weeks, this lovely and talented young musician is going to be kept busy touring the States. “It’s my third time here,” she says. “ I get to travel with my parents when I’m not in school and I like when I get to play a few tunes at the gigs with them.”
She also has found a way to preserve a little of the trip to take home with her, “When we’re going from place to place, I have my video camera with me, and I take video as we’re driving, telling a little bit about where we are.”

Her mother smiled as Shawna relayed this information, clearly quite delighted with every facet of her daughter–this brightly emerging talent in the next generation of the Carberry musical dynasty.

If you missed the Carberry-Quinn concert, and can’t wait for Shawna’s appearance on Peter Carberry’s upcoming CD, listen to her here.

Check out our photos too.

And see even more photos of the event.

July 16, 2009 by
Music

Harp Guitar Performer John Doan Brings Celtic Music and Mysteries to Newtown

When he was a teen-ager, John Doan says he was “suspicious something might be wrong with me.” There weren’t many two-neck guitar players in garage bands, but Doan was one of them. But his affection for unusual musical instruments didn’t stop there.

Always on the lookout for something new, Doan was studying guitar in college when he happened on a lute. Not too long afterward, he was playing it. And not long after that he had an encounter with a bizarre-looking instrument called the harp-guitar—a guitar, yes, with six strings on one side, but with an extended body that plays host to any number of fixed, fretless harp strings.

His reaction was perhaps predictable:

“I thought … wouldn’t that be cool? I ended up getting an old Gibson harp guitar sometime maybe around 1979. I had it repaired. I’ve been at this thing now, 30 years or so. It goes places that guitar goes … but then it goes beyond.”

Doan, now a professor of music at Willamette University in Oregon, taught himself to play the harp guitar. Along the way he also acquired other weird and wonderful musical instruments, including a three-necked affair called the harpolyre and another strange critter called the banjuerine. (They’re both so weird and strange, my spell-check thinks I misspelled them.) But the real star of our story is the harp guitar; Doan is considered an expert on its history and one of its foremost practitioners.

It’s an instrument that lends its ethereal, bell-like tones to many forms of music—including Celtic/New Age. In fact, a recent Doan recording, “Eire: Isle of the Saints (A Celtic Odyssey),” on the Hearts of Space label, is highly acclaimed. It’s a Billboard Magazine critic’s choice.

On Sunday, Doan is bringing his 20-string harp guitar and his Celtic music to Newtown’s Temperance House in a multimedia show called “A Celtic Pilgrimage” that blends tunes with story-telling. It’s based on Doan’s travels to the Emerald Isle.

Doan first visited Ireland in the ‘80s—roughing it, hitchhiking, sleeping under the stars. One night, he says, he yearned for a real bed and a shower, and he scraped together enough cash for a stay in a bed and breakfast. The two aged “aunties” who ran the place kept him well entertained, he said, and they told him that when he went back to the States they should look up their nephew Billy, who also lived in the Pacific Northwest. “Tell him he should visit us,” they said.

When he got back home, he called the phone number he’d been given and starting chatting up Billy, who turned out to Billy Oskay, the fiddler and producer of Nightnoise.

Over the years, the two became friends, and Oskay became a fan of the Doan’s harp guitar. In the ‘90s, Oskay asked Doan to contribute an Irish-sounding piece for the first Celtic Twilight album from Hearts of Space. By the time Celtic Twilight 2 came along, Doan had composed more Celtic music. Some bright soul suggested an entire album of Celtic harp guitar. Doan was sold.

“I said I’d like to go to Ireland and make musical pictures,” he recalls. “I had already written a bunch of stuff. Billy said go for it.

“Well, I had just read ‘How the Irish Saved Civilization.’ It’s about how Ireland became a sanctuary for saints and scholars during the Dark Ages. That’s the very time of Saint Patrick. I thought I would follow in the footsteps of Saint Patrick.”

Doan focused on pilgrimage places—places where the separation between heaven and earth is believed to be thinner than in other places.

“I went to these places and started improvising,” he says. “I took my tape recorder with me. This place opened up to me. As an artist I could translate it into music; it was timeless. I captured these stories that I think are the underpinning of the Irish mystique. It was just so moving to go to these places and have them be places that were still filled with beauty, charm and resolve.”

Those stories are precisely the ones Doan plans to share with his Newtown audience. You can add to your Irish cultural education and hear a rare performance at the same time. (Here’s a preview on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUkxR21OVx0)

The show begins at 7 p.m. at the well-known restaurant, at 5 South State Street.

