A diverse decade of Irish music

What a decade! While the Celtic Tiger roared immigrants flocked to Ireland, and their influence can be heard in the music made by many Irish artists on my best of the decade list. (When we return in January, we will name the best CDs from Irish American artists so no one on this side of the Atlantic is left out!)

Of course, technology changed the music business as digital downloads killed record shops during this decade, making a lot of these import albums easy to get online. It makes one wonder what format an artist will use to deliver a collection of songs to us 10 years from now!

Speaking of technology, check out the best of the decade music page on IrishCentral. It is there you will find in-depth analysis of each album listed here, along with interviews with their creators.

You also have a chance to vote for your favorites on this list and enter to win a night on the town with Black 47 in Times Square this New Year’s Eve.

AfroCelt Sound System: “Volume 3: Further in Time”

The blueprint of this decade of global assimilation began with a band of Irish and African musicians that began to jam in Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios. Released on June 18, 2001, the Afro Celt Sound System’s “Volume 3: Further in Time” was 70 minutes and 42 seconds of wicked international grooves that sounds like nothing that came before or after it.
Indian dhol drumming converges with furious uilleann pipe trills as Cork poet Iarla O’Lionaird calmly lays his gorgeous prose over this dance party.

Peter Gabriel and Robert Plant do guest vocals in performances that are better than anything they’ve done on their own, but it is the brilliant chemistry of cultures that creates a new, thrilling take on Irish music.

Luka Bloom: “Innocence”

Christy Moore’s kid brother gets lost in the music and begins a Middle Eastern chant in the middle of “Gypsy Music” as flutes and bongo take the listener into a Moroccan rug market.

Musically, “Innocence” is an international album, a possible reflection of a time in Irish history that saw the country playing host to immigrants hoping to roar with the Celtic Tiger.

“He stood and let the music glow, underneath his skin/He felt longing for Algeria, and loving for this song/How the music of a stranger helps the dreamer move along/The carpenter and the fiddler became the best of friends/And Mohamed lives in Galway, where the music never ends,” he sings on “No Matter Where You Go, There You Are.”

There are many songs written about the Irish missing their homeland in a strange place. This song might be the first one written from the perspective of someone missing home while living in Ireland.

The Saw Doctors: “The Cure”

These Tuam lads have always been the bog’s answer to Bruce Springsteen. They spent the last 20 years spinning endearing stories with a reporter’s eye for detail and a saxophone always at the ready. The band once again chronicled Irish life in their unique way.

“The bones of our ancestors are buried in the field behind the shed/they could be lying there oblivious/underneath cement before I'm dead/roundabouts and one way streets/double yellow lines to beat the band/still takes you longer to get anywhere,” sings Davy Carlton on “Out for a Smoke.”

“If Only” told of unexpressed love from the bog, while “Stars Over Cloughanover” was a starry eyed view of the gorgeous skies overlooking Ireland’s left coast.

“Your Guitar” was a riff heavy rocker and a loving look at domestic life about writing a song on the guitar that is a son’s Christmas present.

This album also told stories beyond the stone walls where the grass was green.

Sinead O’Connor: “Throw Down Your Arms”

Sinead flew to Kingston, gathering top Jamaican musicians including drummer Sly Dunbar, bassist Robbie Shakespeare, guitarist Mikey Chung and trombonist Nambo Robinson to record in Bob Marley’s Tough Gong Studios.

They lock into a ferocious roots groove from start to finish. The horns lock in with the rolling bass line and synth chopping on “Y Mas Gan,” displaying a brilliant arrangement that was probably produced effortlessly.

Much attention is paid to Marley when talking about reggae and roots music, for good reason, of course. Sinead shines a spotlight on Jamaican singer Burning Spear, giving the listener a new appreciation for an underappreciated talent.

The rollicking bass line of “Marcus Garvey,” and the slow burning “Throw Down Your Arms” settles the world’s problems in a mellow, dank cloud of ganja smoke.

“VH1 Presents The Corrs: Live in Dublin”

The folks at VH1 must have seen the same thing I did, and they rectified the situation by releasing a TV special and live CD in 2002.

“VH1 Presents: The Corrs Live in Dublin” saw the camera-ready clan show what they were made of on a small sound stage.

The guitars on their monster hit “Breathless” chatter without the restraint of a fastidious producer, while the drums pound behind Andrea Corr’s “breathless” cooing. She is a relentless flirt onstage, entertaining a number of high watt suitors throughout the evening.

Bono strides onstage and engages in a heartfelt duet on Ryan Adams’ “When the Stars Go Blue,” turning the obscure song into a modest hit during the St. Patrick’s Day season that year. He sticks around long enough to offer a cartoonish country western drawl on the Nancy Sinatra chestnut “Summer Wine.”

The disc also serves as a greatest hits retrospective. Viewers unfamiliar with the band’s back catalog got to hear the heavy Fleetwood Mac influence on tracks like “So Young” and “Radio.”

Album of the decade

U2: “All That You Can’t Leave Behind”

“A mole, living in a hole/Digging up my soul/Going down, excavation/Love, lift me out of these blues/Won't you tell me something true/I believe in you,” shouted Bono on U2’s (then) new hit, “Elevation.”

It was if the line was written for New York in the wake of 9/11. At least that’s how it felt when I heard them playing it at Madison Square Garden a few weeks after the towers fell.

“And if the night runs over/And if the day won't last/And if your way should falter/Along the stony pass/It's just a moment, this time will pass,” Bono sang on “Stuck in a Moment That You Can’t Get Out Of.”

Was Bono some rock and roll Nostradamus, predicting this moment of public mourning when he wrote those lines in Dublin a year before our tragedy?

“All That You Can’t Leave Behind” might be packed with uplifting radio friendly classics, but to myself and many New Yorkers I know this album pulled us through our darkest days.

U2 still awesome after all these years

Published Wednesday, September 30, 2009, 4:13 PM

When we last saw our four favorite Dubliners in a stadium setting, they were trying to extricate themselves from the most expensive car crash in rock and roll history.

The time was around 1997. U2’s Popmart tour had almost financially broke the band, and they were touring behind one of the worst received albums of their storied career (“Pop,” as it turns out, was ahead of its time, but that’s another story).

What a difference a dozen years makes. They’ve released four masterpieces since 1997 and rebuilt a strong buzz for their shows by reducing them to stripped-down affairs that fit nicely into smaller hockey arenas and showcased their formidable chops as a live band.

