Drinkin’, kissin’ and tunes – Clare style

CONCERTINA player Hugh Healy and uilleann piper, Michael ‘Blackie’ O’Connell will launch their first CD together, We were drinking and kissing the ladies, in the Old Ground Hotel, Ennis, next Thursday night.
While there have been a number  of celebrated two-instrument collaborations of Clare music to date, they describe theirs as a unique blend of driving, rhythm-rooted North Clare music on the concertina and pipes.
We were drinking and kissing the ladies comes from a mutual spirit and understanding of a music that the lads have delighted in playing together for many years. As Michael explains, “When I’m playing with Hughie, there’s a certain kind of a rhythm and a kind of a swing – it’s North Clare music. Myself and Hugh just seemed to kind of click and that’s why we enjoy playing together.”
Hugh adds, “We listened to John Kelly’s old playing and we listened to Willie Clancy’s old playing and all that ties in with Kilfenora and North Clare music – it’s the same rhythm. It’s dance music really.”
Both Hugh and Michael made a conscious effort to resurrect old tunes and along with listening to older recordings, they’ve also trawled through a number of collections to come up with their tune list.
“A lot of new groups are going for new tunes with foreign influences and are writing tunes as well but there are so many tunes out there. So we went the other way – we went for the older tunes,” Hugh discloses. The Kilfenora Céilí Band have provided a rich wellspring of such older tunes for the duo. “They have a lot of unusual sets of tunes there but they’ve older ones as well. So even when we were sourcing the music for the new album, we found tunes that the Kilfenora used to play that aren’t really played now. When we played them, we realised that they’re really great and it’s a pity to lose them,” he says.
But as well as building on the rich musical tradition on their doorstep, Hugh and Michael also looked to such collectors as George Petrie, who gathered tunes from pipers in the Munster area during the 1800s, for inspiration. “There’s a couple of tunes on it that I’d never even heard before so we took them out of retirement,” Michael adds.
Many other well-known Clare musicians make contributions to the recording.  Cyril O’Donoghue (bouzouki) provides accompaniment on the album throughout, “He’s got great expertise – he knows his music and we made sure we had everything right,”  says Michael.
Guests include Colm Healy, Hugh’s brother, on accordion; Elaine Hogan on piano; Richie Lyons on bodhrán; Padraic O’Reilly on piano as well as John Kelly Snr and Johnny Kelly (his son) on fiddle or as Michael puts it, “Yeah, there’s a good few heads on the album”.
John Kelly, originally from Kilbaha, also has a presence on the lads’ album as the title of the album We were drinking and kissing the ladies (Bímís the ól ’s ag pogadh na mban) is taken from a 1975 recording of his. They also managed to gather two othe generations of Kellys for their rendition of the tune – John Kelly of Dublin and his son, Johnny who had never recorded together before. “We had it note for note from John and we always play with Johnny anyway. It’s their first time recording together as well and they’re playing the grandfather’s tune,” Michael explains.
Having begun playing the pipes aged 13 or 14, Michael O’Connell remembers not having much of a grá for traditional music early on. In fact, when his father, Oliver, brought home a set of pipes, he says he wouldn’t play them initially but “eventually came around to his dad’s way of thinking”. Taught by his father, Michael was at that stage playing drums but when he finally became interested in learning the pipes, he started going to Mickey Dunne in Limerick, for lessons.
“He comes from a Travelling family and the pipes would be very much associated with the Travellers anyway so that’s where that whole thing started. I learned Travelling music and it’s a different kind of style on the pipes than what a lot of other lads play. Everyone describes my music as a Travelling style but the fact that I learned music in Limerick and I learned that way of playing – it lends itself as well to Clare music I suppose. Since I’ve been more involved in Clare, I suppose you could call it a Clare style. Willie Clancy would have learned from Johnny Doran who was a Traveller as well so there’s a connection there anyway. Their music kind of crosses in subconsciously,” he points out.
It wasn’t long before he started joining in sessions with Mickey Dunne and played his first in Nancy Blake’s in Limerick. Since then, Michael has toured extensively with dance shows, Rhythm of the Dance and Dance of Desire.
Coming from a musical family in Corofin, Hugh’s initiation into the world of the concertina came a little earlier than Michael’s. Starting on the tin whistle at a young age, by nine, he had started concertina lessons in Corofin. There were loads of concertina players around, he remembers, including Bríd Meaney, John McMahon, Dympna O’Sullivan and finally Noel Hill, who all contributed to what Michael describes as “the Healy schytle”. Hugh explains that he took something from all his teachers’ different styles. These days, he is a teacher at Corofin National School where he also teaches music to pupils from first to sixth class.
The lads play together at least once a week and will be travelling to the Catskills festival in the US during the summer. In the meantime, they’re looking forward to launching We were drinking and kissing the ladies next Thursday night at 8pm, upstairs in the Old Ground Hotel, Ennis. Admission is free. For those who can’t make it, there’ll be another launch night at Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy. The album is available at Custy’s Music Shop Ennis, online at www.custysmusic.com and music shops around the country.