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Interview: Singer Noriana Kennedy of Solas

Noriana Kennedy

What do you say when one of the world’s top Irish bands asks you to be the new lead singer?

Noriana Kennedy thought about her already thriving career. She thought about the demands of touring with a band that spends a lot of weeks on the road. She thought about time away from home and boyfriend.

But in the end, Kennedy, also a skilled banjo player, said yes—an enthusiastic yes—to Philly hometown band Solas.

Here’s how it happened.

Early last summer, Solas was performing in Dublin. Kennedy and the band’s lead singer at the time, Niamh Varian-Barry, were friends, and Kennedy asked whether she could join in, in a supporting role, and the band agreed.

“They took me up on the offer, and I did a solo set with some new songs I wanted to try out. Little did I know Niamh was leaving, and they were sussing me out for the job. A few weeks later, Winnie (Horan, the band’s fiddler and co-founder) texted me to let me know they were interested in having me join the band. I was thrilled and flattered.”

The decision was not a total no-brainer. Kennedy had just recorded an album with her trio, The Whileaways, and they were planning a tour. She also looked forward to recording her second solo album. Kennedy’s career was very much in progress.

“After a bit of thought and conversations with Seamus Egan (multi-instrumentalist and the band’s leader), it seemed right to join the band and balance all three projects.”

Joining a band as well established as Solas, on the other hand, is nothing like a no-brainer. Kennedy’s was a baptism by fire. There was no time for rehearsal in Ireland, so she joined the band for a one-month tour, starting in Philadelphia in July. There were a few days of rehearsal here, and she had been listening to the band’s CDs all along, struggling to memorize tunes. Then, she was off and running. “The first few gigs were daunting!”

Kennedy’s not completely sure why the band saw her as the right choice—”I must ask the lads”—but she suspects at least one of the answers lie in her deep interest in both the Irish and Scottish folk traditions, in combination with her love of American old-timey music. All that, she believes, blends in nicely with the Solas’s sound.

And it helps that she plays 5-string banjo, clawhammer style. Banjo is more than a passing interest for Seamus Egan, one of the world’s foremost tenor banjo players.

The Whileaways continue to figure prominently on Kennedy’s musical horizon. During Solas’s last one-month break, she returned to Ireland to record an EP with her friends. In April, during the next break, she will go back to Ireland to tour with the band, and release a single.

It’s a lot of music to jam into one life, but Noriana Kennedy has never known any other way. As a kid, she listened to everything—rock, reggae, folk, whatever rolled down the pike that engaged her interest. When she was older, she and her brother formed a band that toured five years before marriages and the demands of family put an end to it.

She continued to work as an environmental consultant, but then the recession hit.

“I decided to have a go at playing music in bars around Galway,” Kennedy says. “I’d teamed up with a brilliant Dutch musician who’d just moved to Galway, who sang and looked like Bob Dylan. We formed a group called Mad Uncle Harry, and we had a great following, and gigged four or five times a week.”

All of that gigging offered some useful schooling for a singer on the way up.

“It was a great three years, and great training for me. My voiced developed hugely after singing in bars and trying to be heard.”

If you’ve heard Noriana Kennedy sing, you know she learned her lesson well.

Solas will appear in concert Thursday, February 27, at 8 p.m. Visit st94.com for details.

February 21, 2014 by Jeff Meade

Music

Review: “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” by Barleyjuice

Let’s just say that “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” the new CD from Barleyjuice, is a party. A loud, raucous, boozy blowout.

And when I say booze, I mean waking up on the kitchen floor with your head in the cat dish, and wondering how all that onion soup dip wound up in your shoes.

For example, this snippet of lyrics from the second track, “3 Sheets to the Wind”:

“Let’s go down to whiskey town
Land of song and sin
We’re not leaving till we’re weaving
Three sheets to the wind.”

The title might also be a dead giveaway.

Bands like “Barleyjuice” are popular because there’s a pretty big market for drinking songs. Some people like rebel songs. Others like traditional folk ballads. And plenty of people like drinking songs. Different strokes for different folks. And face it, drinking songs go back. Way back.

So belly up to the bar, boys. And girls.

Barleyjuice is in great form on this recording. Spot-on lead vocals, and seamless harmonies. Relentless, pile-driver rhythms. Mean, nasty, slashing guitar riffs.