July 16, 2009 by
Music

Making Musical Memories

Between numbers: Angelina Carberry and Martin Quinn.

Between numbers: Angelina Carberry and Martin Quinn.

If you missed Friday night’s concert with tenor banjo player Angelina Carberry and button accordionist Martin Quinn, you missed an opportunity to hear a particularly pure form of traditional Irish music.

This is not a slam against the Irish supergroups and other, perhaps more commercial Celts, who often blend other forms of music into the traditional. Hey, there’s lots of room in our big music tent.

But there were moments during the Carberry-Quinn performance—many moments, in fact—when it seemed like you were hearing the music in a raw, unadorned form, when the lily was unquestionably ungilded.

Carberry, with her distinctive percussive style, and Quinn, with his long, lingering chords, took Irish Center listeners on a journey back to the source. Angelina and Martin made me feel like I was sitting in a bar in Doolin or Westport.

Adding to the enjoyment was Angelina’s 11-year-old daughter Shawna, who sat in on fiddle for a couple of numbers.

We’ve preserved many of those moments for you—including an impromptu traditional music session that sprang up post-concert.

Check it all out:     

Check out the videos:

A Blazing Set of Reels
http://www.irishphiladelphia.com/video/carberryquinn01

Angelina Carberry and Martin Quinn Play “The Princess Royal”
http://www.irishphiladelphia.com/video/carberryquinn02

Button Box Player Martin Quinn Sits in at a Philadelphia Irish Music Session
http://www.irishphiladelphia.com/video/carberryquinn03

Reel Time With Angelina Carberry, Daughter Shawna, and Martin Quinn
http://www.irishphiladelphia.com/video/carberryquinn04

A Set of Jigs Featuring Angelina Carberry, Daughter Shawna and Martin Quinn
http://www.irishphiladelphia.com/video/carberryquinn05

July 16, 2009 by
Columns, How to Be Irish in Philly

How to Be Irish In Philly

You go away for a few days and look what happens. Our calendar goes into a major funk, breaks down, and there’s no “How to be Irish in Philly” feature. I bet all of you just stayed home, didn’t you?

Well, here’s a mid-week peek at what’s up (including, finally, our calendar):

Angelina Carberry and Martin Quinn are on tap at the Irish Center for Friday night. They are a delightful duo (tenor banjo and button accordian) that will reel and jig all night if you let them. Please, let them!

And we like the fact that folks are taking our encouragement to “put everything but the family picnic up on our calendar” seriously. If you happen to be in County Cavan on the weekend, there’s a celebration of the music and art of Donovan (“Sunshine Superman”) at the County Cavan Museum in Ballyjamesduff. Honest, you can read all the details on our calendar. We don’t know who put it up.

Since we’re already here, let’s take a look at the next week or so, shall we?

The Irish Club is holding its first Irish Picnic (we don’t know what they’re going to throw on the barbie, so prepare for hot dogs or bangers) on Saturday at the De la Salle Swim Club in Springfield, Delaware County.

Also on Saturday, the Philadelphia Shamrocks take on the Hibernians in Allentown at 4 PM at Haines Mill Fields. These hurlers just keep getting better and better and this is the first of the best of three games for the Joe Lyons Cup.

Down at Penns Landing on Tuesday, July 14, the good ship Eithne pulls into port. The flagship of the Irish Navy will be in Philadelphia for three days and on Thursday, the crew will take on local Gaelic Athletic Association players in what is described as “a friendly game of football” at Cardinal Dougherty field. Apparently, the writer of the press release announcing the game has never actually seen a game of Gaelic football. Friendly? I don’t think so. Be that as it may, the ship will be open over the three days and there will be various and sundry official events, some of which are open to the public.

On Friday, July 17, the group Cheap Whiskey (two members of the better known Broken Shillelaghs) will be performing at Doc and Joe’s Tavern in Gloucester City, NJ (which, by the way, is a happenin’ place to hear Irish music, just over the bridge from Philly—who knew?).

July 7, 2009 by
Music

Carberry and Quinn: In Concert at the Irish Center

A few weeks ago, I was listening to a few reels from Martin Quinn and Angelina Carberry’s eponymous CD and felt unusually relaxed. I couldn’t figure out why. I was heading off on vacation and I had a pile of laundry to do the size of Mount Agamenticus. I had a story to turn in virtually the minute we got back from Maine. I hadn’t even gotten the suitcases down from the attic.