The time was right artistically to air out a decade full of new classics in the open air of a stadium, but was it really a good idea to put on a big and glitzy show in the worst economy in history?

As it turns out, the U2 decision to go big was a brilliant one. They threw a big party to take our minds off of the gloom and doom of our finances.

When you first enter the stadium and gaze in awe at the now famous 10 story 360 Claw stage, as I did last Thursday night at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, you feel like you are about to board a space ship.

The transportation to another world began as soon as the opening act hit the stage. Muse, a Brit-pop band that has been gaining popularity on both sides of the Atlantic, wowed the crowd with a sound from their new album “The Resistance” that combined playful dance beats with distorted, angry guitar riffs and sharp synth accents.

With the strains of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” through the speakers, U2 then declared liftoff with “Breathe” and “Get on Your Boots” from the new album. “Mysterious Ways” slithered out of the speakers next and inspired a deafening sing-along that reached fever pitch as the band leaned into “Beautiful Day.”

“We love Jersey,” gushed Bono in between songs. “We love The Boss, Bon Jovi, Wyclef Jean, and Sopranos.”

He also took time to call out New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the audience, a man he described as “a friend that makes me laugh and joins me in the fight against global poverty in malaria.”

Ever the activist, Bono dedicated “Sunday Bloody Sunday” to the everyday citizens of Iran who have been standing up to their government in an attempt to have their voices heard in the election. That song was an unofficial anthem of the Troubles in Northern Ireland decades ago, and the anger in which Bono delivered the song made the moment a powerful one.

Less effective was the dedication of “Walk On” to Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has long been under house arrest in Myanmar. Dozens of young volunteers paraded onstage with her photograph, but everyone onstage was so busy giggling and texting their friends that the sentiment was lost.

For anyone unsure of the quality of the songs from U2 latest release “No Line on the Horizon,” they need to be heard in the open air to appreciate their majestic quality.

The thunderous chorus of the newest singles “Magnificent” and “Get on Your Boots” makes total sense when placed near “Ulraviolet.”

The band’s set was full of the eclectic snippets that have become a live trademark. They usher in each song with bits of melodies from artists they admire as they smooth out any rough transitions in the set.

On Thursday night, they injected the Rolling Stones’ “Miss You” into a fun dance mix of the new song “I’ll Go Crazy.” “Blackbird” flew into “Beautiful Day,” and an a capella read of “Stand By Me” became another magic moment that found the crowd in communion with the band. It was fitting that the claw stage had a cathedral-like spire at the top for a moment like this.

The blogging on this tour has made for an interesting read. Many long time fans have felt betrayed by the band’s decision to play mostly new songs.

“Not a single song played from ‘Boy’ or ‘October,’ and only one from ‘War,’ and that's just plain dumb,” griped my friend and Q104.3 New York disc jockey Ian O’Malley in a Facebook post.

“No ‘I Will Follow,’ ‘New Year’s Day,’ ‘Gloria.’ Like I expected, the new stuff tanked. The only thing that saved the previous three tunes was the lights and visuals, or in many cases from what I saw from people making a mad dash to the Miller beer guy hawking suds.”

There are only a handful of bands like the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney big enough to play a venue this large in the first place. Their set lists are light on new songs in favor of tunes that bring you back to the glory days of decades past.

U2’s set was remarkable in that the biggest highlights of the evening came from songs created in this decade, proving their continued relevance. “Vertigo,” “Elevation,” and “City of Blinding Lights,” when played in succession, proved to be powerful masterpieces that prove the band’s relevance for any naysayers.

Sure, there’s always that one moldy oldie that would have delighted you, but you have to applaud a band that has “walked on” into this millennium and left their classic rock contemporaries behind.

The band was in a celebratory mood this week. They conveyed warm 60th birthday wishes to old friend Bruce Springsteen by dropping “She’s the One” into the musical bed of “Desire,” and they acknowledged the crowd of 84,472 for setting an attendance record at Giants Stadium.

Speaking from the stage at the end of the night, Bono said, "News just in. We've broken every record for attendance in this stadium -- including the Pope. Sorry Bruce -- we know it’s your birthday and all.”

Before adding later, "I know they're knocking this place down...we probably won't be here again before the wrecking ball but it was a magic place for us as well as the Giants."

It was a beautiful day for U2 fans, one that makes a stadium safe for both the band and its fans once again.

Here was the set list from the second night at Giants Stadium: Breathe/Get on Your Boots/Mysterious Ways/Beautiful Day/No Line on the Horizon/ Magnificent/Elevation/I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For/Unknown Caller/Until the End of the World/Stay/Unforgettable Fire/City of Blinding Lights/Vertigo/I'll Go Crazy – Remix/Sunday Bloody Sunday/MLK/Walk On/One/Where the Streets Have No Name/Ultraviolet/With or Without You/Moment of Surrender.

The Mighty Stef: A mighty good musician for U.S.

Published Wednesday, October 7, 2009, 11:49 AM

“I would call it streetwise folk music with punk rock, fantasy, and storytelling mixed in,” says the Mighty Stef (a/k/a Stefan Murphy), the charismatic singer and songwriter from Dublin, when asked by this writer to describe his indescribable sound.

Bare-knuckled blues is hollered hoarsely over a sensual mixture of fifties doo-wop, madcap French burlesque and straightforward rock on his latest, 100 Midnights. He is Lizard King, Delta bluesman and goose-stepping polka leader wrapped in a throbbing package.

It’s no surprise that he is celebrated in his native land for the storytelling nature of his songs and his passionate live shows. The influences and references in his music are dizzying, touching on everything from the Rolling Stones to the Pogues, Nick Cave to the Clash and Johnny Thunders to Johnny Cash.

100 Midnights is a star studded affair that includes the Pogues’ Cait O’Riordan and Shane MacGowan, the latter lending his graveyard wheeze to further haunt Townes Van Zandt’s spooky “Waitin’ Around to Die.”

The Mighty Stef drove raves this past March in an appearance at Austin’s famed SxSW festival, and in opening act gigs with trad punk band Flogging Molly.

He is coming to the U.S. for a small acoustic tour that includes a stop in Manhattan’s Piano Bar on October 15, and we were able to catch him right before he got on the plane. Here’s how our conversation went.

This music is so original I can’t imagine how you are going to pull it off with just you and a guitar.

I’m just going to try to create as much atmosphere and drama that I can using vocals and a guitar. You can still coax a bit of burlesque from an acoustic instrument.

I actually like how I am touring lately. I play with a five-piece band and then I do these solo acoustic shows. It definitely makes it a challenge.

