Moya Brennan set to tour “Music of Ireland - Welcome Home”

I told you a few weeks ago about the fantastic documentary, Welcome Home: The Music of Ireland, that broadcast on PBS stations as part of the March fundraising drive. Hosted by Clannad’s Moya Brennan, the program is a collection of archival footage and fresh interviews conducted by Brennan with some of the biggest names in Irish musical culture.

“I wanted to just have a conversation that was natural, and I assured the producers that I would be able to get more footage that way,” says Brennan when asked what it was like to be on the other side of the camera doing the interviews instead of answering the questions.

“Many people we interviewed don’t normally chat with anyone and would only talk here because it was me doing the interviewing, which was very gratifying.”

As part of the broadcast, a companion CD was recorded that features Brennan interacting with many of the artists on the program. The CD is now available online, which requires you to visit Barnes and Noble (sounds primitive in this day and age, doesn’t it?)

I assure you it is worth the trip just to hear Liam Clancy sing for the last time. His ability to tug at the heartstrings on “The Parting Glass” was intact right up until the end of his life.

For Brennan fans, the disc is a treasure trove! Her gentle yet ethereal humming behind Clancy gives the track a lullaby quality, while the shimmering electronics behind Brennan and former Celtic Woman member Orla Fallon as they interweave their haunting voices give the collection a definitive contemporary feel that hints to the future of Irish music.

A rocking duet of “You’re the One” pairs Brennan with the slurring Shane McGowan for an oddly sweet ditty punctuated by gorgeous uilleann pipes.

The documentary will be followed up by a second part later this year that looks at modern Irish music from the nineties to present day. Welcome Home opens new audience to Irish music in general and to the magic of Brennan in particular.

She will be meeting those new fans as she tours the States beginning this week with stops that include New York (The Winery on April 6), Boston (Arlington’s Regent Theater on March 28), and Long Island (Boulton Center on April 10).

New dates are being added daily, so make sure you log onto moyabrennan.com for the up to the minute news on this tour.

Riverdance, about to go, but never to be forgotten

As sure as shamrocks are green, you could be sure that Riverdance would pull into Radio City’s Music Hall in March to capitalize on the greenery of our big holiday. Sadly, that tradition comes to an end this year as the current production of the show takes a final bow.

Just as the bible is divided into two parts, Irish culture must be viewed as life before Riverdance and life afterwards. You’d have to go back to the Clancy Brothers playing on the Ed Sullivan Show in the sixties to find a time when Americans of all races were seduced by Irish music on such a broad scale.

And why not? There was something in the show for just about everyone.

Bill Whelan’s brilliant arrangements tangled the roots of Irish music with branches from other cultures. The hand claps and flamenco guitars of “Firedance” seemed right at home with the fiddles and flutes.

“American Wake (The Nova Scotia Set)” blended traditional Irish melodies with the tambourine and other flourishes and phrasings from Celtic nations. As the name would imply, “Marta’s Dance/The Russian Dervish” spun a furious reel and broke down the walls of Eastern and Western European culture in the process.

With the finger percussions and Middle Eastern chants, “Andalucia” dips Irish soda bread into hummus to create a tasty international dish. Dancing feet are percussive elements through the spirited reels, another innovative flourish.

The Irish are all high on the show now, but I remember the purists viewing the music and dancing as something this side of blasphemy. Simple bodhrans were banished in favor of booming drums to add a big show drama to the beat, and Michael Flatley’s flailing hands upset the High Mass in many parts of Ireland.

Those same Irish dancing schools discouraging this new way soon found a flood of youngsters busting down the doors of their establishments. Thanks to Riverdance a new generation of Irish step dancers was born, and the tradition, though modified, would enter a new generation in roaring form.

Every cultural touchstone is not without downsides. Riverdance ushered in an era of big Irish shows, starting with Flatley’s Lord of the Dance. The less than cheerful split between dancer and producer actually created two great shows, and composer Ronan Hardiman created inventive musical beds for Flatley’s feet of flames without sacrificing an ounce of Whelan’s emphasis on craft and arrangement.

With two successful shows out there, others jumped on the bandwagon. PBS played host to a number of Irish-themed shows in their March telethons, introducing the world to Celtic Woman, Celtic Thunder and the High Kings.

None of those shows came close to approaching the seismic cultural transformation of Riverdance, and it became obvious that the show’s producers never intended to aim that high. These shows are more about strategic brand building instead of cultural contribution.