If you can’t wait for the St. Patrick’s Day pub crawl, you can get a head start with the opening tune, “St. Patrick’s Day.” Kyf Brewer take the lead on this rock anthem dedicated to post-New York City parade shenanigans. Brewer sounds like he might have swallowed ground glass somewhere along the way. And I mean that in a good way.

I could call this tune “catchy,” but it really grabs you by your lapels and shakes the hell out of you. You’ll become a one-person mosh pit.

On this tune, guitarist Keith Swanson seems to be channelling the guitarist for whatever band played “I Fought the Law and the Law Won.” (OK, it was the Bobby Fuller Four. Don’t send me any emails.) It’s all clangy, jangly retro chords. Really fun.

The fourth track, “Catholic Guilt,” takes a jaundiced view of that aspect of Irish heritage. There’s a great bit of call and response between Brewer and the rest of the band on the chorus, a kind of steroidal sea shanty. Some brassy in-your-face fiddling on the bridge by Alice O’Quirke. We could talk about the lyrics in depth, but suffice to say references to “plastic Marys” pop with some frequency.

O’Quirke later takes the lead on vocals—and plays very sweetly, on a sweet little jiggy number, “Whelan’s Barroom.”

Keith Swanson is out front on “Whiskey for Christmas,” a tune that at times sounds like a song recorded by The Kinks, although I’ll be darned if I can remember which one. And just to mess with your head further, the harmonies remind me of John and George from almost any of the Beatles’ early stuff.

Clever chameleons.

Again, it takes a good bit of talent to pull off smart mash-ups like these and still come across as a loose bunch of rowdies. I admire that kind of talent. So get up on your feet, turn this CD all the way up, and scare the cat. You didn’t like that cat, anyway.

February 21, 2014 by Jeff Meade

Dance, Food & Drink, Music

2014 Mid-Winter Scottish & Irish Festival

Our pal Jamesie Johnston of Albannach

Every year we say it was the best yet. Even that year when wind storms knocked out the lights, and the bands played on in the darkness. Actually, that was pretty cool.

But, OK, we’re going to say it again: This year’s Mid-Winter Scottish & Irish Festival out at the Valley Forge Casino and Resort was the best yet.

Large crowds flocked to the festival over the weekend.

If you were in the mood for tunes to make you forget all the snow and ice, you were in luck. Most of our favorite bands were there. We don’t want to accidentally leave anyone out, so we’ll leave it to you to peruse our huge photo essay. We guarantee you’ll see a lot of familiar faces there.

We renewed our acquaintance with John the Scottish Juggler, who’s always on hand to keep the kids entertained. The adults love him, too. The Washington Memorial Pipe Band stepped out from time to time, and they never fail to impress. The Campbell School Highland Dancers were there, and our Irish dance friend Rosemarie Timoney led ceili dancing.

We cruised the vendor area, and found one or two things we’d never seen before. And a thing or two we wish we had never seen at all. Extra Special Haggis Sauce comes to mind.

The air was filled with the aroma of cooking oil—which can only mean one thing: fish and chips. To be accompanied, of course, by bracing brews from those cold islands—and a wee bit of whiskey, perhaps.

And if you happened to be sporting a kilt, a sword—or even a pirate hat—no one would give you a second glance. What more could you ask?

So if you didn’t brave the wind and the snow this past weekend, pull up a chair and let our photos warm the cockles of your hearts.

Whatever cockles are.

February 21, 2014 by Jeff Meade

Music

Review: “Ainneoin na Stoirme” by Téada

I believe the word I am looking for is “Wow.“

I refer to “Ainneoin na Stoirme (In Spite of the Storm),” the vibrant new CD from the Irish traditional supergroup Téada. It’s a jewel. Emerald, of course.

The band possesses a particular talent for resurrecting the great old stuff and making it seem like new stuff. A lot of bands play the old tunes with a good deal of flair, and a reverence for tradition. I probably like them all, in one way or another, for one reason or another.

Still, there’s something different and rare about Téada. The band’s world-class young musicians, led by founder Oisín Mac Diarmada on fiddle, know how to fill every corner of a room with rich, gorgeous sound. If you’ve heard them in concert, you know what I’m talking about. All the same, there’s a music box lightness and airiness to their execution of that sound that I’ve always admired.

