41 f De Dannan Man
Variations on classic Irish bands are getting even more confusing than line-ups of old American soul groups. Frankie Gavin, fresh from fiddling for Obama, sorts out Colin Irwinwith a who’s why and where the ‘n’s go.
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eldom short of words, anec- dotes, peals of laughter or bearhugs, Frankie Gavin is pos- itively overflowing with enthu- siasm and goodwill to (mostly) all when we meet on his home turf to share tea in the attractive little town Oughterard – gateway to Connemara – in the outer reaches of Co Galway in the west of Ireland. He is bursting with news of a gig he’d played a few days earlier in a small pub in the tiny village of Moneygall in Co Offaly. There weren’t many there – 30 or so in all – but one of them just happened to be that famous Irishman President Barry O’bama. Hand- picked to play a few tunes for Mr Obama while he downed a pint of Guin- ness (“I’d say it wasn’t the first one he’d had in his life,” says Frankie) and got to know the relatives he’d never met when his ancestors left Moneygall during the famine 160 years earlier.
“I had a little chat with yer man,” says Frankie nonchalantly. Yer man being the president? “Yes, he’s very amusing and witty. He knew all about how you should pour a pint of Guinness. And I got a kiss from the First Lady. She said she loved Nat King Cole so I played her Mona Lisa and she gave me a kiss. I can’t go to the local shop now without spending an hour talk- ing about it because everyone saw Michelle Obama kissing me on the nine o’clock news. She’s beautiful, y’now. Very tall, very gorgeous…”
Unbelievably, Barry is the fourth US president to be treated with a selection of fiddle tunes from Frankie Gavin. There was Jack Kennedy (who he played for as a small child when JFK visited Galway), George Bush, Bill Clinton and now Barry Obama twice – the first time was at the White House last year with De Dannan. Or at least Frankie’s version of De Dannan.
From here it gets a bfit confusing because there are currently two De Dan- nans – Frankie Gavin’s De Dannan and Alec Finn’s De Danann, who are otherwise known as…er…De Danann. Confused? You will be…
Founder members of the band back in the early 1970s, Gavin on fiddle and Finn on guitar, banjo and bouzouki nursed De Dannan through three decades of adven- tures, during which time many brilliant musicians (Johnny Moynihan, Jackie Daly, Mairtin O’Connor, etc) and wonderful singers (Dolores Keane, Mary Black, Maura O’Connell, Eleanor Shanley) passed. Finn created the rhythmic framework and Gavin the explosive flair as the band gar-
Frankie Gavin’s De Dannan
nered legendary status in Ireland and beyond, not only playing traditional music with almost incomparable grace, verve and style, but mischieviously nudging back its boundaries, too, as they embraced everything from Handel (The Arrival Of The Queen Of Sheba…In Galway!) to The Beatles (an ingenious arrangement of Hey Jude) while also taking time out to explore American Irish music of the 1930s, gospel, klezmer and Queen (Bohemian Rhapsody re-modelled as Hibernian Rhapsody).
It was quite a career they had there. Other bands came and went, numerous different musicians skipped in and out of the band, but Gavin and Finn looked solid, holding it together for 35 years until one day about eight years ago, it all went hor- ribly wrong.
“We didn’t even have a decent row,” says Frankie in some wonder. “I’m not talk- ing about fisticuffs, I’m talking about a good fecking argument – we didn’t even have that. Alec just shut it down. He walked away from it. We’d come to the end of the road.”
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nitially Frankie set up a new band Hibernian Rhapsody and, with Alec seemingly happy to let De Dannan rest in peace, all was quiet on the western front. And then, as Frankie realised the strength of the brand name, it all kicked off. “I was in De Dannan since I was 16 and in the fifth year at school when I’d take the odd afternoon off to play the Cellar Bar in Galway. It’s been my absolute life. I wouldn’t say it was my band but I nursed it along. I found all the musicians and singers – 99 percent of those in the band came through me. Alec and I were in the band together for 35 years and if he wanted to walk away from it, fine, but I was there from day one and I was still there.”
So Frankie Gavin decided he’d resurrect De Dannan with a new line-up. Trouble was Alec Finn was thinking of doing the same thing – and he’d registered the name.
“That was very hurtful,” says Gavin. “I felt I had as much right to the band name as he did and it wasn’t me who closed the band down.”
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