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Three New Inductees to the Delaware Valley Irish Hall of Fame

From left, the evening's emcee Tom Farrelly, Carmel Boyce, Ann Donofry's daughter, Jeannine, husband Frank, and Hall of Fame President Kathy McGee Burns.

From left, the evening's emcee Tom Farrelly, Carmel Boyce, Ann Donofry's daughter, Jeannine, husband Frank, and Hall of Fame President Kathy McGee Burns.

Librarian and amateur historian Billy Brennan, retired pastor and community activist Father John McNamee, and tireless volunteer, the late Ann Donofry, were inducted into the Delaware Valley Irish Hall of Fame at a dinner on Sunday at the Irish Center in Mt. Airy.

Mrs. Donofry’s husband,Frank, and her daughter, Jeannine, accepted the award on her behalf in front of an audience of more than 200 at the 8th annual event.

We were there and captured many of the memorable moments, which you can see in our photo essay.

November 20, 2008 by
Music, People

An (Irish) Traditional Marriage

Kathy, Emma and Dennis harmonize at a recent Christmas Wren party.

Kathy, Emma and Dennis harmonize at a recent Christmas Wren party.

You’ll have a hard time finding two busier traditional Irish musicians than Kathy DeAngelo and Dennis Gormley.

Together, they perform as the trad duo McDermott’s Handy (named after the County Leitrim, and later Monmouth County, N.J., fiddler Ed McDermott). And they preside over a popular traditional Irish music session Thursday nights at Three Beans Coffeehouse in Haddonfield, N.J. With Mermaid Inn session leader Chris Brennan Hagy, they also moderate the Next Generation youth Irish music group.

With bodhran in hand, I’ve accompanied them in a few performances and a few more sessions. Turnabout being fair play, Dennis accompanied me on flute when I took a shot at Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann’s Mid-Atlantic Fleadh Cheoil a couple of years back. I also took whistle lessons from Dennis—none of which quite “took,” through no fault of Dennis’s. (Apparently, you have to practice.)

Both talented multi-instrumentalists, Kathy and Dennis have been part of the Delaware Valley Irish music scene for decades. They’re as generous with their time and knowledge as they are talented.

As well as I think I know them, there’s still lots more I don’t know, So I posed a few questions.

Q. How did you two get together, personally and musically? And how big a role did the music play?

Kathy: We met at the Rutgers Saturday Folk Festival in July 1973 when Dennis was playing bass with Saul Broudy, and practically every other performer. I managed to “persuade,” in my own charming fashion, the festival organizer to let me perform with my band in a brief slot that afternoon using the argument that he didn’t have one single woman performing that day. Trouble was, the bass player in my band hadn’t lugged his bass to the student center, whereas all the guys had brought their guitars. So I very boldly approached Dennis and asked if we could borrow his bass. He was too nice, and I was too cute, for him to tell me to buzz off—and I’ll let him get a word in edgewise here.

Dennis: “Cute” is an understatement. I was stunned by her heart-stopping beauty and amazing talent. She could have asked me sign over all my worldly assets and I would would have used my own pen.

Anyway, I was up playing bass for Philadelphia folk music icon Saul Broudy. Saul was working in D.C. at the Smithsonian
Folk Life Festival and traveling up to New Brunswick by train. I drove up early to catch the music at the festival. Little did I know …

Kathy: So we started off playing everything but Irish music at the beginning. We played country music, bluegrass, swing, old-time and good old American folk songs. I was playing Irish music with Ed McDermott, my mentor, but that was a separate world.

Q. You both play multiple instruments First of all, thanks for making me realize just how much I have to learn, but, second, can you tell me how and when you learned those instruments, and how gravitated toward Irish traditional music?

Kathy: I started playing guitar in the 7th grade after being allowed to give up the accordion. My father thought every Italian girl should learn the accordion but in 1965 no right-minded teenager wanted to play the accordion. Everybody in my family played or sang. I just played chords and followed charts on pop music sheet music my brother bought. I got into folk music and by the time I got to college I opened the Mine Street coffeehouse in New Brunswick and got in with a whole crowd of people who played all kinds of music and went to folk festivals. The guys in my band thought I would look good playing a banjo so they gave me one for my birthday. My dad gave me his old mandolin. Other instruments followed and I had the time to learn them.

Two of the instruments I’m most associated with now, harp and fiddle, I didn’t take up till relatively late in life. I started teaching myself fiddle after Ed McDermott died in 1977—and I regret I didn’t take it up while he was living. I played guitar with him for years and he was the one that got me started down the path of the Irish dance music. Besides backing him up, I was flat-picking the tunes. When I moved to this area after Ed died I only knew two people down here and Dennis was one of them. I had a few Irish gigs and I asked him to play with me. He said “I don’t know anything about Irish music.” He insisted on coming over to learn a few tunes before this gig and I was amazed that he’d sit there and write the tunes down while I played them. Well, you know how one thing leads to another. Skip ahead to 1979 and Dennis and I get married. In 1984 I came home from work and Dennis had bought me a harp, which were hard to come by in those days. He had already worked out how to play “If I Only Had a Brain” so I figured I had to get to work to put some Irish music on it!