It took me a while, but I figured it out: It’s the banjo (her) and the button accordian (him). Those are the instruments the anchor musicians play at my local session at Ambler’s Shanachie Pub. On the Tuesday nights that I’m there, I don’t have a care in the world. And one night, I even saw Angelina Carberry and Martin Quinn sitting in with Fintan Malone and Kevin McGillian.

Carberry and Quinn will be coming to the Irish Center this Friday night, July 10, for a concert sponsored by the Philadelphia Ceili Group.

Born in Manchester, England, Angelina Carberry came to Irish music naturally—her father, Peter, and her grandfather were both musicians. She gravitated to the tenor banjo as a child after a stint on the tin whistle. And Martin wasn’t the first accordian player she teamed with. In 1998, she released a CD called “Memories of the Holla” which she made with her father on accordian and John Blake on guitar. She has since released a solo album (though Quinn, now her husband, can be heard on a few tracks) called , “An Traidisiun Beo.”

Martin Quinn, a native of Armagh, comes from a long line of musicians and story tellers. He’s considered one of the finest exponents of the button box, which he teaches, and has toured Europe with the groups Dorsa and La Lugh.

I talked to Martin Quinn a couple of weeks ago by phone from his home in Longford, Ireland. Here’s what he had to say.

How did you and Angelina get together?
Well, we met in Milltown Malbay at the Willie Clancy Festival.  We were both playing a session at Queally’s Pub, and ended up playing a few tunes together. So yes, the music brought us together and we’re playing together for nine years.

Do you play concerts all year?
Mostly during the summer. We’ll do occasional concerts on weekends during the year, but don’t go away for weeks at a time because Angelina teaches lot of music, and I tune and repair accordions.

What does that entail?
I get them, take them apart and put them back together. Hopefully. [Laughing]

In your bio, your family is described as. . .
Raconteurs, yes. I have uncle  who’s quite a famous storyteller, a real character from Armagh, Michael Quinn, he’s 83 now, and he’s actually performing at the Catskills this year.  He’s a great character, a carrier of old songs and local history.  His father, my grandfather, was the same as well.

How about you?
I can tell the odd lie. But that would not have been my main pursuit.

Where did the music come from?  
My mother plays the accordian. She wouldn’t play in public, but she taught me my first tunes. Both grandfathers played fiddle and melodeon, and both  were singers. My mother can sing too. I have lots of cousins who play music and an auntie of mine plays banjo as well. And my sister plays the accordian too.

You apparently gravitated toward traditional music, but were you ever tempted to play more modern tunes?
When my mother played, it was usually a  hornpipe or a jig. That’s what I learned first.  I played with a few ballad bands when I was in my teens—people will ask you to fill in for somebody. But I always had jigs and reels ringing around inside me head.

One of the things I love about Irish traditional music is how musicians learn tunes not so much from recordings but from each other. I just heard Paddy O’Brien at a house concert and he not only remembers something like 3,000 tunes, but who he learned them from. Is that how you learned?
I probably learn tunes every week from someone. It’s inevitable that you’ll go to a session and hear something you haven’t heard before. Of course, they might have learned it off a CD themselves beforehand. You don’t know. [Laughing.} We moved away from Armagh when I was 12 to live in County Meath and we were quite close to an old fiddle player, Joe Ryan, from West Clare. I used to see him at music sessions every week, playing his unique style. It really inspired me. When he turned up it was very special and I looked forward to it. When I met Angelina I met her father and her uncle. I would sit and listen to them rather than play with them and picked up a lot. I was definitely inspired.

The other thing I really love about traditional music is that even the most famous players will take the time to pass along songs to whoever shows up at the session.
That’s beauty of traditional music.  The most famous musicians will welcome you into their houses and sit down a play a tune with anybody. That’s the way the music is. It’s what we’ve all come from. If it goes any other way, it will be lost.

Carberry and Quinn will play on Friday night, July 10, at the Philadelphia Irish Center, Carpenter and Emlen Streets, starting at 8 PM. Tickets are available at the door or online. 

July 7, 2009 by
Music

A Video Tour of Irish Philly’s Music Scene

Our pal and wandering videographer Lori Lander Murphy has been everywhere these past couple of weeks, with a particular focus on music.

Let’s start with Lori’s piece de resistance, Celtic Woman. She offers a few views of a recent concert at the Mann. There’s video of the band Cruinn at the Mermaid, and a session at St. Stephen’s Green.