How did you stumble on cabaret and burlesque influences that crept into your music? Was it something you got in Ireland?
I had always listened to Tom Waits and Nick Cave, and they have had the burlesque thing in the music. I actually applied it to my own music when I recorded my first album in Montreal. That European cabaret vibe is very much alive in there, and of course that city is known for its strip clubs and burlesque.

I think those influences just bled into what I was doing at the time, and it continued into my second album. I like the sing-along qualities that burlesque melodies give to the music, and as a songwriter and live performer you’re always trying to get people to sing along with you.

There is something very literate about your music. Are you an avid reader and, if so, are there authors that have influenced you?
I’m not a big reader, to be honest with you. I have always made up my own stories to keep myself amused and entertained. I don’t think these stories have literature references as much as pure fantasy in them.

I would imagine a unique voice such as yours would do well in this resurgence of singer songwriters that Dublin is producing at the moment.

Very much so. I am a huge fan of a lot of these artists. I absolutely love Damien Dempsey. Guys like him and Glen Hansard (the Frames) and Damien Rice have been really good about taking up and coming singer songwriters on the road with them when they come to America, so the scene is very supportive, I think. It’s also nice to have audiences in Dublin open to hear the lyrics, so that is really good as well.

The Mighty Stef will be playing at the Piano Room on October 15. The show begins around 11 p.m. He will also play JD McGillacuddys in Philadelphia.

For a full listing, check out myspace.com/themightystefband.

More U2 on the Horizon

Pic

Bono at the U2 show in Croke Park over the summer.

ROLLING Stone magazine features Bono and The Edge on the cover of its latest issue, which takes readers inside what’s shaping up to be the biggest tour in rock history. During the interviews, the lads discuss their future plans, which should be music to the ears of their minions.

“We're sort of spoiled for choice right now, because there's a bunch of amazing pieces that we didn't finish from the work we did in Fez (one of the recording sites during the making of No Line on the Horizon), and there's the songs we started with Rick Rubin, some of which are amazing songs that I'd love to get back to at some point (the producer began work on their album until it was decided that old standbys Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno should birth their latest record),” says The Edge in the article.

“Bono and I also have this Spider-Man (musical) project, which we're very happy about. So there are a lot of things on the stove, and they're all very exciting.

“The one thing is we'd love to follow this album up sooner rather than later -- I don't think we'll have over three years or whatever it was between the last two records. There will be a Spider-Man album, but whether it's us or the cast, that's the sort of thing we're not sure about. There are some amazing tunes.”

Wouldn’t we all want to be a fly on the wall for those conversations between the four musicians? If one reads between the tea leaves, it would seem that there is some debate as to whether Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton want to sign on board to have anything to do with Spider-Man, a project started by Bono and The Edge.

“If we're going to do another rock record, I want to do Spider-Man,” says Bono. “I just haven't talked Adam and Larry into that.”

The band appears to be set to revisit some of the songs on their expansive cutting room floor, which in the past they have released as B-sides and as parts of commemorative editions of their older albums. Being the intuitive and shrewd business people that they are, they seem keen to keep the momentum going on this tour.

“I definitely think we should do something good as soon as we possibly can, as opposed to quickly,” says Mullen. “I'm feeling that it's the unfinished songs from this record that we should be concentrating on.

“I think there's a part two of this record. That would be my instinct, would be to complete this. I think there is slower, meditative stuff on there, but I think there are other things as well, and I don't think it will end up being that kind of record. I think it will end up being a mixture of a few different things.”

After airing dozens of hits that have also become classic rock staples, U2 seem keen on not becoming a nostalgic act.

“I would like to think that we would have a song that would end up on the radio,” says Bono in the Rolling Stone piece. “We certainly don't want to go away for a few years.

“I would like to have one of our songs on the pop charts. It's my only disappointment (with No Line on the Horizon). People love, love the album it's had rave reviews, not just in the U.S., but all over the world. But I would like a few pop songs on it. I would like to come back with a new single in the spring.”

With all of these great opportunities and a record setting tour, is it any wonder that they named their album, “No Line on the Horizon?”

Move over Springsteen: Willie Nile is the real Boss!

Published Wednesday, October 14, 2009, 3:51 PM

The state of New Jersey is still buzzing over the shows Bruce Springsteen put on to close Giants Stadium properly last week.

You might be forgiven if you missed the little man with the big, unruly pompadour jamming near the Big Man. It was Willie Nile!

The artist formerly known as Robert Noonan from Buffalo, New York has been making fantastic classic rock that deserves an airing in a stadium setting, and it warmed the heart to see him get his day on the big stage.

Based on a string of amazing albums that includes his latest “House of a Thousand Guitars” release, it is a crime that The Boss hasn’t opened for Nile. Those are fighting words in my state, I know, but Nile is really that good.

As befits the title, “House of a Thousand Guitars” is chock full of snarling hooks that touch on influences by Bob Dylan, the Stones, early John Mellencamp and Tom Petty. He’s the Traveling Wilburys all wrapped up in one, with a working man’s voice that make his songs so appealing.

“There’s not a dry eye when Old Hank sings/of the pain and the hurt that love sometimes brings/they say there are no broken strings in the house of 1,000 guitars,” he sings on the title track, which includes references to Lennon, Muddy Waters and Hank Williams occupying the same home. Once again, his innate Irish storytelling abilities serve him well.

It might be a bit cold these days to drive around town with the top down, but these classic rockers almost demand an open airing.

“I’ve got the universe pumpin’ through my brain/I’ve got the sound of the stratosphere beatin’ in my brain/I’ve got the colors of the rainbow on a palette of blue/I’ve got the call of the wild waitin’ for you,” he sings on “Run,” an irresistible ditty consisting of a chugging beat and jangly alternative rock power chords.

Nile writes music for every mood, whether you want to go for a late night drive at high speeds or if you want to park at Lover’s Lane with that special someone.

“Her Love Falls Like Rain” evokes the most romantic chapters of Dylan’s songbook, with an infectious Beatles harmony thrown into the chorus for good measure.

“Love is a train with wheels on fire/passengers filled with steam and desire/love is a mystery without any clues/you can stand in the station with a suitcase full of blues,” he sings on the gorgeous “Love Is a Train.” This is a song dying to mate with a chick flick soundtrack!

Nile’s first self-released album, “Beautiful Wreck of the World” was released in 1999 and was chosen as one of the Top Ten albums of the year by critics at Billboard magazine, the Village Voice and Stereo Review. Lucinda Williams called "On the Road to Calvary," Willie's song for Jeff Buckley, "one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard."