Dennis: The writing tunes down bit was always a way for me to learn and memorize the tunes.To this day, I’ll write down a tune I’m want to learn (see http://www.hslc.org/~gormley/tunes/giftunes.html), then very rarely refer back to the manuscript.

I started the obligitory piano lessons at about age 6 or 7. My father had rescued a piano from a bar; I remember it had the cartoon character Snuffy Smith on it. But once we learned to read, it got a new coat of paint; apparently, Snuffy was saying some rude things! One day, my parents heard mepicking out the melody for the “William Tell Overture” (you would know it as the theme from the Lone Ranger), and decided to send me for lessons. I never got as good as I probably could have, because I always wanted to learn by ear, and the teachers had this annoying habit of wanting me to read the music.

Anyway, my father Joe Gormley played the guitar as well, in a Freddie Green Big Band style of guitar. Apparently in his younger days he was a touring musician for a short while, which probably led to his advice, “Music is the best part-time job in the world.” My mother told a story of having to wire him money one time so he could get home, but I was never able to get any other details out of them. Up until the time he passed away, he was performing on a regular basis.

So when 1964 came around, there was already an electric guitar around the house. Of course, when I started playing it, I got a nylon-string classical guitar as a birthday present. I think there were thoughts of a classical guitarist in the family, but I immediately recognized it as the same sound heard on the Beatles “And I Love Her.”

I took up string bass in high school, coupling that with bass guitar in high school rock groups. Again, my father counseled, “There are thousands of guitar players, but not many good bass players.” Inspired by my high school band and orchestra director, James Maxwell, I went to Glassboro State College as a music education major and was exposed to all the instruments typically found in a school music program; for the purposes of this narrative, this is pretty much where I first picked up a violin and flute.

Fast forward to the early ‘70s and the folk music of the social activists. I missed the Kingston Trio folk music boom, but Peter Paul and Mary, Buffy St. Marie, Arlo Guthrie, and others were heard in my home. I was playing acoustic guitar and string bass, and working teaching folk music at the now-defunct Haddonfield Music House, giving lessons on guitar, bass, dulcimer, mandolin; they pretty much pushed any student wanting to learn folk music to me, whether I knew the instrument or not!

I started attending meetings of the Philadelphia Folk Song Society, where I met up with several musicians whom I performed with over the years, including Caryl P. Weiss and Saul Broudy. Through Saul, I got the opportunity to perform with many revivalist performers such as Winnie Winston, Steve Goodman, Vasser Clements, and John Prine.

So, toward the mid- and late ‘70s I was playing and performing folk music and traveling to venues throughout the Northeast and up into Canada. Attending and performing at folk festivals, I heard a great deal of Irish music, notably at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, where Kenny Goldstein regularly programmed and hosted a “Celtic Ceilidh” (Sunday afternoon at the Tank Stage). It was “hip” in the circles I traveled and performed in to deride the “diddly diddly,” but I was always drawn to it. Even though there was no Irish music played in my house, perhaps it was a sort of racial memory calling to me.

When I first started performing with Kathy, a short time after the death of Ed McDermott, I figured the mandolin, tuned like a fiddle, would be the most appropriate instrument I had to play the dance tunes. But I never really had the technical expertise to play tunes up to speed. Casting around, I picked up a tin whistle and worked on that, then much later (after a single but memorable lesson with Seamus Egan when he told me he was moving to New York to work with this new group), got a simple system wooden flute and started working on it. Still can’t get the notes for “Nights in White Satin” on it, though.

Like Kathy, I often wonder what it would have been like to be playing flute when Ed McDermott was still alive.

Q. How long have you been anchoring Three Beans?

Kathy: We started doing the session at the Three Beans not long after it opened in 1995, but the session actually started in a back room at the former Katie O’Brien’s, a restaurant in Haddon Township in 1992, I think. When the Three Beans expanded into the shop next door, there was room for us.

Dennis: My sister Lorraine Gormley had met a guitarist and singer from Kerry named Richard Browne, who told her of a session he was running at Katie O’Brien’s. With (daughter) Emma being an infant, it was easy to put her to bed and then get out to the session. (Oh, did I mention my mother was living with us then? Get of my back, DYFSS!) So we started going out. Eventually, having the session at Katie’s became untenable, with a trad session being low on their list of priorities. Harp and Dulcimer maker Dave Field was living in Haddonfield at the time, and he found the Three Bean location.

Q. How did McDermott’s Handy develop?

Kathy: I was the first music director at the New Jersey Folk Festival and Ed McDermott was one of our featured performers at the first festival in 1975, and then again in 1976. Everybody loved him. Here was this 80-year old fiddler who played with incredible energy with the college students who came to learn from him.

He died on New Years Day, 1977, and the festival asked me to put together a tribute to him for the 1977 festival. I asked a whole bunch of players from around the state who had learned tunes from Ed for years to come and play. It was a great night. I used the name McDermott’s Handy, after a track from Gordon Bok’s record of tunes he learned from Ed. So I just decided to keep it going. After that, it was mostly Dennis and me with an ever-changing roster of other musicians until 1984, when it was just the two of us. Now our daughter Emma, who plays fiddle and also sings, sits in with us occasionally.