For instance, if you put the words “Celtic Woman” into the iTunes search engine, you will find no less than 13 releases connected to the brand. You’ll see the dreadfully predictable holiday album (with a commemorative ornament taped to the box for you CD buyers), solo albums from each member that recycled the same songs, and a string of follow-up productions that offered diminishing returns with each passing year.

When the producers decided to change the plumbing, they offered up the High Kings, a nostalgic wink to the Clancy Brothers that placed the sons of Irish musical royalty into Aran sweaters.

Celtic Thunder began promisingly enough under the watchful eye of Phil Coulter, who combined talented new voices from either side of the Irish Sea with some of pop music’s greatest compositions (including some of his own) to make a uniquely Irish vibe.

But success makes good men do strange things, which probably explains why some decent folks keep going back to get milk from the cold udder of a dead cow.

Whelan should be commended for not taking that route with Riverdance, for doing so would have been akin to taking a crayon to the tablets of the Ten Commandments. Though the show takes a bow with its head high and integrity intact this month, the music lives on.

Gigs all round for St. Paddy's season!

Ladies and gentlemen, start your livers! Our big green holiday is almost here!

Is it me, or does it seem like holidays start sooner on the calendar nowadays? You can see the retail outlets putting Valentine’s Day merchandise on display right after New Year’s, and St. Patrick’s Day is no exception.

Irish artists typically begin their merriment weeks before and after March 17, and with St. Patrick’s Day falling in the middle of the week we essentially have weekends on either side of the day to do our celebrating!

As usual, I owe a debt of gratitude to one Brendan James Patrick Dunphy, of Hoboken, County Hudson. His list of St. Patrick’s Day festivities is normally published in January, proving that this man takes our green national holiday more seriously than St. Patrick himself!

What better way to start the big green holiday than with a show by the Prodigals at Paddy Reilly’s, 519 Second Avenue in New York, on Friday, March 5 before heading out on a punishing March schedule that finds them playing Cleveland’s House of Blues on St. Pat’s.

Saturday, March 6 is a green one for the Garden State as Gaelic Storm brings their own brand of Celtic thunder to the Algonquin Arts Theater in Manasquan, Exit 98 off the Garden State Parkway, while Celtic Cross will play the College of St. Elizabeth, Covent Station near Morristown. For more information on the Celtic Cross gig, check out their website at www.celticcrossnation.com

BB King’s in Times Square welcomes Solas, one of the most innovative traditional bands walking the earth today, on March 10.

Barleyjuice (Kyf Brewer, Keith Swanson, Billy Dominick, Jimmy Carbomb, Eric Worthington and Gregor Schroeder) bring the testosterone against the estrogen of sisters Erin, Heather, Colleen and drummer Mary Gellner of Searson for a gender smackdown called “Irish Boys vs. Irish Girls” at Connolly’s Klub 45 (121 West 45th Street), on March 11 at 8:30 p.m.

It will be hard to escape the deafening sound of Irish rock in midtown Manhattan on Friday, March 12 as Shilelagh Law plays Connolly’s Klub 45 Room, while the Tossers play Mercury Lounge downtown. Connolly’s is usually the home of Black 47 on weekends this time of year, but Larry Kirwan and the boys will be playing Staten Island College that night.

If you don’t feel like traveling into the city on Saturday March 13, there is no need to repent to St. Patrick! You can catch Seanchai and the Unity Squad at the “Unrepentant” Gathering at Rocky Sullivan’s in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. The band’s new website is www.seanchai.com, which reports that Gary Og from Glasgow, Scotland will join the band that night.

If you do venture into the city on the night of the 13th, you must catch my pick for the greatest Patrick’s Day hooley for your entertainment dollar. Nothing beat’s Joe Hurley’s Rock and Soul Revue!

Every year during the St Patrick's season, New York singer/songwriter Hurley salutes his Irish heritage with a blazing extravaganza of performers and songs that celebrate Ireland's musical gifts to the world -- the All-Star Irish Rock Revue. It features a cast of eclectic characters pillaging the songbooks of Ireland’s greatest artists.

Hurley and the Gents are the crackerjack backing band to a cast of thousands at the Highline Ballroom (431 West 16th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues, 212-414-5994). The show starts at 6:30 and doesn’t let up until after 11.

