Irish and American combine for new album

THE Brock McGuire Band has just released a new album, entitled Green Grass Blue Grass, breaking new ground by combining Irish traditional music with American old time and blue grass music.

The line-up includes Clare musicians Paul Brock from Ennis and Manus McGuire from Tuamgraney, Tipperary man, Denis Carey and Galway man, Enda Scahill and was recently voted as the best instrumental band of the decade by The Irish American News.
Together with special guests, American 14-time Grammy recipient Ricky Skaggs, Aubrey Haynie, Bryan Sutton, Jeff Taylor and Mark Fain, the Brock McGuire Band launched the album in March at Nashville’s The Grand Ole Opery in Tennessee to a crowd of 4,400 people.
The album not only identifies the connections between music in the United States and Irish traditional music, it also brings them together through a unique collaboration with a group of high-profile American musicians from the Appalachian and Blue Grass traditions.
The music on the album itself is a combination of Irish, American old time and Blue Grass music with some new compositions and a French Canadian set. The band will be giving Ennis a flavour of their latest works as part of An Fleadh Nua, when they perform on Thursday, May 26 at the Temple Gate Hotel at 8pm.
Speaking about the lead-up to producing the album, Paul Brock referred to the involvement of American musician Ricky Skaggs. “The album came about through our contact and friendship with Ricky Skaggs over recent years. As a band, Brock McGuire Band has been touring America for many years and Tennessee became one of the places that we would always go to. Nashville is a big centre of music and through our various contacts out there we met all sorts of people and played in the world famous venue, The Station Inn. Through our contacts we became friendly with Ricky Skaggs. He’s a household name in entertainment in America, a brilliant musician, a multi-instrumentalist and a fantastic singer. We met him through one of our musical contacts out there and we wound up visiting him at his studios,” Paul explained.
He said it became an ongoing thing that when the band were in Tennessee and anywhere near Nashville they would go to his studios to visit with him.
“We wound up jamming with him and it was then we discovered his interest in Irish music. He grew up in Kentucky and he was listening to the music of the old fiddle players and there would be recognition that there is an Irish influence in music out there. So we would go in and play with him. It was a natural thing that developed over a period of time, just a notion, to do an album with him and that’s where it emerged,” Paul outlined.
He said Ricky was very interested in being involved with it because of his love for Irish music and both agreed to set the wheels in motion.
“We came back to Ireland and started the preparation. We did our research and we looked at material from their tradition and from our tradition and we tried to figure out where the crossover might be and what material would be compatible with both our styles.
“We also identified additional musicians for the recording and picked a number of musicians we have been aware of from the Appalachian tradition, for example Aubrey Haynie, four times named fiddler of the year in America and Bryan Sutton, also four times named guitarist of the year in America. So we found ourselves working with a really interesting bunch of people,” Paul added.
The band sent out some material to America to Ricky, while they rehearsed at home for the recording last October in Nashville.
“We arrived on a Sunday and we recorded that Monday morning at Ricky Skaggs studio. Essentially, we just went into the studio and sat around in a circle and we played for four days. So there was an enormous level of interest and respect from those musicians in the Irish tradition and even though they dipped in and out of Irish music, for the most part it was a new experience for them doing an album in this fashion and working with a group of Irish musicians in doing so,” he explained.
The majority of the tracks were recorded in Nashville but some were recorded at the Irish Chamber Orchestra building at the University of Limerick before they went to America.
“We launched it in the end of March in Nashville at the Grand Ole Opery and it was a highlight of our musical careers to wind up on stage at this amazing venue, playing our music to an audience of that size. The venue is legendary and we were told by the general manager there that we were one of the few Irish bands to perform there. On the bill that night was Kenny Rogers and Ralph Stanley.
“We performed with Ricky Skaggs, who introduced us on stage to an audience of 4,400 and that was our formal launch. It was fantastic buzz and kick-started the album in America. We have been getting a great reaction there since the release and we will be going back there to tour,” Paul outlined.
“The reaction that we are getting here to the album has to do with the unique nature of the project and the quality of music on it and has all been really positive. It is a completely different and new approach, Musicians are intrigued by the connection and want to see how American musicians handle our music and how we handle the American music and how the whole cross-cultural thing is working,” he concluded.
Since the album release in Ireland, the group has plans for a number of live performances, which will include a gig in the Temple Gate Hotel on Thursday night, where they will be joined by a number of special guests for An Fleadh Nua.