Dennis: Aside from recordings and touring groups, Ed McDermott was the first practitioner of Irish music that I had met. His dedication to the music and patience in teaching what he had to a gaggle of young musicians with scant background in the music, was an inspiration. The opportunity to commemorate his contribution to Irish music is a continuation honor.

Q. I understand some fella named Seamus Egan once opened for McDermott’s Handy. When and where was that, about how old was he, and did you have an inkling of what a dynamic musical force he was going to turn out to be?

Kathy: Actually, it was the Egan family that opened for us at the old Perimeter coffeehouse in Collingswood, maybe that was in 1985 or so—Seamus and his sisters Siobhan and Rory. They were pretty young—not old enough to drive themselves there, I don’t think. There was lots of talent in them and passion for the music. They were awesome players even then. In fact, I arranged for them to play at the New Brunswick coffeehouse and have photos of all three of them on that stage.

Q. Your daughter Emma plays fiddle with you. Lots of kids might go off in a different direction–say, sports, or, musically, playing anything but the same music mom and dad play. How did that happen, and how did she get to be so good? (And to be such a sweet kid?)

Kathy: Emma has been listening to this music since before she was born. She was only 6 weeks old in the carriage parked stage left when we played at Bethlehem Musikfest in 1987. I’d practice the harp with this little baby laying on the floor at the foot of the harp so I could keep an eye on her. She loves it. She was about 2 years old when she started sing-songing melodies, in pitch. When it was feasible, we brought her to a lot of our concerts so it was not surprising to us that, when she was offered a chance to learn a musical instrument at school, she chose the violin. She’s got an encyclopedic knowledge of tunes. And she’s a big part of the reason why Dennis and I wanted to get those young musician sessions going.

Dennis: During one performance St. Patrick’s Day in 1987, Kathy was playing the bodhran; in utero, Emma started kicking back. So you could say she’s been PLAYING before she was born. Even today, when she goes up to her room, you can hear Irish songs and tunes wafting down from her CD player.

Q. What is there about this music that keeps you coming? You’re obviously both very passionate about what you do.

Kathy: I just love the infinite variety of this music, it’s simple and yet complex at the same time. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of the influence of that one man, Ed McDermott, and how knowing him shaped the course of my life. It’s a good part of what motivates me as a teacher to help pass this music along. I’m blessed to be able to sit down with wonderful players, like Dennis, all the time who keep that fire lit for me.

Dennis: I see all of us who play this wonderful music as links in a chain, that stretch back a long way. I was explaining to ZB Cummins, a 13-year-old whistle student: Kathy and I learned our first tunes from Ed McDermott, who came to this country in 1915, and was born at the end of the 19th century. He first got his music from his father, who would have been born in the mid-1800s. Now, there are people who get their first tunes from me or Kathy, and who will hopefully will pass them on as well.

November 20, 2008 by
People

Profile: Billy Brennan

Billy Brennan

Billy Brennan, at left.

By Kathy McGee Burns

When you look into the eyes of Billy Brennan, you can see his passion for Ireland. It manifests itself in different ways. It can be fiery when he talks about injustice or teary when he relates the fate of the hunger strikers.

He is the bard … no, not a poet, but a keeper and teller of the history. And while he’s telling the story, you can almost reach into those eyes and see a Druid priest or a tartan-shawled warrior. Billy is an unsung rebel.

When I met him to do this interview, he showed me, so proudly, treasures, tributes, and triumphs gathered from years of dedication. He literally has hob-nobbed with the best; Lord Mayors (Gerald Goldberg), Crown Princes (Harald of Norway), Presidents (Mary Robinson), Taoiseachs ( Jack Lynch, Charles Haughey, Brian Cowen ), Gerry Adams, Frank Rizzo—the list goes on.
His resume is made up of years of volunteering. He’s been President of many organizations; member of even more. He is a lecturer, writer, editor, historian, librarian and contributor.  As quickly as I learn of these achievements, Billy hands me a stapled list, four pages long, of some 132 names, all people he needed to thank for his success.

Billy Brennan is a Schuylkill man, born and bred, fiercely loyal and proud of it. He is the son of William and Sarah Bingham. His Dad died when he was 5 years old and his Mom, like so many women of her time and circumstances, had to work. His Grandmother raised him. Billy lights up when he talks about her. Mary Agnes O’Neil was a strong influence in his life. When she spoke, it was law. He told me of a story when he and his friends came upon joke books put out by PM Whiskey concerning Pat and Mike jokes. He came home laughing and telling Mary Agnes about it. She said, “No, Billy, they’re laughing at us.” This was an awakening to him.

Billy’s Grandmother died on his birthday and after spending 81 straight days, sitting in the hospital at her side, his spirits were low and depressed. He decided to go to the Irish Center. Lo and behold, he met Mary Agnes O’Neil’s gift to him, Mary Hughes. Six months later, they were married. Mary, a slip of a woman, Tipperary born, is a genuine, unpretentious, beautiful person infused with a strong sense of faith. The Brennans are now married 47 years. Sadly, they had the task of burying their only child, Neil William, in 2006.