If there is a God in Heaven, Willie Nile should have been a big rock star after putting something out as brilliant as that. But alas, the music business is cruel at times.

“House of a Thousand Guitars” is another powerful collection of songs that delivers on the promise of fame that has proven so elusive all those years ago. Log onto willienile.com, see him at Manhattan’s Hard Rock Cafe on October 22, buy his album, spread the word, and let’s make sure that when they turn the lights on the new Giants Stadium next year, Willie Nile is the headliner!

Johnny Cash's daughter Rosanne delivers her most beautiful album yet

Published Friday, October 23, 2009, 12:33 PM

Parents are always giving their kids lists of things to do, but when your father is Johnny Cash, the original Man in Black, the list leads you on an unforgettable musical journey.

On “The List,” Rosanne Cash tackles the songs on a sheet of paper that her father wrote out for her on the back of his tour bus in 1973 as a “template for excellence” that would form her musical vocabulary past her obsession with the Beatles. Her father would be proud, as is might be the most beautiful music in her career full of beautiful music.

“He realized that I lacked something essential about my own musical genealogy, and he made this list for me,” she explained in the pages of last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. “He would play the songs for me on his guitar, and I sought out the records in the years afterward.”

The Man in Black was also plugged into his Irishness, so taken in by the Emerald Isle that he went green and penned a whole album in celebration of Ireland that included the immortal “Forty Shades of Green” in the early sixties. His daughter continues that love of music by playing with Irish artists like Larry Kirwan and Black 47 from time to time, and with Celtic flourishes in her music.

Though the melodies sing from some of the venerable songwriters in Opryland, “The List” hardly sounds like a museum piece. Husband, producer and composer John Leventhal creates a taut musical bed that touches on elements of acoustic blues, folk and Celtic flourishes. A twangy guitar skates across these arrangements here as an acoustic slide guitar riff plays cleanup over there.

Cash begins with ''Miss the Mississippi and You,'' which the father of country music, Jimmie Rodgers, recorded in 1932. She ends with the Carter Family's ''Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow,'' a song which she tells The New York Times always reminds her of her step-aunt Helen Carter, who taught her the guitar.

There’s a playful pairing of Cash and Costello on the chestnut “Heartache by the Number,” and her duet with Bruce Springsteen, “Sea of Heartbreak,” is a stunning interplay of voices wringing every drop of lonesome from the words.

“How did I lose you/oh, where did I fail?/Why did you leave me/always to sail?” he sings on the Don Gibson classic. I always prefer The Boss when he is not shouting over a giant band, and this track finds him at his best.

Cash does kick it into country for Patsy Cline’s hit ''She's Got You'' and Bob Dylan’s ''Girl From the North Country,'' a composition that she says first intimidated her because she remembered her father singing it with Dylan on television.

“Patsy's version of ‘She's Got You’ was the only one that really gave me pause,” Cash says during an exclusive chat with IrishCentral’s sister publication the Irish Voice. “I had to do some psychological work to get her iconic vocal out of my head before I could sing my own version!”

We talked about records, 10-gallon hats and Taylor Swift. Here’s how it went:

Farragher: When we last spoke, you had just released “Black Cadillac.” The songs were your commentary on the deaths in your family. Do you see The List, a collection of songs from your father, as an extension of your last album and the grieving/completion process you undertook?

Cash: I don't think of “The List” as an extension of “Black Cadillac,” at least in a direct way, at all. I read a music writer said that I was “still grieving” by doing “The List,” which was very surprising to me. In fact, I see “The List” as a near artistic opposite to “Black Cadillac.” If “Black Cadillac” was about what was lost, “The List” is about what was found, what was saved, what was passed on.

Farragher: Are there any country artists out there today who you think would have made your dad's famous list? Any artists that YOU think should have been on that list that he omitted?

Cash: My dad put songs on the list, not artists. Most of the songs on the list were recorded by many different people. "Take These Chains" had equally definitive versions by both Hank Williams and Ray Charles, but it wasn't a particular version that made the list, it was the song itself.

So, I would look at songwriters from 1973 to the present to see who he might have added to the list, and as far as country songwriters, I would think that there would probably be a Townes Van Zandt song, a Guy Clark song, a Rodney Crowell song among others.

I have to also think that in the great continuum of American roots music, my dad would have included a Springsteen song or two. I certainly would have included all those songwriters, among others.

Farragher: Did you learn anything about recording or interpreting from your guest singers and if so, what? I must say the duet with Bruce is amazing. Your vocals fit so well together.

Cash: I've been a studio rat for over 30 years, so I didn't learn anything new about recording as such, but I did gain new and deeper respect for every one of these guest artists. As far as Bruce -- his vocal is so well-considered, so technically and emotionally perfect, so fine-tuned to sing with me, not just next to me, that if I ever doubted his greatness, all I have to do is listen to this and step back in awe once again.

Farragher: Production-wise, the arrangements certainly tip the hat to country music without putting the 10-gallon hat on entirely. It has a more singer-songwriter vibe. Was that a conscious effort on your part, or am I off base?

Cash: You are not off base at all. I could not put on a 10-gallon hat or a cowgirl skirt because that's not who I am. I wasn't doing a theater piece or trying on a character, I wanted to embody these songs with myself -- and I am a singer-songwriter. I also live in New York City, and grew up in Southern California. I also love jazz and classical and Celtic music and blues.

I couldn't just make a singular, straight country record. It wouldn't have been authentic. John was very cognizant of bringing all my resources and sensibilities into the arrangements.

Farragher: What do you think of the Carrie Underwood/Taylor Swift pretty blonde country movement at the moment? I personally am mixed. It seems a tad shallow but it is keeping the genre alive. Thoughts?

Cash: I think they're both adorable. However, I don't know a single thing about the music -- I couldn't name one song. I have seen each of them on television, once each, and I thought they both had great confidence and presence.

But all of popular culture is rife with pretty young things -- why should country music be any different if it's going to stay viable in the marketplace? I realize that is somewhat cynical and I wish no disrespect to the young women involved. I’m just making an observation.

Cruel Seamus - They’re cruel, but very kind!

Published Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 5:01 PM

You know the saying -- the only difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish funeral is one less drunk.

Both occasions are known for their riotous partying, as many Irish believe that a proper sendoff for a good person that has achieved their eternal reward is a good party. On the new CD by Cruel Seamus, 'The Irish Wake of Cruel Seamus', a musical party ensues to give the cruel bugger a right sendoff!

