After plying his trade in London for over 20 years and honing his songwriting skills with regular stints in Nashville, the lure of a re-vitalised Belfast is proving too much for Bap Kennedy and he is returning to his native stomping ground.
Over the years, he has always made regular visits home and he is intimately bound up with the Northern city’s burgeoning music scene.
One of the key reasons behind his decision to move back lock, stock and barrel is a project he is developing with Francis McPeake, of the celebrated McPeake family. Conscious that the canon of traditional song has not been widened significantly in recent years, the pair came up with the idea of teaming up the instrumental skills of the students of the McPeake school with the songwriting skills that Bap has spent many years perfecting in an attempt to foster the composition of new songs in a traditional style.
When a great folk song comes into being it acquires a timeless quality – ‘Will Ye Go Lassie Go’ by Francis McPeake’s grandfather (also named Francis) being a case in point. The tune is so transcendent that the majority of listeners assume it is a traditional song that has always been there.
Leaving aside Shane MacGowan, Bap feels that no-one is currently writing strong new material to match the great songs of Irish folk music’s past and he is pinning his hopes on the wealth of talent in the McPeake school as a chance at cracking the mould.
It takes a very brave man to put out two albums simultaneously. Tim O’Brien, long one of the most distinctive voices in bluegrass, has just chosen to do exactly that with the release of Cornbread Nations and Fiddler’s Green.
Of the pair, Fiddler’s Green is more pared back while Cornbread Nation sees him embracing the heaving heart of Americana with impressive vigour.
His work in this style has garnered serious musical praise including a Grammy. Irish audiences will be given the chance to experience live exactly what it is that makes these particular songs tick in his hands.
A concise Irish tour sees him visit Galway, Cork and Dublin on the 21, 22 and 24 of this month. An absolute stellar presence in the US, he has yet to fully impinge on the European consciousness but you only need to do a straw poll of trad and folk musicians on the subject of who their musical dream date would be to see how influential he has been below the line.
Running from the 20 to the 29 October, the eight Annual Return to Camden festival has just announced a slate of sessions to run parallel to the headline concerts and workshops. These sessions will take place throughout the 10-day festival across five North London venues: The London Irish Centre in Camden itself, the Mazenod Bar, the Golden Lion, the Cobden Arms and the Kilburn Pub and Kitchen. Featuring singers sessions led by Pat Connolly and sessions featuring instrumentalists like James Carty, Brendan McGlinchy, Mick O’Connor and Des Hurley the sessions are free and musicians are invited to bring along an instrument and get stuck in.
Flook fans will be pleased to hear that Brian Finnegan (aided and abetted by Diarmuid Moynihan) not only survived the Mourne Mountain Marathon but managed to finish a very creditable 26th out of a field of 140, raising a couple of grand for the Macmillan Children’s Cancer Nurses at Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital in the process.
He won’t be mothballing the flutes just yet, though, as the band are making several forays to the North, for an appearance on BBC Northern Ireland’s excellent Blackstaff Sessions on October 29 and then a hometown gig for Brian, who learned his music at the Armagh Piper’s Club and makes a triumphant return there when Flook appear with Buille and Lunasa on November 18.
In between these two excursion Brian will also be participating in Parallelogram, a jazz-folk crossover project at the South Bank as part of the Folk in the Fall season on November 1. The other musicians taking part are Aidan O’Rourke, Martin Green and Kris Drever (Lau), Pete Wareham (Acoustic Ladyland), John Blease (drums) and Oli Hayhurst (bass).
Already fairly web savvy, Flook have supplemented their MySpace presence with a number of videos on YouTube where you can marvel at them in all their pixilated glory.
The Cake Sale is a band co-ordinated and fuelled by Bell X1’s Brian Crosby. It features a loose and expansive collective of musicians who have combined to create a nine-song CD of the same name to be be released on 27 October on Oxfam Ireland Records. All profits will go to support Oxfam’s Make Trade Fair campaign and their overseas programme work.
Songs on the album have been written by Dave Geraghty, Emm Gryner, Paul Noonan, Glen Hansard, Ollie Cole, Damien Rice, The Thrills and Matt Lunson. Lead vocalists for the project include Lisa Hannigan, Nina Persson, Gary Lightbody, Gemma Hayes, Glen Hansard, Josh Ritter, Conor Deasy and Neil Hannon. A host of other luminaries fill the roles of musicians.
Christy Moore and Declan Sinnott clearly felt that the Point concerts which featured on their live DVD and album last year suffered from the difficulty in maintaining a rapport with the audience in the huge venue and this year they are going to move into Vicar Street with a run that starts before Christmas and continues into the early part of January. With the six original dates selling out and four more added, the lads could well start moving furniture in and making themselves really at home.
The fact that it’s damn near impossible to get your hands on Mick Flannery’s album makes for an all the more compelling reason to go and see him live in the Cobblestone on Friday October 20.
Although the Tom Waits comparisons are an inevitability given his creaking vocal style there is an undisputed raw originality in his music that makes it gripping stuff and there’s a down-home quality to his songs that really draws a listener into to a very real world. Woefully under-exposed up to this point he really is one to watch and if you only go to one gig this week...
As usual the rest of the schedule at the Cobblestone looks equally appealing with Brian Rooney and Neil Mulligan in on Saturday 21 ,
Al O’ Donnell on Saturday 28, Sonny Condell’s Radar on Sunday 29, Appalachian raised songwriter AJ Roach on Friday November 3 and Paddy Glackin with Sean Garvey and Robbie Hannon on Tuesday November 7.
Paul Lee who promotes the gigs in the Cobblestone is also involved in a number of free shows at the Johnstown Inn, Naas where you can see Thom Moore, Eoin Kenny and Peadar Murray on Saturday October 21 and where Bill Whelan, Ben Keogh, and Liam Kennedy will perform their unique take on American Oldtimey music on Saturday October 28.