Sean McMenamin, a long-time friend, places Billy Brennan in the same category as Dennis Clark, one who has preserved the history of the Irish in Philadelphia. He speaks for the generations who lived the tough times of the Depression up to the present days. Sean marvels at Billy’s search for the truth in history. He evokes a vision of Ireland that is comprehensive, not prejudiced to one view. His understanding of the evolution, pre-famine, times of the Troubles, immigration, even the Peace Accord is captured better than anyone’s. Billy presents the truth no matter where it falls. He is willing to see both sides.

Will Hill, President, AOH, Div.80 calls Billy Brennan “our very own history detective. He has unearthed, donated and documented an eclectic tribute to the Irish and their contribution to the world.” Frank Hollingsworth, who spends Tuesday night with Billy, says,” When he is asked a question, you can hear the wheels in his brain moving; his internal inter-net comes up with the accurate answer.”

Billy’s own words sum up his story, “I have many hobbies, but my first love is Ireland. I have devoted most of my adult life to the cause of Irish freedom and culture. An Irish Library was always my dream, and because of 132 people and organizations who donated their time, physical labor, funding, books and their moral support, the dream came true”.

November 7, 2008 by
People

Profile: Father John McNamee

Father John McNamee

Father John McNamee

By Kathy McGee Burns

If you want to know the measure of a man’s life, ask his friends.

And, so I did.

I set out to write about John P .McNamee, the priest, a man who many others have written about before. I wanted to make this different.

When I went to St. Malachy’s to interview him, I was struck by the people around him, the hustle and bustle of the little office. He had invited me to have lunch with him and so we sat at the long dining room table with the Friday volunteers and the regular staff. I felt the power of the people, devoted to Father Mac, their great love for him, and how he absorbs their connection to him and wears it as a mark of his humanity. I also met Father Kevin Lawrence, who replaced him as the new Pastor. I mentioned to Father Kevin that he had big footsteps to fill. “Ah, I’ll not walk in those footsteps”, he said, “I’ll walk beside them”. He knows that Father Mac is a hard act to follow.

I spent time with three of his devotees, Sister Cecile Reiley, Shelagh Bradley, and Olga Richardson. There were many lovely stories told about this “City Priest.” Here is what they said about him:

Generous, generous beyond means! He receives in one hand and gives it all away with the other. The ladies tell of Father taking flowers off of the table, vase and all, to give to a visitor. It doesn’t matter if it was Waterford or Woolworths. He has stolen many minutes, out of a busy day, to write little notes of gratitude to people.

Humble, yes, he always manages to shift the focus from himself to others. He has a love affair with the words of great writers, like Dorothy Day, Father Dan Berrigan, and Thomas Merton. He incorporates their writings into the thread of his own life.

Father McNamee loves all equally, unconditionally. He sees the face of Jesus in everybody who knocks on his door.

He’s an inspiration. He sees everyone as a child of God. Watching him be good to others, inspires one to also be good.

Father loves to be hospitable. Sister Cecile tells the story of a retirement party he was giving for a fellow priest. She asked how many should they plan on. He said about 150 guests. Sister called 15 friends and asked them to make enough lasagna for 10 each, exactly 150 servings. However, on the Sunday of the party, Fr. McNamee, invited everyone at the 10 and 11 o’clock mass. In the long run it didn’t matter, all went well. and the miracle of the loaves and fishes occurred anew.

Olga, who is the chair of the Worship and Service Committee, talks about his humanity. Always faithful to attending meetings, she missed one. Father called immediately and asked why. She said she wasn’t feeling well. He said, “How about I take you to the doctor.” He did and then proceeded to nurse her through a bout of colon cancer. He saw her through her chemo treatments and was always attuned to her needs.

Shelagh says that Father goes out to the school playground and mingles with the children. One young boy was so excited to see him. He said, “Father, you’re the Man”… I mean you’re the priest but you’re the Man!”

The story I really loved was one told by Sister Cecile. They were driving in West Philadelphia when a homeless man was thumbing a ride. They drove past and then Father Mac suddenly put on the brakes. “I should have picked him up.” Sister looked at him in puzzlement. Father McNamee said, “That could have been Christ.”

I then turned to Father Edward Hallinan, pastor of St. Martin de Porres Parish, and good friend to his mentor. He called him a Priest, a Prophet, and a Poet….all wrapped into one. Extremely generous to anybody; there are no boundaries.
When retirement for Father Mac was nearing, Father Ed was concerned that he would come crashing into it. He begged him to slow down and take it softly at the end. But no, John McNamee came roaring into retirement at about 100 mphs. This is his nature. That’s what makes him great.

Father McNamee is spending the summer in Ireland. Ed Hallinan hopes that when John gets off the plane, God is waiting for him, ready to embrace him in his arms and spend the next 6 weeks nurturing him.