Gathering friends from NYC punk-rock legends to Broadway stars, from best-selling novelists to star comedians guest singers rip through the favored classics. For performer updates, go to www.roguesmarch.com.

Of course, you could also go old school that night by going across town and catching the Wolfe Tones at Connolly’s Klub 45 Room as well.

New Jersey wears the green on March 14, as the Chieftains hits the State Theater in New Brunswick and The Irish Rovers play the Count Basie Theater in Red Bank. Both venues have that historic theater vibe going in the middle of cities that are peppered with hip eateries, making this a perfect date night!

Celtic chanteuse Ashley Davis will be playing songs from her album, Down by the Sea, which was named one of the 10 best discs last year by the Irish Voice. She will be playing Joe’s Pub on March 16 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 at the door and can be had by calling 212-967-7555 or www.joespub.com. Davis will be playing with Cormac, Moya's Brennan’s harper.

As usual, there is no shortage of trouble to get yourself into in and around the city on March 17. Black 47 will be playing cuts off of their excellent new CD, Bankers and Gangsters, at BB King’s in Times Square.

A few blocks away, Shilelagh Law makes an early appearance (4 p.m.) prior to Hoboken’s Icewagon Flu bringing their eclectic mix of Irish jam band soul (sounds weird, I know, but you must see it to believe it!) at Connolly’s Klub 45.

For those with champagne tastes, the Chieftains play Carnegie Hall. Radio City Music Hall plays host to a four night salute to Riverdance, which makes its final curtain call after all these years.

On Thursday March 18, Dublin fold duo the Guggenheim Grotto will return to the eastern seaboard after a successful tour of the west, stopping in Manhattan’s Rockwood Music Hall before another gig on March 20 at West Milford’s Music at the Mission.

Whatever you decide to do, I do hope you decide to do something on this list. The music business has been in rapid decline during the last decade, with CD sales falling more than 50%.

Along with the decline in music comes an erosion of culture, and Irish artists are not immune to this negative trend. These hard working musicians are more dependent on touring and merchandising than ever before, so make sure you do your part to make sure our holiday is a green one for everyone involved!

Moya Brennan’s a home girl at heart

Public television usually gets green during the month of March, in more ways than one.

It is the month that they raise cash during their telethons and to do that, they appeal to the sizable Irish and Irish American audience with programming from the Emerald Isle. In years past, this exposure has launched such successful shows as Celtic Woman and Celtic Thunder.

Music of Ireland--Welcome Home, this year’s main PBS Irish show, is a fantastic documentary that tells the definitive story of contemporary Irish music, focusing on the Emerald Isle's greatest musical exports, their influence on America and the music's global impact.

Hosted by Clannad's Grammy Award-winning Moya Brennan and produced by the Elevation Group's Denny Young (producer of concert specials from Duran Duran and Counting Crows), the program is nothing short of a national treasure, Music of Ireland--Welcome Home premieres nationwide March 2010 on public television, including WLIW21 in New York (check WNET.ORG for listings)

An exclusive public television bonus CD will be available during the broadcasts to viewers who make a donation in support of their local station with a DVD purchase. The CD bonus tracks include additional songs by Órla Fallon (formerly of Celtic Woman), Ronan Tynan (formerly of the Irish Tenors) and others.

Barnes & Noble, the show’s exclusive retail partner, promotes the program with a deluxe CD and DVD pack, both of which are an indispensible addition to the collection of any Irish music fan.

Beginning in 1960 with the Clancy Brothers, Music of Ireland--Welcome Home traces the origins of Irish music, and features exclusive interviews with U2's Bono and Adam Clayton, Michael Flatley and Bill Whelan of Riverdance. Brennan is the ultimate music insider, which enables her to conduct intimate interviews with Ireland’s brightest stars.

“I remember being backstage with Bob Dylan at Slane Castle, and he is talking about how the Clancy Brothers and the McPeake family were huge influences, and I was like, ‘Who are they?’” Bono says with a laugh.

Perhaps the most emotional point of the broadcast comes at the end when Liam Clancy looks into the camera (filmed right before his death) and talks about how each second of his life is just as valuable as a second of his life in his teens. It is just one priceless moment in a priceless documentary.

“I agreed to do this with the provision that I wouldn’t come to these musicians with a set of interview questions written on a paper,” said Brennan during a New York interview that is part of a press tour.

