Disc of the day
Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley
Magnificent late-'50s singles round-up that keeps on giving.
Features Disc of the day
Joe Heaney
The Road From Connemara
(Topic Records, 2000)
The unaccompanied champion of Ireland...
The story goes that when U.S. TV producer Merv Griffin was holidaying in Ireland in the late '60s he found himself in O'Donoghue's Pub in Dublin, home of The Dubliners and the famed spot where legendary Irish traditional singer Joe Heaney (Seosamh Ó hÉanaí) had once regularly performed. Looking at a framed picture of Heaney on the wall of the pub, Griffin exclaimed, "Hey! That's my doorman!"
Raised in the remote village of Carna in the Irish-speaking region of Connemara, County Galway, Heaney was schooled in the, old florid style of unaccompanied Irish singing known as sean-nós, reputedly developed during the 17th Century after the British had confiscated all Irish musical instruments in an attempt to destroy their cultural unity. Heaney had gone on to make a name for himself in O'Donoghue's and The Grafton Theatre, and in the early '60s spent much of his time in London, working on building sites, teaching Irish music, and performing in such Camden Town haunts as The Stores and The Laurel Tree and Peggy Seeger's Singer's Club in Holborn. Then, in 1965, on the back of a growing reputation and recordings made for Topic and Gael-linn Records, Heaney was invited to America to take part in that year's Newport Folk Festival. Shortly before he left, Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger invited Heaney round to their house in Beckenham. Holed up there for several weeks, fuelled by, as Seeger put it, "enough as-it-comes whiskey to fell an ox" Joe regaled them with baroque songs and elaborate stories of poor neglected mendicants (The Glen Of Aherlow), infant mortalities (Suantrai), a version of Lord Randall in which the young man has been poisoned by a coiled eel, and lessons on how to sing in a country house ("You turn your back and pull a cap over your eyes").
Heaney settled in New York City but it soon became apparent that sean-nós would never pay the rent and he took a second job as a doorman at an upscale apartment block at 135 Central Park West. Merv was right, and he invited Heaney on to his show, to perform traditional Irish songs, an appearance which established the singer as an important figure in New York's Irish community and led to a position teaching Irish folklore at a Connecticut University and later, Irish traditional singing at The University Of Washington, in Seattle. He would make later recordings - including a version of Finnegan's Wake with John Cage - but by then his voice was weakened by the fags and the booze. Heaney died in 1984, For the closest approximation of what it must have been like to be in a room with Heaney as he closed his eyes, pulled down his cap and spun the tall tales, this is the place to go.
Andrew Male
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 21/09/2009
Further Listening
Joe Heaney – From My Tradition (Shanachie, 1997)
John Cage – Roaratorio: An Irish Circus On Finnegan’s Wake (Mode, 2002)
Various – Three Score And Ten (Topic, 2009)
Previous Disc of the day
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Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley
Magnificent late-'50s singles round-up that keeps on giving.
6:00 AM GMT 20/11/2009
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Isley Brothers - The Brothers: Isley
The Cincinnati siblings bed into their heavy period.
6:00 AM GMT 18/11/2009
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Lee Morgan - Search For The New Land
The trumpeter's most soulful excursion entrances MOJO messageboarder.
6:00 AM GMT 16/11/2009
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