And then there is Jim Martin. They formally met in 1963, when the Martin family chose Father McNamee to baptize their son, Eugene. Throughout the years their meetings were infrequent. And then lo and behold, Eugene Martin bought the right to McNamee’s book, Dairy of a City Priest, and turned it into a movie. When they went to the premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, their friendship was rekindled. Jim has been responsible for developing the financial network, raising lots of money to keep St. Malachys alive for a long time. Jim sees his friend as a spiritual skeptic, nonjudgmental, never dogmatic or hard-nosed.

John McNamee has character and a depth of spirituality very few have. Father looks behind the confines of church dogma. Anybody not accepted by the strict structure of the Catholic Church, is welcomed to Father John McNamee’s church.

Now you know the measure of this man’s life.

November 7, 2008 by
News, People

Slip on Your Dancing Shoes and Ceili for Kayleigh Sunday, November 2

As medical disorders go, methylmalonic acidemia—MMA—probably is one of the lesser known. There are no monster Labor Day telethons to fund research into this inherited metabolic disorder. MMA can cause a buildup of methylmalonic acid in the bloodstream, resulting in severe ketoacidosis and, often, death.

The boys of Blackthorn can’t single-handedly replicate the success of a Jerry Lewis telethon, but, hey, they’re going to give it their best.

You can help Blackthorn raise money for research into MMA by slipping into your dancing shoes and traipsing on down to the Knights of Columbus on Baltimore Pike in Springfield-Delco Sunday, November 2, for the 8th annual “Ceili for Kayleigh.” All proceeds benefit MMA research.  The event goes from 4 to 8 p.m.

The organization is named in honor of (soon to be) 9-year-old Kayleigh Moran. The Moran and Boyce families, together with her wide circle of friends, created the fund in her name to raise money for the research that is being conducted to find a cure for this disease.

“Ceili for Kayleigh” is dependent on continued and new support from individuals, clubs, organizations, and corporate sponsors to further its work. The organization is asking you to contribute to the cause in any way you can.

At the 8th annual benefit, organizers will be holding a “Pick-a-Prize” raffle table. Donors are welcome to give any type of “new” item that can be raffled off at this table during the benefit. (Examples: Gift certificates, sports items, signed memorabilia, crafts, electronics, business t-shirts.) You can also sponsor a table, enabling you to place your business cards, menus, coupons, and signs on the table that you sponsor. Because this event will be well attended by the local community—last year’s attendance reached 500 people—it is a great opportunity to advertise your business for the low cost of $50. Please make checks payable to “Ceili for Kayleigh.”

Tickets are $25. For tickets, call Marty Moran at (610) 356-6072.

October 23, 2008 by
News, People

5 Questions For. . . Kevin Kane

Kevin Kane, center, and his brothers, John, left, and Christian, during a recent trip to Galway, Ireland.

Kevin Kane, center, and his brothers, John, left, and Christian, during a recent trip to Galway, Ireland.

Every Ancient Order of Hibernians division across the US spends a good part of its time and effort raising money for local charities. In Havertown, the Dennis Kelly Div. 1 AOH is no different. But its focus has been on helping veterans, either on the battlefield or, as they’re doing this year, on the home front. We spoke to Div. 1 Vice President Kevin Kane about Saturday’s benefit at St. Denis Gym in Havertown—featuring live Irish music by The Shantys, comedy, TVs all around for watching the Phillies, and gourmet food and drink—that will raise money for The Hero’s Homecoming Fund, the division’s own charity.

What is the Hero’s Homecoming Fund?

The “Hero’s Homecoming Fund” is a name we gave to the monies that we will be raising at our October benefit.  The idea is to cut as many checks as possible directly to injured troops and their families for them to use as they see fit to improve their holiday season this year. We did not want to shower a family with $300 worth of Christmas gifts if what they really needed was help with their PECO bill, so it would seem actual checks cut directly to the troops would be the most effective way to help. Last year our fundraiser was “Treasures for our Troops” where we raised money, bought the care items for troops currently stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and sent over about 100 individual packages to them.  This year, we are going on the home front with returned soldiers.

What got you personally involved in this particular charity?

It’s a cause near and dear to my heart. On October 14, 2006,  Staff
Sergeant Joseph Kane, my cousin and friend, was killed by an IED (improvised explosive device) outside Baghdad.  He was a Monsignor Bonner graduate and from Darby. Because of my AOH Division’s work in the cause and also my obvious family attachments to the cause, I was put in touch with one of the heads of Operation First Response, Nick Constantino.  While it is a national organization that helps wounded troops, Nick is a local guy in Broomall who knows my aunt and uncle well (the parents of my cousin who was killed in action. After the final tally from our event we will sit down and figure out how many checks we can write, then Nick will give our division access to as many cases as we wish to review for donations.  We hope to be able to help local guys but will not hesitate to go outside of the area as well.

Your division has other personal links to the troops, isn’t that right?

Yes, one of our division members, Jim McCans, spent time
in Iraq last year with his cadaver dog “Stashe.” When Jim was working with the military there, they came across a land mine and two of the soldiers assigned to help and guard Jim were severely wounded, Sgt. Rob Laux and Sgt. Chris Payne.  Both soldiers are still recovering from their injuries at Walter Reed Hospital.  Our division is putting both of the up for the night at a
local hotel, and they will be the guests of honor at our event.