So in that sense, “In Spite of the Storm” is more of the same. And that’s a very good thing indeed.

Now, add to the mix 2013 TG4 Traditional Singer of the Year and living legend Séamus Begley. He joined the band in March of 2012. His voice is like a branch of strong, solid mahogany, sanded down to a silky smoothness. It’s not as if Téada was ever lacking. Téada never needed anything to make it better than the already accomplished band that it is. And yet, Begley’s singing takes an already accomplished band and somehow completes it.

Begley’s singing produces many of the albums finest moments. I particularly liked the waltz “Ar A MBóithrín Buí/Tell Me Now.” Sung in Irish, it sounded like the gentlest of lullabies.

One cute little tune you won’t want to miss is Marty Robbins’ old chestnut, “Saddle Tramp.” Begley seems to delight in telling you a story, and this is a good one. You have to love the lyrics:

They call me a drifter, they say I’m no good
I’ll never amount to a thing
Well, I may be a drifter and I may be no good
There’s joy in this song that I sing

Couldn’t have said it better. Mac Diarmada might surprise you with his take on old-timey fiddling. It really makes the tune.

Of course, Mac Diarmada and his bandmates have always possessed the power to amaze. They hit the ground running with a blistering set of reels (“Dinny O’Brien’s/The Sweetheart Reel/Paddy Kenny’s”). You’ll be hanging on by your fingernails, but the boys hold the whole thing together with ease.

You’ll also a nice pairing of jigs and a slip jig, “The Jig of the Dead/I Have a House of My Own With a Chimney Built On the Top of It/Paddy Breen’s/The Bird’s Call.” Seán Mc Elwain opens the set with some terrific bouzouki licks, and he’s a key element of everything that follows, providing skilled counterpoint throughout.

Flutist Damien Stenson takes the lead on the final set, reels once again: “James Murray’s; Porthole of the Kelp/The Watchmaker/The Spinning Wheel. Very pretty.

I also have to say, I sometimes think its easy not to notice the contribution of the bodhran player. And I’m not just saying that because of my feeble attempts to play the thing. I think that’s because, if the drummer knows is business, he’s supporting the band in a very delicate, unobtrusive, but really indispensible way. It’s really not an easy act to pull off. Fair play, as the saying goes, to Tristan Rosenstock, who provides solid rhythmic backing from the beginning to the end of this 11-track offering.

All told, a terrific and indispensable piece of work.

February 14, 2014 by Jeff Meade

Music

Review: “Little Falls” by Lilt

Some reviews write themselves. This is one of them.

I’ll cut to the chase.

“Little Falls” is a relatively new CD (late November 2013) from Keith Carr on bouzouki, banjo, mandolin and vocals, and the German-born flutist Tina Eck, also on tin whistle. Together performing as “Lilt.” It is one of the finest recordings of Irish music I’ve heard in a long time.

The whole thing, from beginning to end, feels fresh, exhilarating, and wonderfully, blissfully alive. When I was thinking about how I would describe the sound these two produce, I remembered the title of an old Canadian Brass album: “High, Bright, Light and Clear.” That’s it in a nutshell.

There are a few minor flaws, but you would probably need the aural equivalent of an electron microscope to hear them. These two are so together as to be musically inseparable. They sound like one instrument. And both, of course, are seasoned pros. They play at a very high level.

Carr and Eck came together at traditional Irish music sessions around the Washington, D.C., area, so they’re experienced sessioneers.

Sessions are spontaneous. Players forget how certain tunes go, or they remember after they’ve forgotten, and it seems like they often can’t remember the name of the tune they’ve just played because, hey, they know a million of them. How can you keep track?

But every once in a while, the musicians will launch into a set of reels, and the whole thing just seems to be too impossibly great to believe. The music seems to spiral and soar to new heights. You wish you had remembered to turn on your digital recorder or iPhone because that particular moment would never come around again.

“Little Falls” isn’t as spontaneous and wonderfully undisciplined, but still, it seems to capture those memorable moments. The CD obviously boasts better production. It’s all well-rehearsed. That said, when you listen to this CD, you can imagine yourself sitting with a pint of ale at one of those D.C. sessions. Indeed, Eck and Carr are joined on most tracks by their session friends.