There’s no wearing of the black here. The music is a colorful mélange of styles, with traditional Irish melodies playing alongside a tropical shoreline of reggae and ska beats.

“With this voice I will sing/with this life you’ve given me I will live/ the beauty of your creation,” sings drummer John Shea on “The Beauty of Your Creation,” an exuberant track that blends playful fiddling with a blistering “rude boy” ska beat.

“I don’t know that I do see a correlation between Irish music and reggae, other than the fact that it’s all about the groove,” says Cruel Seamus bassist Tom Dunphy.

Long time readers of “Off the Record” will recognize the name. Dunphy wrote this column in the two years before I took it over in 1999 (or somewhere thereabouts—we were both fuzzy on our timelines!)

“If something grooves and it’s authentic, it moves me. My parents are Irish-born and that music is close to me. I listened to WFUV on Sunday afternoons went to dances in Gaelic Park,” says Dunphy.

“But when you’re a New Yorker, you can’t help but get wrapped up in different music. You’re like tumbleweed picking up things along the way.”

The tumbleweed approach serves the music well, and the band strikes a nice balance of welding influences on both sides of the Atlantic to create something refreshing, like tipping a pint of Guinness while bathed in a Jamaican sunset.

“Our sound is definitely rooted in the Irish rock sound synonymous with the wave of immigration that created our scene in the nineties,” says Dunphy.

“Our twist on this is that we are really big fans of reggae, ska and country. I am a real dub head and I am a fan of King Tubby, Lee “Scratch” Perry. That’s my bag. The other band members have other influences and it just comes together nicely to make this unique take on our heritage.”

That Irish heritage shines through on the modern rock reel of “Neil Gow’s Lament/Made Behind the Bar/Captain Alex Fraser,” a suite of traditional songs that starts off with a sweet air and builds into a solid wall of modern rock muscle.

Amy Beshara is a tremendous fiddler, raising the dead ghosts in the “Morrison’s/Swallowtail/Apples in Winter” series of jigs. The band, which also includes Kevin Doyle on guitars, creates a glorious ruckus behind Beshara throughout the disc. Dunphy credits Beshara’s fiddle with allowing the band to strike the right balance of old and new in their set lists.

“We give the people what they want, which are the songs they know, and we just drop our original songs into the mix,” he explains.

“Amy joining the band gives us some great energy and when the energy level is up in the room, people are more open to trying on the new song. It peaks their interest when they hear a fiddle at the gig; it’s a warm, friendly vibe that draws people in. From there, you can play a lot of different things when the audience is hooked on that vibe.”

“Kevin Doyle and I had played together for years in a New Jersey based band, ERNIE,” explains drummer and founding Cruel Seamus member John Shea.

“Different elements led to the sad demise of that band. I was kicking around on drums for some other bands, playing other people's tunes, but really wanting to get back the originality and creativity of ERNIE.

“I met up with Tom Dunphy in Rocky Sullivan’s one night, and he was expressing a similar desire. Kevin, Tom and I played for a while as a trio, hooking up with various instrumentalists on occasion. Tom found Amy Beshara on Craigslist and things clicked. She is the greatest thing we've found on Craigslist, other than this futon we found for cheap.”

As if mixing reggae and trad weren’t a tall enough order, Cruel Seamus shifts gears and drops a modern rock rap called “Irish Pride.”

“Got knowledge of my of roots ‘cos I know my roots/firmly planted in the earth ever since my birth,” raps Shea. Irish freestyle normally yields disastrous results, like when an over-served wedding guest takes the mike from the house band, but the raps here are clean and focused with no words wasted.

“I had the lyrics and the beat in mind and asked Kevin to write a riff that sounded like Rage Against the Machine spawned a child with the Wolfe Tones,” says Shea as he explains the origins of the song.

“For the CD, we were lucky enough to have Gavin Rafferty come in the studio with us and put down a verse. We are careful where we play ‘Irish Pride’ live. We've gotten some confused looks in the past playing a hip hop song after ‘The Fields of Athenry.’”

For Dunphy, playing bass in Cruel Seamus allows him a reconnection with his roots that was lost once he stopped writing for the Irish Voice.

“When I was doing ‘Off the Record,’ I was a new father and recently married, and it was hard for me to really get into the scene,” he explains.

“The writing I did was a life line to people like Pierce Turner and Seanchai and the Unity Squad. They are all friends of mine that I really admired.

“At the time I met John about three years ago at Rocky Sullivan’s, we realized we were in the same band in different times. We pooled all of the people we mutually knew in the circles we travelled in and it was pretty easy to put the band together from there. I’m thrilled to be back in the scene again!”

There is much talk about how tough the economy has been on the live Irish music scene, but the lads in Cruel Seamus are upbeat, considering their downbeat band name.

“The Irish music scene a few years back was crazy in New York,” says Shea. “Back then, bands like Black 47, Speir Mor, and Gael Force were packing places. But things are definitely different now.

“The diaspora has had a diaspora, with not as many Irish in New York as there once were and an overall change in musical tastes. So it's not like what it was, but there are still some great bands playing around New York like Jameson's Revenge and Seanchai and the like. It just takes a little more work to find them.

“A lot of pubs are doing the deejay thing these days, but we have our regulars like Hurley's, Legends, Rocky Sullivan's and some pubs out in New Jersey that have been good to us.”

Whatever your tastes, there is something in the Cruel Seamus live set for you. If a traditional air puts a lump in your throat or dance music puts the lump in a more southern direction, this is your band.

“The sound of the band is very eclectic,” says Dunphy. “We all have very different influences in our musical tastes and that's reflected in the choice of covers in our live shows and in the writing of our originals.

“So where we may play some very trad sounding instrumentals and more traditional Irish covers, we also like to play Peter Tosh and the Clash. Where our originals have a lot of Irish influence, we also like to draw on hip hop, reggae, and country to inspire us. We're basically confused.”

For a good time, call Cruel Seamus. To pick up their CD, log onto CruelSeamus.com or catch their show on November 14 at Griffin’s in Creskill, New Jersey or in Manhattan at Legends NYC on November 21.

Rock and Roll Hall concerts bring together the greats

Published Wednesday, November 4, 2009, 3:11 PM

The highlights in the pair of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th anniversary concerts that took place at Madison Square Garden last week were too numerous to mention, and since this is an Irish newspaper let’s focus on the Irish highlights, shall we?

