Live and dangerous

Over the last few years, Sligo Live drifted slightly off its initial course as a roots music festival, with acts such as Imelda May headlining. Now it looks as if the festival is back on track and doing what it does best, with some very high-profile traditional players coming back to the town to take control.

The festival takes place across five days spanning the October Bank Holiday. And with everyone’s favourite guilty pleasure Hayseed Dixie and Elvis Costello (in a nowadays extremely rare Irish appearance) booked to headline, it seems pretty certain that the bums are on the seats. But for many, the highpoint will come on the night of Sunday October 30 in the Hawks Well Theatre when Matt Molloy, John Carty, Arty McGlynn and The Unwanted perform what is sure to be the centrepiece of the festival. The pairing of Molloy and Carty is increasingly regarded as one of the seminal duos in Irish traditional music. For this concert they will be joined by Arty McGlynn, probably the single most iconic guitar player in traditional music. Between them, they have formed the backbone of some of the most significant groups in the modern era of traditional playing.

Matt Molloy is justly regarded as the greatest living exponent of flute playing. A member of the Chieftains, he was also a founder member of the legendary Bothy Band. John Carty’s musical prowess has grown steadily since his debut recording a dozen years ago and he has since produced a plethora of solo recordings. He is a member of the bands At the Racket and Patrick Street. Both Matt and John are recipients of the prestigious TG4 ‘Musician of the Year’ award. Their debut duet album Pathway To The Well was released in December 2007. Arty McGlynn is considered by most traditional music aficionados as the finest traditional guitar player in the country. Hailing from Omagh, Co. Tyrone, his family was steeped in traditional music and when he was 11 his mother bought him his first guitar. By the time he was 15 he was playing professionally and touring throughout Ireland with various bands. In 1979 he recorded his first solo album, McGlynn’s Fancy. He subsequently became one of the most sought-after musicians in the country, playing and recording with Christy Moore, Paul Brady, Donal Lunny, Liam O’Flynn, Matt Molloy, John Carty and The Chieftains. He also played at various junctures as a member of Planxty, Patrick Street, De Danann and the Van Morrison Band.

As if that weren’t enough, The Unwanted, which brings together the voice of Dervish’s Cathy Jordan with the guitar and dobro skills of her erstwhile bandmate Seamie O’Dowd and the multi-instrumental talents of Rick Epping, will also be performing. The trio first came together to form The Unwanted in 2006, with an eye to developing their common musical interests in both Irish and American folk genres. Since then they have gone on to perform in concerts and festivals throughout Ireland and Europe. They played at Glasgow’s Celtic Connections last January and brought the house down with two barnstorming performances. Their first CD, Music From The Atlantic Fringe, was released in 2009.
The songs and tunes of the Atlantic Fringe – the combined traditions from Ireland to Appalachia and beyond – are the result of generations of movement and migration, of leave-taking and homecoming, back and forth across the ocean in an endless tide of cultural exchange. Lyrics and melodies borrowed from one land wash ashore on another, only to return again later transformed, peopled with new characters and set in different modes. Together, The Unwanted — with Cathy and Seamie hailing from the west coast of Ireland hovering close to our own Atlantic fringe and Rick, California-born and steeped in a music that proves that the old songs landed on America’s Atlantic seaboard before making the gradual dusty trip west to the edge of the Pacific — demonstrate a deep understanding and appreciation of the music of both the old world and the new, and together they have created a seamless fusion of these traditions, showing that the process of transformation arising from the musical ebb and flow along the Atlantic fringe continues today.

Lovers of Cathy Jordan’s voice will be excited to hear that she has finished recording on that rarest of beasts, the almost mythical, oft-rumoured but never spotted solo album. With her committments to both Dervish and The Unwanted taking their toll on her time, it has taken her some time to respond to the urgings and pleadings of her fans, but I’m reliably informed that ‘the solo album’ will be released in the early part of next year.
In a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ visit to these shores, four-time Grammy Award winner David Holt – musician, storyteller, historian, television host and entertainer – dedicated to performing and preserving traditional American music and stories, will be making an appearance at Odessa on Saturday September 10. Holt plays 10 acoustic instruments and has released numerous award-winning recordings of traditional mountain music and southern folktales. He regularly performs with the king of the flatpickers Doc Watson and has just taken part in the 2011 Cape Clear Storytelling festival.

Lumiere, which brings together Éilís Kennedy (one of the most underrated voices in Irish music) and her fellow Dingle native Pauline Scanlon, will be playing in Whelan’s on Tuesday September 13. Both have, over the past few years, built their individual reputations on natural and genuine interpretations of songs, both old and new, sung in Irish and in English. Both have performed widely as solo artists, but last year’s Lumiere album brought them out of the backrooms where they had up until then shared their love of singing together and propelled them onto a far larger stage.