So enough with the gushing. What’s all the gushing leading up to? What is “Little Falls?” And why are there so many questions?

Every track is a winner to a greater or lesser degree. But certain tracks are standouts.

I particularly liked “Planxty Dermot Grogan,” featuring Tina Eck, accompanied by by Carr on bouzouki and Kristen Jones on cello. It’s as sweet and airy as spun sugar.

There’s a set featuring the reels “Eddie Kelly’s” and “John Brosnan’s.” The duo plays “Eddie Kelly’s” like an air, and there are times when the tune almost sounds like Tudor court music. They pick it up with “John Brosnan’s,” and there’s a graceful, seamless transition from the first tune to the second. But it’s “Kelly’s” that I really love.

Well-known sean-nos dancer Shannon Dunne steps out on the third track, a set of reels, “The Messenger” and “Roscommon Reel.” It’s a winner.

Carr shows off his banjo chops on the first tune in a another set of reels, “The Galway Reel,” “Seamus Thompson’s” and “View Across the Valley.” Those chops are considerable. Eck joins in with John Dukes on guitar for the second tune, and on the third tune, it’s Dukes again—this time on bodhran—and fiddler Graham DeZarn.

Finally, there’s a bonus track, not listed on the cover, and I wish I could tell you what the tune is. All I know is that you can really hear Carr on banjo at his very best, taking the lead on a reel that sounds more old-timey than Irish. And yet not. It’s syncopated and jazzy, more newgrass than bluegrass. Catchy fiddling and guitar playing throughout. And there’s another instrument somewhere in there that I’m not quite picking up. But really, really fun. It really is a bonus.

Bottom line: Buy “Little Falls.” You’ll play it until it skips.

Also available on Amazon.

Ossian’s got it, too.

January 31, 2014 by Jeff Meade

How to Be Irish in Philly, Music, News, People

How to Be Irish in Philly This Week

Timlin and Kane

This Sunday, join Gerry Timlin and Tom Kane and a host of other Irish musicians, including All-Ireland fiddler Haley Richardson and her guitarist brother Dylan, for a special concert at Sacred Heart Church in Camden. This annual “Celtic Spring Concert” raises money for The Heart of Camden, a nonprofit that provides homeownership opportunities to people who live in the waterfront area of Camden. It is a ministry of Sacred Heart Church. The late Sister Peg Hynes, a well-known figure in the Irish community, was its executive director for many years.

This Wednesday marks the beginning of a run of Paul Meade and David Parnell’s play, Trousers, the story of two 30-something Dublin men who reminisce about the summer they spent working as busboys in New York, at the Off Broad Street Theater at First Baptist Church in Philadelphia. It’s a production of the Inis Nua Theatre Company.

Martin McDonagh’s dark and comic play, “The Pillowman,” continues its run through February 8 at the Luna Theater in Philadelphia.

Also on Wednesday, it’s Irish Heritage Night at the 76ers. Appropriately, they’re playing the Boston Celtics—an age-old rivalry. If you use the promotional code IRISH when ordering tickets, you get special ticket prices. It all happens at Wells Fargo Stadium on South Broad Street in the city.

Wednesday also marks the start of a special lecture series—with music—by Tyrone-born musician Gerry Timlin, at McCarthy’s at Donegal Square in Bethlehem. Timlin will talk about modern Irish history and song—starting in the 15th century. Gerry is a fine singer and musician, but most importantly, a very funny man, so don’t expect dry lectures in between song stylings. It’ a six-week series that runs through March 19 ad is limited to only 40 participants.

On Thursday, catch Slainte—Frank Daly and CJ Mills from Jamison Celtic Rock—at Con Murphy’s on the Parkway in Center City.

On Friday, the supergroup from Donegal, Clannad, featuring Moya Brennan, will be in concert at the Whitaker Center in Harrisburg, and on the following evening at the Scottish Rite Auditorium in Collingswood, NJ.

Also on Friday night: Galway Guild is at Tir na Nog in Trenton, NJ, and Jamison Celtic Rock is at Curran’s in Tacony. Jamison is also doing a big fundraiser on Sunday at Archbishop Ryan High School in northeast Philadelphia.