“I wanted to just have a conversation that was natural, and I assured the producers that I would be able to get more footage that way. Many people we interviewed don’t normally chat with anyone and would only talk here because it was me doing the interviewing, which was very gratifying.”

Brennan’s revealing interviews are laced with breathtaking scenery from her native Donegal, sing-alongs at the Brennan family pub, and never-before-seen archival performances by the Clancys, the Dubliners and U2.

"This is about a country, its people, their undeniable spirit and the amazing music that has transcended generations. There is no place like Ireland," stated executive producer Denny Young.

"For such a small country to produce such amazing talent and the way their music defines the people, is just extraordinary. It has fascinated me for most of my life and is something I wanted more people to be in tune with."

The sequel to Music of Ireland--Welcome Home is planned for late 2010 spotlighting more recent artists including U2, Celtic Woman, the Cranberries, the Corrs, the Irish Tenors, and singer/songwriters like Glen Hansard and Damien Rice, as well as the rise of Irish music festivals and the use of Irish music in film and television.

It is a time capsule of our musical culture narrated in a contemporary way, and Brennan is proud of the exposure that American audiences will have to Irish musical giants like Donal Lunny, Paul Brady, and Christy Moore that are relative unknowns in the U.S.

“I had a fight on my hands getting some of the lesser known people included in this project,” she says. “The whole point of doing this was to show the different branches of this tree that is our musical heritage.

“Donal’s work influenced Riverdance and so many others and it was so important to show Americans where this music lives. I mean, Donal and Christy are like the godfathers of our whole scene. We tried our best to get as many of them on camera in this two hour program.”

Here are the best bits from our chat:


You had amazing access. I wish I had your Rolodex!

Bono plays the Rose Bowl on the Internet, then goes to the UN and then has coffee with Obama. For him to give me the afternoon and be so generous with his time was amazing.

I had no idea the respect I carried in the music business. I was amazed how everyone took my call. It was so good for me. You play your own thing for 35 years on your own, and for me to be embraced like this in the Irish music community was great.

It gave me an excuse to get back in touch with some old friends, which was a joy. I got some new friends in the deal as well! Glen Hansard (Frames) worked on the CD with me and we got to be very close.
The time you devoted to the Clancy Brothers launch in America was significant, and rightly so. It was also great to include interview footage of Liam right before he died. Ending the first part of the documentary with him was very moving.
It was the turning point of where a lot of Americans became aware of Irish music. When they hit the Ed Sullivan show, they shot into Carnegie Hall immediately after and they were able to launch a lot of people behind them. It was the start of Irish music in the popular form.

One of the people notably absent from the documentary is your sister Enya. Should people read into that? How is your relationship?
I am just after seeing her at a cousin’s 50th birthday party before making the trip here and we had a great time! We have a great relationship as sisters that has nothing to do with music or the business side of things, which is handled through her management.

We approached them about having her be part of this and it didn’t work out, which is a shame. I bent over backwards to make these interviews work for everyone’s schedule.

I cut a German tour short to fly back to Dublin to grab Bono and Adam Clayton, flew to Vancouver to speak with Bob Geldof, but couldn’t get it together with my own family (laughs). We even tried to do a Clannad reunion, but one person was sick and one person was gone when the other felt better, so there you go.

It was amazing to see in the documentary the archival footage of the Chieftans jamming with Chinese musicians and you realize how much we have in common with their music.
I think no one illustrates that quite like Paddy Moloney and the Chieftans. His genius is finding that common denominator in roots music in Asian and Spanish cultures.

It goes back to the tree analogy I was talking about. Doing this documentary gives you an appreciation of how Irish music sprouts. You see that when the Rolling Stones fly to Dublin for a jam with the Chieftans.

Our music is such a treasure, and how it expands to influence other cultures is amazing. We have such a strong musical root in our culture.
Who did you know the least? What conversation surprised you most?

If the documentary hadn’t seen light of day, the biggest thrill to me would have been to talk to Pete Seeger. He is such a legend, such an agile man that is so with it, giving me the history of the Clancys and Irish music through his eyes. I was so privileaged to meet him. It was worth the whole experience to me.

I knew Frank McCourt but didn’t know Malachy. He is an amazing character, a great writer. I knew of Damien Rice but met him through this. He really is a great talent.
I loved watching you interview your father. I watched this advanced copy with my father; he really enjoyed that. I loved how you brought it back to your family’s pub.