Without further ado:

Celtic Woman performs “Danny Boy” at The Mann, Saturday, June 13, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twBbdC_uig4

Mairead Nesbitt, with Celtic Woman, performs at The Mann
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTTbEZeNmxg

Celtic Woman, “Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears,” with Tommy Martin on the pipes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNVNQwtS2bU

St. Stephen’s Green, Friday, June 12, 2009 ~ 40th Birthday Party Session
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNYDSrJJ8ko

Tommy Martin, Darin Kelly and Padraic Keane on the garden patio at St. Stephen’s Green
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPgs06MSF2M

Paraic, Paddy, Darin, Tommy and Sean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7SmXY1LoXs

Cruinn performs “The Town I Love So Well” at The Mermaid June 17, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVhxX_455u4

Cruinn and “The Boys of Barr na Sraide” at The Mermaid June 17, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10CPwPVVSHU

Cruinn performs “Hard Times” at The Mermaid June 17, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_gkXupUGPc

Jim McGill sings “Stuttering Lovers” at The Mermaid June 17, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwN1yB-3JsA

July 3, 2009 by
Music

Young Fleadh Winners Bound for Tullamore

Mina Hauth, 11, took first in under-12 harp.

Mina Hauth, 11, took first in under-12 harp.

When she sits in a chair, her tiny feet don’t touch the floor. At 6, she is always the youngest fiddler, by far, playing in any local traditional Irish music session. But Haley Richardson has big talent, and she can hold her own with the grownups. Need proof? How about a first-place finish in the under-12 category at the Mid-Atlantic Fleadh Cheoil in Pearl River, N.Y.?

Haley’s win was no cakewalk. The May competition in which the Vineland, N.J., girl took part started at 11:30 a.m. with 22 young fiddlers. It ended, after several grueling rounds of competition, at 4 p.m. Haley didn’t break a sweat. “I’m not usually nervous,” she says.

All the more remarkable, she adds with a smile: “It was my first time at the Fleadh.”

With one challenge down, Haley is going to travel to Tullamore, County Offaly, in late August to match skills with under-12s from throughout the world in the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann—the all-Ireland music festival. (And you can help get her there. More on that in a moment.)

Haley’s musical interests started early. She has been playing violin since she was 3 years old and fiddling for almost 2 years.

“At two and a half years old, Haley used to play around with our electric piano that had songs already pre-programmed into it,” he mom Donna recalls. “I asked her if she wanted piano lessons and she said, ‘No, I already know how to play piano. I want to play violin.’ It took me a few months to find her a teacher and she started Suzuki lessons a month after her 3rd birthday.”

When Haley was four and a half years old, she saw a small poster at the local library advertising a concert being given by famed Irish fiddler Kevin Burke and guitarist Cal Scott. “I decided to take her so she could hear another type of ‘violin’ music,” Donna says. “She immediately fell in love with Irish music and during the intermission, begged me to buy her Kevin’s ‘How to Play Celtic Fiddle’ DVD. The first day I put it on for her, she learned the first song in five minutes. She did the same the next day so I began to search for a fiddle teacher. If I remember correctly, someone from Irish Philadelphia gave me Kathy DeAngelo’s name.”

Haley is one of several DeAngelo students who fared well in Pearl River this year. Harper Mina Hauth, 11, of Chesterfield, N.J. finished first in the under-12s. Mina is bound for the all-Ireland competition, too. She is the daughter of Air Force Lt. Col. Christopher Hauth, who returned in December from a five-month deployment in Iraq, and mom Shymali.

Like Haley, Mina was a first-timer at the Pearl River Fleadh. She confesses to being “a little nervous,” but since she also performs Irish dance with the Peter Smith School, Mina says she’s used to public performance.

Mina has played harp for a little over a year. “When I was in 4th grade, Mom said I had to choose an instrument,” Mina says. “I said I wanted to play the harp. I like Celtic music, and Kathy is close to us.”

Mom Shyamali, another DeAngelo student, also performed well at the Fleadh, placing third in the senior division. She confesses to being as nervous as her daughter was calm.

Mina, too, will head for Tullamore in August—fulfilling a promise by her parents. “I told her that if she placed first, we’d make it happen,” says Shyamali.

Other DeAngelo students who did well in the Fleadh:

• Katie Ely, third place, 12-15 harp
• Katherine Highet, second place, senior harp
• Haley Richardson and Alexander Ball-Weir, third place, under 12 fiddle duet

As for helping Haley get to Ireland, here are the details: Mom Donna and dad Stewart are hosting a fundraiser on July 25 at 7 p.m. at Fuelhouse Coffee/Bain’s Deli at 636 E. Landis Avenue in Vineland, N.J. Someday, when she’s famous, you’ll be able to say you knew her when.

July 3, 2009 by