[Editor’s note: This week, Havertown paramedic Jim McCans and Stache will receive an ASPCA Presidential Service Award for their work in Iraq, searching for the remains of US troops. The incident Kane refers to resulted in Stache breaking his eardrum, leading to temporary hearing loss from which the four-year-old Police Academy-trained black lab has since recovered.]

Like the other AOHs in the region, your division is active in the Hibernian Hunger Project, which was launched in this area and is now a national AOH charity. You’ve linked your work with veterans to that too, haven’t you?
 
Our commitment to veterans is also evident by our selection of recipients for our recent Hibernian Hunger Drive, where local schools and parishes donated food stuffs that we delivered to The Philadelphia Comfort House, at 41st and Baltimore Avenue, a temporary residence operated for the benefit of financially needy veterans and family members who require temporary housing while being treated at the VA Hospital. Our division also supported the recent charity benefits for Corporal Matthew Sonderman, another local severely wounded vet.

Your division recently co-sponsored a charity basketball game at Msgr. Bonner High School involving a ball team from a Belfast School. Tell us about that.

Our division sponsors a group of Irish basketball players from St. Malachy’s in Belfast to come over and tour the area, and play some basketball against some local high school basketball teams.  In turn, we send a dozen or so local high school players once a year over to Belfast to do the same. We used part of the monies we raised at our “Bonner to Belfast and Back” basketball game this past Monday night to donate, along with the Bonner Fathers Association, a $500 check to the foundation set up for Officer Patrick McDonald, a Philadelphia cop of Irish descent shot and killed in the line of duty last month.

If you can’t make it to the benefit, you can still donate to help a returning injured vet. Send checks payable to “AOH Inc.” and mail them to division financial secretary Chuck Harrington at 715 Ardmore Ave, Ardmore, PA 19003.

October 23, 2008 by
Arts, People

Local Filmmaker Revisits a ’50s Music Scandal

Shawn Swords with singer Bobby Rydell holding Swords' last release, Charlie Gracie: Fabulous.

Shawn Swords with singer Bobby Rydell holding Swords' last release, Charlie Gracie: Fabulous.

A couple of years ago, a young Irish-American filmmaker named Shawn Swords from Glenolden trailed a popular Irish-American band around and produced a critically acclaimed documentary called, “Blackthorn, It’s an Irish Thing,” which appeared on UPN.

Last year, Swords completed a documentary of Philly rock and roll pioneer Charlie Gracie, whose “Butterfly” knocked Elvis from the top of the charts in 1957 and sold more than 3 million copies worldwide—without benefit of the internet. “Fabulous” was picked up for World Wide Distribution by Oldies/Gotham/Alpha distribution and was a huge hit two summers ago during a PBS fundraiser.

This month, Swords, who went to film school at 32 and now steers Character Driven Productions (Conrad Zimmer, Blake Wilcox, Paul Russo), debuts a brand new documentary, this one on the American Bandstand Philly years with Dick Clark, on September 27 at the Wildwood By the Sea Film Festival at the Wildwood Convention Center.

But if you think “Wages of Spin” is a feel-good trip down memory lane with Bobbie Rydell, Chubby Checker, Frankie Avalon, Jerry Blavat, Justine, Eddie, Arlene and the other and all the other Bandstand dance regulars, you’re in for a shock. The same one I got when I caught Swords’ trailer on YouTube.

It opens with a black screen, like a chalkboard, on which is scrawled the word, “Payola,” with a definition for those who have no memory of the ‘50s music scandal, the origin of the term “pay to play”: “A secret or private payment in return for the promotion of a product, service etc, through the abuse of one’s position, influence or facilities.” Then you hear the voice of Artie Singer, who wrote the popular Danny and the Juniors’ hit, “At the Hop.”

“Where do you think Dick Clark made all his money? Initially where do you think he made it? From guys like me.”

Singer is looking at the off-screen interviewer. He raises his arms in the classic “but wait” move. “Granted,” he continues, “I can’t say anything derogatory. I can’t say anything bad because I owe my success in the record phase of it to Dick Clark.”

He had to “love the guy,” Singer tells the off-camera Swords, because without him, “there would have been No ‘At the Hop,’ no Danny and the Juniors.”

And by “without him,” Singer says, he means without Clark taking 50% of the publishing rights to the song. If the record producer hadn’t given it to Clark (as a gift, he later said, because they were friends) there’s a good chance that “At the Hop” would have gotten no play on what was the most popular teen program in the ‘50s.

Oh, say it ain’t so! America’s oldest teenager, the fresh-faced host who squeezed between two Philly teens every day from 3 to 4:30 PM to introduce the latest hit record or musical heartthrob, the guy who’s been counting that ball down on Times Square every New Year’s Eve? Dick Clark? Making hay to play?

To hear Swords tell it—and he’s talked to the players and read the transcripts—it was big time. He first came across the story when his friend, Paul Moore (formerly of Blackthorn, now of Paddy’s Well) asked if he was familiar with the story of Charlie Gracie. “Charlie was a talented musician, but he wound up being blacklisted back in the ‘50s, says Swords. “Charlie has a number one hit, at 19 years old, went on tour for a year, appeared on he Ed Sullivan Show, with [teen rock show DeeJay] Allan Freed, Dick Clark, then comes back home to Philadelphia and he’s not getting royalties. The record sold 3 million worldwide.”

