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President Obama, Taoiseach Brian Cowen and Speaker Nancy Pelosi with Frankie Gavin and De Dannan
and Maura O’Connell, but she brings her own style which is open to different genres. Jimmy MacCarthy described her as an Irish Ali- son Krauss, which is a nice compliment.”
Never one to shirk the opportunity to test the boundaries of the fiddle, Frankie now devotes a section of the show to an old friend and mentor, the great jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli.
“I do it as a mark of respect for what Stephane did for me,” says Frankie. “He was an amazing character. He started from the streets and his life was one tragedy after another. But he became like a musical father figure to me and taught me a lot about music and about myself. He taught me to respect music and respect other musicians, no matter what they do. That’s the perspective I come from now. I was at Stephane’s house when they laid him out after he died on the eve of his 90th birthday. The family said ‘You must have some time with Stephane’ and I sat on his bed, the same way I sat on my father’s bed when he passed away. It was an amaz- ing feeling altogether. I thought my God, what a privilege to be here with such a figure. He’d been playing the week before he died and his violins were all around him, like a shrine. I wouldn’t regard myself as a jazz player in any sense but Stephane always said you can do whatever you like, just listen, just feel the music.”
Frankie’s other great influences include Belfast fiddle player Sean McGuire. “The first time I heard Sean playing I thought jeezus, that’s it, there’s no point in me playing any more. I was about 19 or 20 then and I couldn’t take the fiddle out of the case for about 10 days because he was just so good. He was a huge influence on my playing…I always wanted to do some recordings with him but never did.”
nother of his prime musical passions is music recorded in America in the 1920s and he has a large collection from the era to prove it. “I feel like I lived through that time,” he says. “It’s probably got something to do with my father bringing home all the 78s and playing them round the house when we were children. It was a depressing time in America in the ’20s but think of the music and the heart and soul that came out of it. Nobody had work, they had to queue for food, no-one had any money, but music lifted them.”
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He gave expression to the era on De Dannan’s best-selling album Star Spangled Molly in the 1980s, which included their clas- sic re-make of the Flanagan Brothers’ My Irish Molly, sung in those days by Maura O’Connell, and now restored to the current set with Michelle Lally singing.
“I remember we did a three-week tour of Ireland which started and finished at the Olympia in Dublin which was completely sold out and sometimes we had to play My Irish Molly twice. I have Mike Flanagan’s banjo. The family gave it to me as a gift of thanks. They said us playing that song had restored his dignity. When we played in places like Albany and Syracuse in New York state the Flanagan family would turn up to see us and there’d be Mike Flanagan in his green velvet jacket and bow tie and they’d put the spotlight on him and he’d wave. We had a few sessions with him in his house – he was in his 70s or 80s then but he was still singing and playing a wee bit. His family brought him to Ireland and they all stayed at my house. Jeezus it was jammed. He got the keys to the city of Water- ford and the keys to the city of Galway. Great man.”
Gavin’s band are currently on what seems like a never-ending tour of Ireland playing all 32 counties in what they call the ‘Close & Personal Tour’ and – playing Cambridge Folk Festival this year – Frankie can’t quite believe how contented he is. “It’s an exciting time for us and I’ve never felt so privileged and happy.”
He even pays for the tea…
www.dedannan.com
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