Summer is on the way, and with it comes a rash of good gigs to get you out of the house. Mother Redcap’s has a full schedule mid-month and Friday 10th sees American singer- songwriter Terry Lee Hale share the stage with local favourites Sonny Condell and the king of the slide guitar Clive Barnes, who is worth the price of admission by himself. The following night the Mountainy Monks with Johnny Moynihan, Leena Oldman and Frank Hall will be doing their thang.
There’s no let up in the action and Wednesday 15th June sees the Savoy Michot Cajun Band livening up proceedings with the traditional early Cajun music of Louisiana. The Americana theme is continued the next evening as Jeffrey Foucault lights up the night.
‘The Jimi Hendrix of the Uileann Pipes’ Paddy Keenan (blame Donal Lunny for that title, not me) will be flying in for a select few Irish dates in June, playing alongside Co. Kerry guitarist/singer Tommy O’Sullivan.
Remembered here as the piper in the Bothy Band, Paddy has been based in the USA for more than a decade, spending the largest portion of each year performing at traditional and folk festivals throughout the world. Paddy is one of the most accomplished uilleann pipers of his generation. His flowing, open-fingered style of playing can be traced directly from the style of such great traveling pipers as Johnny Doran. Paddy’s own style is a direct result of his fathers’s tutelage and influence. Both his father and grandfather played in the same style.
Known to many as the voice of popular Irish group Sliabh Notes and also a fine accompanist, Tommy regularly tours with Paddy. The short tour kicks off in Galway’s Roisin Dubh on Sunday June 19 and heads on to the Glen Centre, Manorhamilton (23), Ceili House, Lurgan (24), and the Spirit Store, Dundalk (25), before a visit to piping’s spiritual home at the Seamus Ennis Centre, Naul the following night. The last hurrah is in Matt Molloy’s, Westport on Monday June 27.
Damien Dempsey, whose Seize The Day album won a place in Hot Press’ Top 20 Irish Albums Of All Time poll last year, will be playing the Temple Bar Music Centre on June 14, and you can expect a highly charged performance as the singer demonstrates why he was the only act to win two Meteor awards last year.
Mick Hanly takes up residency in the Green Room at the Holiday Inn on Dublin’s Pearse Street on each Thursday throughout June. One of the finest songwriters in the country, this outing sees him joined by a band, and he’ll be reminding everyone that he has more than one string to his bow. The man who penned ‘Past The Point Of Rescue’ – a song which subsequently kept Hal Ketchum at the top of the US country charts for an extended stint– will be joined by Nashville singer-songwriter Amanda Williams on the evenings of June 16 and 23. Williams is more Loretta Lynn than Dolly Parton, with hard hitting songs and a gutsy delivery. I think 'head-turning' is the cliché I'm grasping for, and if her spellbinding album Poetry is anything to go by, the live show is sure to be a sight to behold.
Over on the other side of the country, Glor in Ennis also has a few goodies in store, beginning Saturday June 4 with the inimitable Luka Bloom. Always an awesome performer live, his recent shows have seen him at his most confident and reflect the assuredness of his recent album Innocence, which features a mix of orginals and re-interpretations. Also visiting the Clare venue on June 17 is Christopher Dallman from Milwaukee. His entrancing vocal style has echoes of both James Taylor and David Gray.
The Bridies round off the month there with a show on June 25. This explosive all-female group produce a unique blend of Irish traditional music, song, dance and comedy, unmatched by anything you have seen or heard before. Singing, dancing and fiddling at the rate of knots, this 5-piece act is fronted by the lead fiddle soloists from Michael Flatley’s ‘Lord of the Dance’.
Finally on the western front, the end of the month sees the focus shift to Roundstone, where the Co. Galway arts festival has a great line-up including a show by Dervish and a chance to see the Guggenheim Grotto outside of Dublin. This is another festival where the innovative programming and enthusiasm for great music shine through.
June also sees the return of the big guns as Altan play a night in Dublin’s Vicar St. venue on June 16, with sean-nos dancer Seosaimh O Neachtain and Dunne & Hernandez as special guests. The band celebrates 20 years together in June. Over this time they have trotted the globe, most recently in Japan and Korea, animating the world’s greatest stages with the life affirming music of their native Donegal, the place to which they constantly return. This theme of the local and the global is evident on Local Ground, the band’s recently released tenth studio album. Released by Vertical, it marks a return to the roots in every sense after the band’s extended foray into the world of major labels, and we can only hope that the frustrations of that period are now left behind.
Amongst the extended Altan family, meanwhile, fiddler Paul O’Shaughnessy and occasional Altan-ista Harry Bradley have just launched a duet album, Born For Sport.
And if you insist on staying indoors in the pipe and slippers, keep an eye on the radio as RTE’s Summer Season on radio features Against The Grain, a documentary on the life, times and legacy of Rory Gallagher.b