U2 rocked MSG on Friday, the second night, and their set opened with a frantic read of “Vertigo” that was dripping with punk energy. “Mysterious Ways” is now caked with a swampy mud in a live setting without losing a bit of funk, and “Magnificent” from “No Line on the Horizon” is emerging as a highlight in a set full of highlights!

Bono introduces “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” with a long speech: “Here in rock and roll’s great cathedral, Madison Square Garden, think about all the pilgrims and pioneers that got us all here, the saints and the heretics, the poets and the punks that now make up the Hall of Fame.

“It’s a dangerous thing, this business of building idols, but at least rock and roll is not at its best about worshiping sacred cows. It’s about thousands of voices gathered at once in a great unwashed congregation, like tonight. For a lot of us here, rock and roll means just one word: liberation. Political, sexual, spiritual liberation.”

Bruce Springsteen soon strode onstage with E Streeter Roy Bittan, and after Bono’s long winded rant Springsteen cut his friend off like a designated driver escorting a drunk home. Alas, The Boss had had enough. "Let's have some fun with that," Springsteen said.

They performed “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” earnestly, with Bono and Springsteen trading lines. You don’t get better than that, you might say to yourself, until Patti Smith hopped on board and the band launched into a spine chilling version of “Because the Night,” a Springsteen-penned song made famous by the high priestess of punk. This was the first time the pair played it together, and Bono’s harmonies blended perfectly into their mix. The band played ferociously in the background as these legends belted out the anthemic chorus.

The Edge began a fluid guitar riff of “Gimme Shelter,” confirming the worst kept secret of the night. Mick Jagger, looking decades younger than his 66 years in tight pants and a navy jacket, was in the house!

He gyrated across the stage, cramming every sexy move he ever ripped off of James Brown into about two minutes of show time. You could tell this was a man who desperately missed not being onstage in about two years!

Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas, looking delectable in a short black skirt and thigh-high boots, broke into the female solo of the song made famous by soul singer Merry Clayton. “Rape, murder, it’s just a shot away,” she screamed, sending chills across the arena.

Bono stared at Jagger and Fergie, strumming his oversized green guitar absent-mindedly, seemingly unable to take in the sight before him. After a deafening applause and a bewildered “oh, my God” from Bono, the band broke into "Stuck In a Moment You Can't Get Out Of."

Jagger and his model daughter Elizabeth originally sang backup on this track when the band was recording it, but somehow their performance was left on the cutting room floor. Jagger is an amazing soul singer and I always wondered what he would do with this Motown-influenced track; he didn’t disappoint.

He was shaky for the first verse but by the time he sang “it’s a long way down from nothing at all,” he nailed the tune to the point that poor Bono just tagged along for the ride. It was funny to see these legendary lead singers step off to the side and play backup to The Edge, who sang the falsetto part of the song.

The set list ended with “Beautiful Day,” as if we didn’t know that it was already!

Things are still 'Swell' for Marketa Irglova and Glen Hansard

Published Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 12:11 PM

When I first heard that there was going to be another Swell Season album, I instantly thought of the word once, and not because that was the movie that brought Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, the members of Swell Season, to fame and fortune.

Their union was the centerpiece of the indie smash Once, and the soundtrack that they performed on won an Oscar and sold 700,000 copies, so why wouldn’t they duplicate the success with another go-round?

Here’s the thing - I was really jonesing for a new Frames album instead of Strict Joy, the new Swell Season release. The Frames were Hansard’s old band, and when he sang like his life depended on it while that band threw sonic fury behind him it was a thrill.

Hansard told The New York Times recently that the Frames, which developed a cult following and have been his musical home for two decades, were at a crossroads with the explosion of Once. He chose to take the middle way, asking his longtime band mates to join the Swell Season and tour.

Frames fiddler Colm Mac Con Iomaire told the Times that the Frames were ready to play for broader audiences and escape the confines of their cult status.

“At this point it’s sort of family, and we are a pair of comfortable slippers for Glen to put on,” he said.

“You have to remember that Glen is an overnight success who was 20 years in the making, and I think he took a real delight in sharing it with people he knows and trusts.”

The band is ready to move on from the Frames, and after hearing Strict Joy, I guess I am on board as well.

The Frames displayed a tender side on the song “Lay Me Down,” and that alternative folk vibe is fleshed out within the Swell Season. On their new single, “Low Rising,” the easy folk and bending slide guitar echoes call to mind the Celtic soul of Van Morrision (to hear their impassioned cover of Van’s “Into the Mystic,” log onto swellseason.com).

Flutes and fiddles tango in the background as Hansard loses himself in the music. “I want to sit you down and talk/I want to pull back the veils and find out what it is I’ve done wrong/I want to tear these curtains down/I want you to meet me somewhere tonight in this old tourist town/we’ve got to come up because there’s no further for us to fall/because I feel we’ve had enough,” he sings on the opening track.

And so the analysis begins.

Not since James Taylor and Carly Simon divorced in the seventies has a folk couple’s love life been so scrutinized in the press. Hansard, 39, and Irglova, 21, met in 2001 when the Frames from Ireland were touring Irglova's native Czech Republic. Her father, a concert promoter, invited the band to a party, where 13-year-old Irglova played a Mendelssohn piece on the piano, Hansard said.

Impressed, he invited her to play with him at several other gigs. What began as a friendship and a partnership resulted in a pair of starring roles in Once and a romantic relationship between Hansard and Irglova.

That journey fuels the emotion of Strict Joy. “The romantic thing was great. It was a lovely adventure, but you know, if you're mature enough to sort of look someone in the eye and go, 'You know what, this isn't working' -- which she is and I know I'm getting there -- it actually frees you and allows you to go be mates," Hansard told CNN when asked about their working relationship now.

“That can be a little bit challenging sometimes when we're playing them, but we're so close as mates I think it's okay to report on your emotional sort of self without it being personal. The songs are just designed to be about where you're at personally."

It would take great “mates” to survive the naked honesty on tracks like “In These Arms,” where Hansard pleads for his lady to stay. “You use the truth as a weapon to beat up all your friends/ every chink in the armor/an excuse to cause offense/and the boys in the hallway calling out your name/you are restless and I was somewhat less insecure/so I went running to the road,” Hansard whispers over a gently strummed guitar before Marketa chimes in with the line, “Maybe I was born to hold you in these arms.”

“I just want to be clear, as much as it may be called a breakup album, which I’m totally fine with, we made it according to what we believe it should be made as,” Irglova told The New York Times.