Gracie discovered that Dick Clark owned 25% of “Butterfly.” Gracie sued the record producer and got $50,000, but that was the end of his career. Though he signed with a new label, he couldn’t get airplay. “He knocked Elvis off the charts and he couldn’t get airplay,” Swords says.

Digging deeper, Swords discovered that according to Congress, Clark was given somewhere in the neighborhood of 160 copyrights with the implied guarantee that those songs would air on Bandstand. But during the payola hearings before congress in 1960, Clark denied taking payola to play songs. In a New York Times article written at the time, Clark is quoted as telling the House Special Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight, “I have not done anything that I think I should be ashamed of or that is illegal or immoral, and I hope to eventually convince you of this. I believe in my heart that I have never taken payola.”

And in fact, says Swords, even if songwriters or producers never handed a fistful of cash over to Clark, he got paid. Instead, as was the case with “At The Hop,” he was given copyrights to songs, which meant that he benefited financially from their rise to the top of the charts. The New York Times report said that the Committee produced figures showing that over a three-year period, Clark had received $167,750 in salary and $409,020 in increased stock values, on investments of $53,773. That led one legislator to remark that if Clark hadn’t gotten payola, he’d certainly gotten plenty of “royola,” referring to royalties.

But by the time of he hearings, Swords says, Clark had divested himself of many of his holdings, including as many as 30 various businesses related to the record industry (as documented by Congress), so that the committee gave him nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Other DeeJays weren’t so lucky. Allan Freed lost his job and though he received only a small fine, his career was over; he died penniless at 43.

“Clark took the money from the divestiture and started Dick Clark Productions which became one of the most profitable independent TV production companies of all time,” says Swords.

While it took the filmmaker some time to uncover this chapter of the history of rock and roll, it really wasn’t hidden all that well. In fact, one of the producers of the film is John A. Jackson, author of the book that laid out many of the details, “American Bandstand: Dick Clark and the Making of a Rock ‘n Roll Empire.”

“John wrote a fantastic book, one of my favorite books, but it barely showed up on the radar,” says Swords. “Why isn’t more of this public knowledge?” One reason, he suspects, is that it’s hard to get corroborating evidence from some of the singing stars of the era, with whom Clark still has dealings. “Some of them are still getting checks from him for appearing in Branson [the Missouri musical destination where yesteryear’s idols play to packed houses of nostalgic audiences],” says Swords. Nevertheless, Swords has at least 7 interviews on tape, like Singer’s, detailing what went on, but that’s out of about five dozen interviews. “They would tell me what happened, but a lot of them just stopped talking when the camera was rolling,” he says.

While Swords admits he likes digging into “abuses of power,” he doesn’t want to be typecast as a muckraking filmmaker. As a boy, he attended Girard College where he watched “the epic films” on old projectors “because they could get better rates on the old films,” he recalls. “We wouldn’t see the first-run films like the karate movies everybody loved back then. But I loved those old films, great English pictures on Cromwell and Henry the Eight, the David Lean movies, like ‘Bridge Over the River Kwai,’ ‘Lawrence of Arabia,’ and ‘Dr. Zhivago.’”

“I like the art films too, and have a real affinity for John Ford films, which are very melodic and emotionally impacting. I love the great action films and the film noirs, where there’s a great story.”

It was those kind of narrative films Swords planned to make when he went to the New York at 32, after getting out of the Navy, working two jobs to put himself though New York Film Institute. In fact, he’s working on a new screenplay now. “I worked most of it out during the two hour walks I take every day,” he says. “The whole plot, twists and everything. If I could sit and write all the time I’d be pretty good. I can really kick them out. Right now I’m tightening up one of my better screenplays and working on a couple of pilots, including one that’s a black comedy.”

He has six finished screenplays that he’s going to shop in LA by the end of the year. “I’ have had two offers for talent representation,” he says.

And when we talked a few weeks ago, Swords was still putting the finishing touches on “Wages of Spin,” which meant weeks of “being nocturnal,” while readying the documentary for The Wildwood By the Sea Film Festival, which he co-founded with his executive producer Paul Russo. “I have black circles under my eyes,” he admitted.

Don’t let it be for naught. Check out “Wages of Spin,” Saturday, September 27, at the Wildwood by the Sea Film Festival. If you can’t make it to the shore, there will be four screenings of “The Wages of Spin” at The Elaine C. Levitt Auditorium, 401 S. Broad Street (Avenue of The Arts) at: Noon, 2 PM, 4 PM and 6 PM. on Saturday, October 11. Admission is $10 at the soor. Artists featured in the documentary will be present at screenings.

“The Wages of Spin” will run continuously from 5 P.M until closing on several screens at Rembrandt’s Bar and Restaurant, 741 N. 23rd Street in Center City, on October 18 with several music and entertainment industry notables in attendance.?Tickets are $30 and are available at the door.