He’s 85. There are so many families that perform in pubs. That is part of our culture.

When you saw the finished product and how Clannad was placed in the narrative, did it make you feel proud of your contribution to the culture?

It did! We took our influences from Los Angeles -- Mamas and the Papas, Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac -- and added that to the Irish music we played in Donegal. That ethereal sound of layered harmonies in Clannad was the blueprint for Enya, my solo work and a whole genre of singers.

We created a new branch of this tree I mentioned, and that feels good.

Celtic Thunder hits the wrong note with new album

The first thing you notice when you look at the CD cover of the new Celtic Thunder CD, That’s Entertainment, is Damian McGinty, the apple-cheeked teen who stole our hearts with a jolly good read of Donny Osmond’s “Puppy Love.”

The lad is growing up before our eyes! He now has the black tuxedo jacket slung over his shoulder as the dark tie hangs precariously on his chest.

Puberty is obviously here, but in case the fans of the show hadn’t noticed, the producers waste no time trying to con us into thinking he has transformed into a Rat Packer playboy with a read of Michael Buble’s “Home.” He doesn’t have a thimble full of Buble’s swagger, and it’s the first sign of trouble for my favorite Irish franchise.

I really love Celtic Thunder because you want to see a friend succeed, and I consider Phil Coulter a friend. I am a huge fan of songs like “The Town I Loved So Well” and “The Old Man,” and it was a thrill to watch Coulter gain new fans when these timeless tunes were dropped into the Celtic Thunder setlist.

Coulter’s arranging genius was on full display as he punctuated his songs with tunes from Foreigner and the Moody Blues to create a uniquely Irish musical conversation. But over three Celtic Thunder albums of flawless execution, proof that Coulter loses his touch can be found when he casts the gorgeous tenor of cast member Paul Byrom onto the farcical “Doo Wacka Doo.” Doo Wacka Dude, what were you thinking?

This new CD makes me wonder if it’s too late to end things on a high note. As if to prove Celtic Thunder has “jumped the shark,” there is “Surfer Medley” which is so pale and devoid of sunshine that Keith Harkin, the talented singer songwriter with the blond surfer dude mop-top, comes off sounding more like Salthill than Santa Monica.

Just when you think he’s reached the shore, he is forced to swim back into the saccharine for Chicago’s “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” and holds on to that buoy for 3:46 of rough musical seas indeed. If I was on the Love Boat and this was playing, I would have Isaac whip me up a Dramamine smoothie, hold the pineapple wedge!

Ryan Kelly’s rakish good looks and arched eyebrows made him the perfect bad boy of the group, so it would be only natural to have him sing the seventies Jim Croce chestnut “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” The bare-knuckled blues piano riff of the original has been replaced by a whimsical trumpet and vaudevillian arrangement that completely castrates this once randy bull.

Credit must be given to Coulter for including the Proclaimers’ “My Life Without You” because the world needs to know that this band is more traveled than the “500 Miles” that made them famous.

That said, there’s a cold wind from the schmaltzy Catskills Mountains that blows through most of That’s Entertainment. It makes this writer suspect that the cast and crew are turning their back on their young demographic in favor of the Golden Girls set when they send teen heartthrob McGinty into the studio to sing “Standing on the Corner” from the Broadway musical The Most Happy Fella. Again, the lad will have to put a few more hairs on his chest and add a few new notches on his belt before taking on this crooner persona.

Maybe this collection of songs will make more sense in the context of the new Celtic Thunder show coming to us later this year. Something tells me that calling “that’s a wrap” on Celtic Thunder and That’s Entertainment will kick me off the free ticket guest list.

Oh, great -- like my mother needs another reason to hate this column!

Black 47 in rocking form with "Bankers and Gangsters"

“I always resisted being pigeonholed and limited to this genre. But what the hell, it just won’t go away and I suppose we have a lot to be responsible for in popularizing it. Like every other original idea it inevitably becomes a victim of its own clichés. This is what it looks like from the stage with a couple of shots aboard; now let’s take it to the cleaners.”

Larry Kirwan might be talking about the origins of “Celtic Rocker,” one of the many instant classics on Black 47’s new Bankers and Gangsters album, but it is typical of him to give that nonchalant, self-deprecating wink to his long legacy and cultural impact on Irish Americana.