“If I was torn up about the way things had happened and the way things have gone on and turned out to be, it probably would feel very hard to deal with. But our core connection has always been friendship and the music. Like Glen always puts it, you live your life, and the residue of that life you lead becomes the music; the same way it turned from friends to lovers, it somehow managed to turn the other way around at the end of it, which I’m delighted about because I’d hate for it to be drama.”

“It works out really much better because we've got a deeper understanding of who each other are," Hansard told CNN. “’In These Arms’ came together in a day. It started with the central chorus line that I had in my head that was almost like a Johnny Cash refrain. Then I played it for Mar and she was like, 'Oh that's beautiful, let's follow that,' and we sat at the piano and we just knocked out some chords, and I wrote the lyrics on that day, and we recorded it that evening.”

Though Hansard says his “default mood for songs is semi-sorrowful,” he is pleased with his new found success and is trying to get himself to write more about that.

“There's a reason I put 'Low Rising' first (on the album) because it's the one song I felt I got closest to that mood in -- which is like, 'It's all good.' There's nobody on this planet that I enjoy making music with more," he said. "The one thing that's never going to fade, if you like, is this connection musically."

Whatever might (or might not) have gone on between the sheets between this couple, the music of Swell Season is beyond swell. They are amassing a series of tour dates for a late fall swing through the U.S. Log onto their website for samples of the songs and for the latest updates.

Fall in love with Snow Patrol all over again with greatest hits album

Published Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 2:47 PM

Snow Patrol has beaten most bands to the punch by coming out with a greatest hits collection for the holidays. After all, there are only about six weeks between now and Christmas!

Most retrospectives are shameless cash grabs by the artist and/or the record company. Those that have a conscience may try to redeem their souls with a few new songs or rarities to add value for the fans.

At first glance, the track listing of Snow Patrol’s “Up to Now” fits the mold, but when you listen to this string of hits in succession it becomes a testament to the consistent greatness that flew under the radar for far too long. Simply put, stacking these tunes next to one another makes you fall in love with this band all over again.

I have been a Snow Patrol fan since 1998’s “Songs for Polar Bears” album. Back then, it was an exercise in indie cool (and a small measure of pretentiousness) to name drop Snow Patrol as one of your favorite bands.

Then along came “Chasing Cars,” and the “Eyes Open” disc in 2005, and the rest of the world copped on to what all the fuss was about.

No one cheered louder than Snow Patrol fans when these Northern Ireland underdogs made it big -- that is, until the teenyboppers and Top 40 radio programmers took hold of the song and made it into a musical pandemic that made H1N1 feel like a mild cold.

Last year’s “Hundred Million Suns” saw the band riding the wave and taking little chances. Imagine the surprise, then, when you first hear Snow Patrol tear into Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love.”

Risky as hell and a stroke of genius on many levels, the brassy soul horns and hyperactive dance vibe in the original now replaced with a slower timing and wicked guitar hook that brings out a desperate ache from Gary Lightbody’s raspy deadpan delivery. With such success, could a cover of “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” be that far behind?

Four years later, I can only now begin to stomach hearing “Chasing Cars” on the radio again. It is a classic song and so is “Just Say Yes,” one of the other new tunes on “Up to Now.”

It is an immaculate, cheery piece of pop that finds the band in touch with its inner Erasure. “Just say yes/just say there’s nothing holding you back,” Lightbody pleads over a slinky electronic beat. Clearly a musical departure from anything they’ve ever done before, “Just Say Yes” makes you want more from a band you thought you were sick of.

“Starfighter” is a dirty glam masterpiece from their first album, and it oozes out of your speakers without a trace of mold.

The distorted power chords of “Hands Open” near the soulful riffing on “Shut Your Eyes” reveals a new diversity that you probably never gave the band credit for, while the skittish paranoia in the alt rock masterpiece “Spitting Games” is a blast from the past that is a reminder of what made this Snow Patrol so cool in the first place.

It almost makes you forgive them for creating chick flick soundtrack fodder like “Crack the Shutters,” which blemishes this collection somewhat.

“Keep your hands away/from what you can’t afford/don’t think that we’ll stay/now that you look bored,” deadpans Lightbody on “Batten Down the Hatch,” a spacey gem of a ballad from the obscure “When It’s All Over We Still Have to Clear Up” from the band’s middle period.

“Up to Now” is an inspiring and breathtaking look back for Snow Patrol, who signed in 1995 to the Jeepster label, home of their Glaswegian indie heroes at the time, Belle and Sebastian.

"We spent 10 years making records that 6,000 people bought," Lightbody has been quoted as saying. "Success to us isn't a chart thing, it's when you turn up to play a gig and find the place is full."

“Up to Now” will certainly bring in more fans under the Snow Patrol tent!

Ronan Tynan, the Jewish joke and the Yankees: 'I feel raped by the press'

Published Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 11:50 AM

“I feel raped by the press. I really do.” So said Irish tenor Ronan Tynan in an interview with the Irish Voice this week. “I know the disrespect of pain and discrimination from being disabled in my life, and to think that this woman made this judgment, accepts my apology and went right to the news with this crazy story that I am against Jews when half my band are Jewish just blows my mind.”

You know the Irish.

The quick wit makes us the life of the party. Is there any race of people on the planet that can create a one-liner that gets the room laughing faster than we can?

Of course, we can sometimes miss the mark in our humor and if we offend, we clean it up and move on. Most people that know us know we don’t mean anything by it.

When you are in the public eye, you can sometimes pay a heavy price for that Irish trait, as is the case for Tynan. Anyone living in New York has heard by now of the chance meeting he had with a real estate agent outside his Manhattan apartment. “Two Jewish ladies were coming to view it and the agent said, ‘They are very particular’ and I said, ‘I don’t know how they will deal with having a singer beside them, practicing all the time. That could be scary.’ We laughed about it,” Tynan explained to The Irish Times.

On the following morning, another estate agent showed up with a potential tenant. “At least they’re not (Boston) Red Sox fans,” the agent joked.

“At least they’re not the Jewish ladies,” Tynan said. He was referring to the finicky clients he had met earlier.

From there, all hell broke loose. With his stadium-sized voice, Tynan was the perfect person to sing the National Anthem for the Yankees; they even gave him a championship ring when they won when times were good.

But when the realtor’s client mistook his comment and complained to owner George Steinbrenner’s people, the ball club distanced themselves from him and the New York press had a field day with it.