Coming up: The Scottish & Irish Midwinter Fest, with an astounding lineup as usual, will be in King of Prussia on Valentine’s Day weekend. Bring your honey and stay for all three days. Donal Clancy, carrying on the musical tradition of his father and uncles, The Clancy Brothers, will be at Coatesville Cultural Center on February 17 and the first of the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade fundraisers is scheduled for February 23. And some interesting Irish acts are coming to the World Café Live. Check out our calendar for more details.

January 31, 2014 by Denise Foley

Music

Local Band Makes Good–Really Good

RUNA

Last week’s snowstorm temporarily put a crimp in their plans to travel to Cape May to record their fourth CD, but when the members of RUNA, the Philadelphia-based Celtic band, finally got there, they had to kick themselves into gear again.

They got some help. On Saturday, they learned that they had won two awards from the Irish Music Association—top group and top traditional group in a pub, festival, concert, beating out the likes of Solas, Lunasa, Altan, and popular local band, Burning Bridget Cleary.

“We were thrilled just to be among the other groups that were nominated,” said lead singer, Shannon Lambert-Ryan. “This was just wildly exciting. We were kick-started for the week.”

It was validation for a band that’s never been easy to slide into a specific niche that it’s a player on the Irish music scene. As one critic put it, “RUNA sounds like no one else,” which is both a blessing and a curse.

“We describe ourselves as Celtic roots music,” explains Lambert-Ryan. “We took a little while to get there in terms of figuring out our brand. We used to describe it as contemporary Celtic music but we were concerned that that connoted Celtic rock or new age sound which we’re not. But we’re not strictly traditional either. We’re somewhere in between niches,” she says laughing.

Blame it on–or credit it to– the widely differing musical styles and background of the band members. “Each of us bring something different and that keeps it balanced,” says Lambert-Ryan, who grew up as a step-dancer in the Philadelphia area, and majored in classical singing and acting. (She’s worked on several M. Night Shyamalan films.)

At the Philly Folk Festival in 2006, she met Dublin-born guitarist Fionan de Barra and, around the same time, percussionist Cheryl Prashker, a Canadian-born classically trained drummer who played the same folk scene as Lambert-Ryan and de Barra, who still lived in Ireland at the time. “I kept in touch with Fionan for a year and a half, then went to Dublin to work on an album with him and the rest is history between the two of us,” says Lambert-Ryan. They were married in 2009 and now live in the Philadelphia area. In addition to his work with RUNA, de Barra also performs with Clannad’s Moya Brennan.

When they decided to perform, they asked Prashker to join them. “After the first time we played together, we all looked at each other said, ‘Well, we need to do a whole lot more of that,’” recalls Lambert-Ryan. And RUNA was born.

And reborn. Eventually, fiddler Tomoko Amura joined them, bringing her bent for the classical and jazz to the mix.

And now, with Amura off pursuing a jazz career, born again. Recently, singer-dancer-multi-instrumentalist Dave Curley from Slide—incidentally, the group to which Fionan’s brother, Eamonn belongs—became part of RUNA, as has Maggie Estes who, despite a freshly minted college degree, is an in-demand bluegrass fiddler from Kentucky and Nashville.

“We met Maggie in Nashville where Fionan and I work frequently with Keith and Krystin Getty, Christian singers from Belfast originally. Fionan tours with and writes for them regularly. She’s one of those sunshiney bubbly people you’d love to work with and she is just spectacular,” says Lambert-Ryan. She blew them away regularly during this past week’s recording. “She’s a lot younger than we are, but she has that kind of chutzpah that just says, ‘Let’s go!’”

So, layered on the strong percussive jazzy sound that both Prashker and Fionan bring to RUNA, Lambert-Ryan’s actor’s penchant for song-stories , and Curley’s eclectic talents (including step-dancing, which Lambert-Ryan says has “kicked my butt into gear” to resume dancing), will be a touch of bluegrass on their next offering, which should be finished in time for the summer festival season.

“Bluegrass is similar in some ways to traditional Irish and Scottish music, but different in other ways. Being able to delve in and out of different genres makes the music exciting for us—it means we don’t have to stay in one ‘pocket’ or genre,” she says.