Bankers and Gangsters opens majestically with “Long Hot Summer Comin’ On,” a rock and roll novella about the CBGB scene in the eighties where Kirwan had a ringside seat. It is a character-driven ditty with characters like arsonist Gasoline Gomez, “whose got kerosene in his soul.”

The record is the first since IRAQ, the band’s politically charged disc that offered scathing criticism of the war and heartbreaking accounts from fans fighting on the front lines. Kirwan says he felt pressure to get the story straight on that record, which freed him up creatively to write different stories for the band’s current work.

“IRAQ was such a focused record,” Kirwan says. “I wanted to capture the feeling of the country so that if you went back and listened to the album 10 years from now, you would get a feeling for what our national mood was at the time.

“When that was done, it gave me the freedom to go wherever I wanted to. There are a lot more pipes and brass in this album on purpose because musically, I wanted to focus on the strengths of this great band I have working behind me. You are playing with these great musicians and I wanted to have them shine.

“Not many people mix the brass and uilleann pipes the way we do, and when you are focused on the guitars or words you might miss this onstage. For this CD, I wanted what I heard onstage to be front and center.”
The band flexes their formidable musical muscles throughout the disc, most notably on “Izzy’s Irish Rose,” a hilarious tale of interfaith temptations that finds the band juggling both Irish reels with snippets of “Hava Nagila” without missing a beat.

The band is capable of whipping up whiplash for the listener as they swerve from rock to reels to reggae in a dizzying mixture of Irish and American influences, Celtic rebellion, domestic heartache and furious reels. Kirwan and the Boys have made another winner!

Any good mix of Black 47 songs would not be complete without a nod to Irish history, and Bankers and Gangsters keeps the memories of Rosemary Nelson and Red Hugh.

“He was my boyhood hero but I could never capture him in song up until now,” Kirwan explains. “His days were just far too distant.

“And then I became intrigued with Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, and it all clicked. Both were fundamentalists, battling much stronger armies on the borders of great empires, with time running out and modernity is encroaching.

“We do issues songs but we don’t ram it down your throat,” Kirwan says of the band’s political oeuvre.

“If you don’t like the issues songs, go to the bar and wait for the fast and lively reels. We play over two hours and if you came out to be informed or to be entertained, there will be a spot in the set list for you.”

Kirwan has been looking back on his youth a lot recently, and the songs on the new CD are not the only evidence. Kirwan will also release Rockin’ the Bronx, a brilliant tale set in the gritty streets of the Yankee borough that was the epicenter of Irish Americana during the early eighties.

“The book is about what it was like to be an Irish immigrant on 204 and Bainbridge during that time. I used to live in the East Village and play the Bronx at night. Everyone was Irish up there, and I would go home to the Puerto Rican drug dealers downtown,” he recalls.

“ The Irish Echo and Irish Voice wrote about games at Gaelic Park, but other than Terry George (Irish Voice), no one wrote about the scene I was in. A lot of Irish Americans don’t know about it, yet it was the center of life for the Irish American culture that we still have today, this scene.

“‘Living in America’ and the song ‘Rockin’ the Bronx’ approaches a description, but a song can only take it so far. I wanted a novel to describe it on another level, really give people a sense for the fabric of what the sheer wildness was.

“You get off the plane on a Friday, got a job by Monday, worked all week, spent it in the pub on a Friday night and went to work broke on Monday again. That’s what it was like to be Irish American at the time.”

As the Irish American rock scene was hatching, another musical genre was gestating a few miles away. Kirwan recalls going back and forth between the Bronx and CBGB’s to watch the birth of punk rock.

“I was dealing with this particular period of time from 1980 to 1982 in New York City in the book,” he explains. “I was there the first night the Ramones came on, and this English bartender I knew thought they were fascists in their yellow jackets,

“I said, ‘You know, I think they might be Jewish!’ It was a classic time, seeing Television and Blondie there, and it breaks my heart to see it’s a f***ing clothes store now.”

The band keeps it fresh by trying out new things. For Bankers and Gangsters they brought a slew of Irish singers from Celtic Cross and Screaming Orphans to give the backing vocals an earthy feel.

Celtic Cross lead singer Kathleen Fee is the feisty foil to Kirwan’s curmudgeon during “The Wedding Reel,” a furious country-tinged rocker and hilariously caustic tale of marital tension between two disparate spirits. “ I bet you didn’t notice the highlights in me hair/they weren’t put in for you to pay attention anyway,” she snarls to her husband as she applies the war paint in the mirror to hunt for new prey at the bar, the husband more concerned with pints than passion.