“I am kind of numb with it now, even though it is nearly a month on,” he says during an interview that found the singer at times bitter, defiant, resigned, and wistful.

“I got brandished as an anti-Semite. The New York Times or the New York Post didn’t have the courtesy to call to get my side of it. Had they called, they would have found out that I addressed the misunderstanding on the spot and even donated to the woman’s favorite charity as a gesture of my sincerity.”

He is quick to point out that the Irish American community has been extremely supportive during this trying time. Of course we have -- the speed of quick Irish wit doesn’t always allow for the brain and tongue to talk to one another, so we know what it is like to back pedal when a comment misses the mark.

But how heavy a price does one have to pay for one stray joke? The Yankees and many fans have short memories. They forget that Tynan was the one who rolled up his sleeves and went to work at the 9/11 disaster site, offering comfort to the workers on the scene and then singing at 54 funerals in the days following that terrorist attack.

The Kilkenny tenor has become an unofficial ambassador to Ireland over the years, showing our can-do attitude by not letting the amputation of both legs stop him from studying medicine and singing at memorial services for firefighters and police killed on 9/11, at President Reagan’s funeral, George W. Bush’s White House and the wedding of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

How soon we forget here in New York. In an instant, all of that goodwill was washed away for, well, being Irish.
In a few seconds, his reputation was forever damaged and the effect of the fallout has been profound on both his career and personal life.

“My sister Fiona worries so much about me and has been in remission for three years with her MS,” Tynan explains.

“She is sicker now and I really think I caused that by the stress this has put us all under. She is the light of my life and it’s really hard to be with that.

“Fiona relapsing was the darkest day and I blame myself. Had I not been so Irish in my nature this would not have happened. I am not going to apologize for being a bigot because I am not.”

In these tough times, Tynan has been moved by the friends who have stood by him, including the archbishop of New York and former President George H.W. Bush.

Bush wrote a letter to the Yankees in which he said, “He is a good man, a fair man, certainly not an anti-Semite. It would be very good if your organization could in some way recognize that this incident, though unfortunate, could be forgotten.

“It is my understanding that some distinguished Jewish leaders have forgiven Ronan Tynan. Please give him another chance to bring his musical magic to the ball park.”

Like any good Irishman, Tynan falls back on his faith during tough times.
“I’ve prayed like mad during these times,” he says. “I am a great fan of St. Theresa. Here’s me asking that little girl to sort out my disaster. God, I feel I am really dumping on her right now, but I need the intercession from someone who has lived a great life.”

Perhaps it’s time for the Irish community here in New York to intercede as well. If you’ve ever been comforted or inspired by his voice, talent, or personal story, let the man know by dropping by Feinstein’s at the Regency Hotel in Manhattan on November 27 and 28, or at the State Theater in New Jersey where he will play with the state’s symphony orchestra. For more information, log onto ronantynan.net.

It is there that you will find his CD My Gift of Christmas Song, packed with classics like “Panis Angelicus” and “Silent Night.”

It is a great gift for the holidays and a purchase like that is a good way to give back to the man who has given so much of himself to this city.

The magic of Andy Cooney at Carnegie Hall

Published Wednesday, December 2, 2009, 4:06 PM

Am I the only one sick and tired of analysts predicting how dismal this Christmas is going to be before any of us have even had the chance to spend a penny on Black Friday?

Really, we have to stop with the gloom and doom, people. It’s the holidays and if you’re reading this, you survived!

To get us all in the holiday spirit, entertainer Andy Cooney will headline “The Magic of Christmas” at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday, December 8.

“They’re going to get all aspects of Christmas, the real meaning, the carols, the holly, the ivy and the spiritual songs,” says Cooney during a recent chat. “They are going to walk out of there feeling good. It’s a family show.”

Cooney has come a long way from touring with Paddy Noonan in his teens to headlining Carnegie Hall, and he will be sharing the glory with his family and friends.

Cooney will also present a special guest, Grammy Award winning country singer Crystal Gayle. Famous for her signature song “Don’t it Make My Brown Eyes Blue,” Gayle has decades of hits behind her.

Gayle and Cooney will perform the duet they recorded, “You Were Never Too Far From My Mind,” from Cooney’s previous CD, 'It’ll Be Me.'

He will also be joined by Eileen Ivers, the feisty fiddler from Riverdance who went on to make amazing music with her band Immigrant Soul.

The most special guest of all is Andy’s 13-year-old son Ryan Cooney, who made his singing debut at Carnegie Hall last Christmas and brought the house down with his rendition of “Little Drummer Boy.”

“When he came out I was more nervous than he was,” says Cooney when asked to recall his reaction to Ryan’s debut. “He was only 11 and didn’t know that Carnegie Hall was a big deal. He went out there and knocked it out of the park.

“The producer was so impressed that she said not only is he coming back next year, he is getting on the bill with the other stars’ names. As a parent it was an amazing experience. I am so proud of him and I can’t wait to do this again with him!”

Cooney has just released a Christmas CD called 'The Magic of Christmas,' recorded with Ireland’s National Concert Orchestra.

“Brian Byrne arranged these classics and created something amazing,” gushes Cooney. “He is in his mid thirties and is already going places. He was from Navan originally is now living in Los Angeles working on a lot of films. He is writing the score for the new Sex and the City movie.

“I have recorded in Nashville and New York but I never did a symphony orchestra, not only in Ireland. They play every day for the RTE television shows, so they are a working band. It was really a dream of mine.”

The show at Carnegie Hall will feature many of the traditional and popular songs from this album including “Oh Come All Ye Faithful,” “Sleigh Ride,” “Oh Holy Night,” “Silver Bells,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and more.

The orchestra is conducted by Gearoid Grant, who has been the conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland since it was formed in 1980. The choir for the Carnegie Hall show also includes the Festival Youth Chorus, directed by Eily O’Grady Patterson, and is comprised of children who hail from the New York area. In addition, the Fordham University Choir, directed by Robert Minotti, will lend their voices.

Cooney has miles to go before the show as he embarks on a concert tour that will pack 19 shows into December.

“I know everyone is down about the economy. Those who have money are holding onto it. At the same time, this show is a cheap outlet for people,” he says.

“You can buy a CD at the show for $15 and come to Carnegie for a price range of $35-85. We were careful to have a price point that everyone can afford.”

Live a little. See the show and like the rest of us, worry about how to pay for it come January. It’s the American way!

“The Magic of Christmas” is at Carnegie Hall on December 8, at 8 p.m. For tickets call 212 247-7800 or visit www.carnegiehall.org.