Touring takes RUNA all over the country, but they have two shows coming up in the Philadelphia area. They’ll be playing at the Mid-Winter Scottish and Irish Festival in King of Prussia on Sunday, February 16, from 3 to 4 PM. And they’ll also be featured at a special St. Patrick’s Season Show at the Irish Center, 6815 Emlen Street, Philadelphia, on Sunday, March 9 at 7 PM.

It’s your chance to find out what makes them the top in Irish music.

January 31, 2014 by Denise Foley

Music

Review: “Friends for Life,” The High Kings

The High Kings

“Johnny Leave Her” is a moldy oldie, but The High Kings might make you forget its age.

On the new album, “Friends for Life,” due out in early February, the ensemble’s four singers do what they clearly do best: harmonies. I’m a sucker for good harmonies—it’s one of the reasons I love bluegrass—but this a capella version is particularly memorable, a lovely update.

There’s a lot to like about this album, although not all of the 12 tunes are up to that same lofty standard. If you’re a diehard fan of the High Kings—and let’s face it, they’re one of the hottest groups in Ireland, if not the entire planet at the moment—you probably won’t be disappointed. Although I should say that the first few listener reviews on Amazon are mixed.

Still, fan or not, give it a listen. There’s much to like.

The manager of the phenomenally successful Celtic Woman assembled The High Kings in 2008, arguably capitalizing on a trend started by Riverdance. Groups like that are more brand than band. But you can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, and there’s simply no getting around that the four possess undeniable gifts. Wikipedia will tell you that, together, they play 13 instruments. And they play them on a particularly high level. And their singing is ridiculously flawless. And, as more than one traditional Irish musician has told me, you don’t have to play a tune the way it was played at the crossroads a hundred years ago. Music is about invention.

And if you’re looking for a pedigree, you can’t do much better than Finnbarr Clancy, son of The Clancy Brothers’ Bobby. Martin Furey is the son of traditional singer, raconteur and multi-instrumentalist Finbar Furey, and we flat-out love him. Brian Dunphy is a veteran of Riverdance and one-time member of the Three Irish Tenors, but he’s also the son of renowned show band performer Sean Dunphy. Darren Holden likewise did a stint in Riverdance.

So, on to the music.

The Kings’ first tune, “Oh Maggie,” sets the tone for most of what follows. The boys perform the first verse without instrumental accompaniment, and once again, their tight harmonies are flawless, leading into a kicky little rock jig performed on traditional instruments. Eminently listenable. Also dance-able, if you’re of a mind to.

A little later on, we hear the aforementioned “Johnny Leave Her.” As I say, one of the highlights.

The band puts a kind of syncopated country and western spin on “Health to the Company.” Depending on your orientation, you’ll see it as entirely acceptable or an outright violation. It certainly won’t make you forget the song as Kevin Conneff performed it with the Chieftains on “The Wide World Over,” but I liked it. I’ll admit it: I sang along. My harmonies are flawless, too, of course. (As in: In my dreams.)

“Galway Girl” was a sparking surprise. I’ve heard it a million times, but this version is performed as zydeco. I’ve always wondered why anyone would re-make a classic, if they can’t make it better. And whatever tune it is, it almost always fails to live up to the original. Let’s start with almost any remake by the smarmy Michael Bolton. In this case, the re-make is better. One of my hands-down faves on this album.

You might also recognize a grand old ballad by the name of “Peggy Gordon.” Very nice, but I must say, I’ve heard it better. And so have you, if you’ve ever heard our Karen, John and Michael Boyce sing it.

A few of the tunes seem to me like fillers. There’s a tune called “Gucci.” I can’t be bothered to care. You’ll probably skip past it. And I have to say, the title tune—the last one on the album—bores me almost to the point of lifelessness. Their version of Dominic Behan’s “MacAlpine’s Fusiliers” simply lacks soul. If you’d heard a local bar band play it, you’d get into it. In this case, it’s way too slick and overproduced.

Some of you might say that the entire thing is slick and overproduced. OK, I won’t lie to you, they’re not The Pogues. Frankly, on one or two tunes, they remind me of The Corrs. You know—if The Corrs were guys. Perish the thought.

But that’s not what The High Kings are about. So let’s be fair and open-minded about this business. Take them for what they are, and what they are is very talented.

January 24, 2014 by Jeff Meade

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