“The song I fashioned around it is a tribute to the Irish countrywoman’s spirit and the banter I used to hear while picking fruit every summer on the farms of south county Wexford,” Kirwan explains.

“I didn’t have to explain the saucy sexuality of the woman to Ms. Fee. She stepped right into that character.

“There are really some inherently funny scenes in Irish romances. There is an edge in most romances, but there is a particular set of barriers where these poor women have to go an extra mile to break the Irish man down a bit, and I like writing about the dynamic. It is comedy with an edge.

“She is going out to look for a younger man and if I don’t find him, I will come home and the man is saying ‘off with you.’ But you know in the end, they are going to end up with one another and they will be fighting with one another into the moonlight.”

For Fee, recording with Kirwan and the band was a thrill.

“We both happened to be at the Catskills and we were having a drink at the Blackthorn and he told me how he wrote the song and how perfect he thought I would be for it. I was flattered to say the least!” she says.

“He is such a pleasure to work with. He gave me complete creative control and encouraged me to improvise. He sees things and hears things and knows exactly what he wants, yet he is open to surprises and new ideas.

“The back and forth was complexly improvisational. He doesn’t over-think it. The deliveries that come naturally really work and I am going to try that out on the new Celtic Cross album!

While Bankers and Gangsters looks fondly at the past, Kirwan is already looking at the future with a musical and more Black 47 music in the future. As Kirwan sees it, challenging the band and its fans with new material is essential to a band’s survival during these dicey times in the music business.

“You have to come out with something new all the time because you have to keep the band fresh onstage,” he says. “You introduce the new song every night to keep the edge.”

Copies of Bankers and Gangsters are available at Black47.com or at band gigs like February 19 at Stone Pony in Asbury Park, New Jersey, or the following night at Connolly's in New York.

Irish singer Maura Kennedy makes a stunning solo debut

It is fitting that the debut solo album from singer songwriter Maura Kennedy should be called “Parade of Echoes.” As the album progresses, you get the sense that Kennedy is rummaging through the costume department in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, trying on influences like jackets.

Fortunately for her and her listener, most of what she tries on fits beautifully.

“Parade of Echoes” opens with “The Thing With Feathers,” a spooky track that mixes choral harmonies wafting over a minimalist bed of bass and bells. “I feel this thing with feathers beating in its soul cage/I long to set it free to see how far if flies/the cage is empty when the hope inside you dies,” she sings toward the end as feathers flap underneath her.

Just when you think Kennedy is a depressing Goth gal she throws you a case of musical whiplash, unleashing a hopelessly sunny romantic postcard from the sixties with the power pop of “New Way to Live.” It’s the kind of song that begs for open windows, an open road, and a lead foot.

“Make it Last” traces the pattern of jangly guitars and underlying tension of great Buddy Holly songs. Some of the lyrics read like tortured thoughts scribbled on a napkin during a late night coffee overdose in a roadside diner.

“I’d call you anytime/I wonder if you’re really even on the line/just my imagination/you’re only in my head/I look for you and I’m alone instead,” she sings over a dirty glam rock riff and Neanderthal thumping drums of “Chains.”

Kennedy left upstate New York and made her bones in the musical city of Austin, Texas, where she honed her stage presence and hooked up with Nanci Griffith, touring the US and the British Isles behind Griffith’s Grammy-winning “Other Voices, Other Rooms.”

Working the road in the acoustic format of roots-pop mavens the Kennedys, her songwriting blossomed as she began drawing from novels, poetry, and especially from her own dreams. She returned to New York, lived in a number of tenements around St. Mark’s Place, many of them hastily converted into makeshift recording studios, and it was in that neighborhood that she conceived the idea of writing a song, and making a master-quality recording, every month for 13 months.

Like the calendar itself, there is a song for every season on “Parade of Echoes.” Unlike an echo, which merely copies that which went before it, Kennedy emerges with a voice that is uniquely hers.

Just as I write this, I happen upon the last track, “Shadows of the Lonely.” It is a lilting acoustic back porch lullaby that finds her doing a dead-on impression of Patsy Cline, proving that mimicry another skill of a talent that knows no limits.

For more information, log onto her web site at maurakennedy.com.