September 26, 2008 by
People

Remembering Greg Duffy

Greg Duffy

Greg Duffy

Greg Duffy was quite well known. Not the kind of “well known” that merits a page 1 headline in the New York Times, necessarily, or that prompts heads of state to issue statements of condolence.

But within the worldwide community of Irish traditional music and culture, it was clear that Greg Duffy’s sudden death on the night of August 28 was truly of great moment. Indeed, notice of his passing had made it onto the Irish Traditional Music Listserv by 3:37 a.m. on Friday.

Local musician Bill McKenty, who has known Greg and his wife Charlotte for 15 years, posted the announcement. It read, in part:

“… husband, father, friend, photographer and great fan of traditional music and its people, Greg lived within the music, befriending many and opening his heart and home to the music …”

Within the traditional community, Greg Duffy was quite well known indeed, and loved. And now, mourned.

Greg was known for his loving photos of Irish traditional musicians. (A good example is currently posted on the Thistle and Shamrock Web site. It’s a remembrance of singer-guitarist Mícheál Ó Domhnaill.) View it here.

He was also renowned for his great hospitality. Many, many road-weary musicians were fortunate to stay in his Jenkintown home.

We asked a few of those who knew him best to share their thoughts and memories. (Of course, you can also offer your comments in the little form that follows.)

Bill McKenty, longtime friend and musician

Greg was always trying to drag me to concerts as I tend not to go to many.

About a year-and-a-half ago, he enticed me to go on my birthday with him and his wife Charlotte to a Flook concert in Wilmington. Michael McGoldrick, one of my favorites, was filling in for Sarah Allen of the band as she’d just had her baby. I agreed to accompany the Duffys as McGoldrick almost never comes to the US of A.

The Duffys were very well known at venues such as the Cherry Tree, Green Willow and Sellersville. They always had front row seats reserved for them as Greg’s wife Charlotte was pretty much confined to a wheelchair.

So we get to the show. I go outside to catch a smoke, and who should bum a butt off me but Michael McGoldrick. We hit it off quite quickly, trading tunes in the “diddly di,” lilting kinda way flute players do.

Later, as I was sitting in the front row with the Duffys, McGoldrick would sit next to me in an open chair on sets in which he wasn’t playing with the band, and egg the band on from the audience. McGoldrick and Flook were quite the characters.

So at half time, McGoldrick and Greg compared notes and friends and chatted away. Nice concert. At the end they did an encore and went to start the first tune but couldn’t remember how it went. Greg looked over to me and said, “You know that,” so I hummed a few bars. McGoldrick hears me and goes, “Ah, that’s it.” He comes over to me, hands me his whistle and shoves me up on stage, much to the horror of the rest of the band, as they didn’t know me from Adam.

After a few awkward moments they ascertained that i did know the tune and great fun ensued. Of course, Greg took much delight in this and started to shoot away …which is where the attached came from.

He had a great eye, a great ear and a great love of the music and the people and characters who lived it.

Andy Irvine, Irish singer-songwriter

I was extremely sad to hear of the unexpected passing of Greg Duffy. He was a man I held in high esteem and respect for many years.

I first met him in Philadelphia, at The Cherry Tree, sometime around 1985/86 and we became friends immediately. As any traveling performer might say, I never had enough time to spend with him and his wife, Charlotte.

I stayed in his house in Jenkintown on a few occasions. He made a pretty good breakfast! Conversations with Greg were always witty and well informed from his side. He took a great interest in all things Irish.

In retrospect I was very happy to have made a detour in June of this year to visit the family on the occasion of Charlotte’s birthday. Greg was in great form and walked me to my car when I was leaving. We had a farewell hug and I never thought it would be the last I would see of him.

A good man has passed.

Lois Kuter, longtime friend and Breton music authority

I met Greg as a fellow fan of Celtic music—and that means not just Scottish and Irish, but also Welsh, Breton, Manx, Cornish, Galician, and Asturian (when you had the luck to hear them).

I can’t recall where or when I met Greg but he and Charlotte listened to the Breton music radio program I did for WXPN from the mid ‘80s to the mid ‘90s. They had impeccable taste in music—picking out the most innovative and interesting. I renewed a friendship with them at a scattering of concerts over the years.

I’ve met very few people who have such knowledge and true appreciation for the rich traditions and innovative variations of music from the Celtic world.

I am sure all the musicians who beat Greg to Heaven are thrilled to have him there to share the joy and beauty of their music. I am sure Johnny Cunningham has a big hug for him.

Kevin Burke, Irish fiddler

He was a great supporter of the music. Ever since Mícheál Ó Domhnaill and I were newcomers to the U.S., Greg and Charlotte were regular attendees at our concerts anytime either of us were in the Philadelphia area.

It was always a pleasure to see them as they always had a few kind, appreciative and supportive words for us. Greg was also a very talented photographer—he had the great and rare skill of being able to remain very inconspicuous with the camera while at the same time getting great live shots of the performers.

To this day some of my favourite shots are those taken by Greg. He was much loved and will be sorely missed by all who knew him. My sympathies go out to all his family and friends.

September 4, 2008 by