Growing up as the youngest of 11 kids in rural upstate New York, Terry Kane recalls bumping along in the family’s station wagon, her mother at the wheel, she, her mom, and siblings all singing at the top of their lungs.
“We sang in 10-part harmony which we made up, back when cars didn’t have child seats,” she says with a laugh. “I didn’t actually sit on a seat till I was about 12. No, I’m kidding, but I sat on people’s laps for a long time.”
The Kane family “loved music and dancing,” she recalls. “It was a part of our lives. My Mom is the one that pretty much taught us to sing, and her mom taught her to sing. Her Dad was a big dancer and his father was as well. My great-great grandfather bought a farm out there in the middle of nowhere, near the Finger Lakes, and he built a stage in the woods where they could do their Irish dancing. Apparently his second wife didn’t like when they danced in the house so they danced outside.”
So it’s no surprise that for the last decade, Kane, who lives with her husband Todd Daniel in a converted cigar warehouse near Quakertown, has been performing Irish music in the Delaware Valley, New York, and Washington, DC, sometimes solo, often with singer John Beatty as Kane & Beatty. She also anchors the monthly sessions at Granny McCarthy’s in Bethlehem and McCoole’s in Quakertown. But on Saturday, April 19, she’s launching her second CD as part of the group, Trad Linn, with New Yorkers Will Collins and Doug Lammer who play whistle and uillean pipes.
“Will is from a traditional family. His mother is from County Clare. His aunt, Kathleen Collins, is a traditional fiddle player. His father is a well-known accordion player,” says Kane. “I’ve played with Will and Doug at the East Durham Irish Festival in the summer. I don’t get a chance to play with them that often. But they stopped into the studio when I was recording and put down some tracks for me.” Also featured on the CD, called “The Roads of Clare,” are George Fairchild on bodhrán and his daughter Audrey Fairchild on cello.
And anyone who knows Terry Kane will expect to hear some of her unaccompanied sean nos singing, and she doesn’t disappoint. Kane has been studying this traditional form of Irish singing for more than 10 years. As a classically trained singer, it’s been quite a education. Sean nos (meaning “old style”) has many interpreters, but it is largely the antithesis of classical music with its emphasis on fluidity, sweetness, and vibrato. Sean nos can be fierce, almost unmelodic. “It’s also very nasal,” says Kane, who doesn’t think she’s yet achieved the sound.
“I don’t really truly sing in sean nos, though I’m getting very close to it now,” she says. “I have a masters degree in musical education so I sing in a more traditionally classic way. But I’ve been spending a lot of time with singers from Connemara. I’ve been taking workshops with Aine Meenaghan, a well-known sean nos singer who now lives in Chicago. I’ve taken classes with others too, including singers from the Aran islands. Any time I go to Ireland I’m always listening and picking up songs.”
She first became interested in Irish music when one of her older brothers came back from studying in Europe with a raft of recordings from Ireland. “He came back singing all kinds of rover and rebel songs,”” she laughed. “My brother, Pat, also got into the traditional stuff, so we found trad music again.”
Actually, it was for the first time. Though her mother came from a musical family, Kane says, her early ancestors tried to erase most vestiges of their culture, including their music—a familiar story in many families who arrived in America when the Irish were still the victims of strong and sometimes violent prejudice. “My mother’s mother used to sing sean nos type songs, but her husband didn’t like it. He wanted her to sing American,” Kane explains. “So that was the end of the sean nos stuff. My grandmother did teach her to sing the songs of the day. In fact, they used to sing while they were working. On a farm, there’s a lot of manual labor, so they would sing together while they worked. I know it sounds like a musical, but that’s the way it was.”
Today, she and her brother, Pat, who is also a professional musician, carry on the ancient and yet newfound family tradition. “Now,” she says, “this is not just my job but my passion.”
A CD release party is being held on Saturday, April 19, from 5:30 to 11 PM at McCoole’s Arts and Events Place, 10 S. Main Street, Quakertown. Tickets are $25 and come with a free CD. You can meet Terry and the band before the concert, and enjoy food and drink. The concert, which also features John Beatty, George and Audrey Fairchild, will start at 7 PM with a post-concert session at 8:30 PM.
You can contact Terry at 215-541-0282 or email tkane@netcarrier.com for tickets or purchase them at the door.
To listen to the CD, click here.
