root salad f18 Len Graham
The former Skylark front man is still going strong in support of Irish traditional music. Vic Smith catches up.
L
en Graham learned many of the songs that he sings from his mother and his grandmother, growing up in a house that was full of music. He is a traditional singer. He’s earned his living as a professional singer since the 1980s, sometimes singing on his own, sometimes in a duo and for ten years he fronted a quartet of leading names collectively known as Skylark. He is a revivalist folk singer who won the Sean O’Boyle Cultural Traditions Award in recognition of his work in Ireland as a collector and singer. He is a folk song collector. He works with students doing their master’s degrees in traditional music and song at the University of Limerick. He is a folk music academic.
These are just a few aspects of this multi-faceted man’s total involvement with the tradition, but it all seems quite straightforward to him. “I came into it very early on and the definition of ‘folk’ or ‘traditional’ didn’t come into it until I was in my late teens. They were just what we called Irish songs. My grandmother was singing them, my mother was singing them. It wasn’t until later that I met the sort of academic people that you are talk- ing about – Hugh Shields, Tommy Munnel- ly, Robin Morton…”
He was born just at the right time; great changes had happened in County Antrim not long before he was born. Rural electrification enabled radio and televi- sion. The small Ferguson tractor revolu- tionised farms in his area, but the genera- tion were still around who remembered what life was like before.
“I missed out altogether on The Beat- les and Mick Jagger and all that stuff, you know? I was always just hanging around fleadhs and sessions with older people.” So he met Eddie Butcher and Joe Holmes and many more. The prolonged contact with these older exponents of the tradi- tion seems to have helped Len to take the long view so that he can say “Where I am living now was a Gaeltacht – the day before yesterday, you know.”
Well, a bit longer than that Len, but my opinion would be that the ability that he has to take this timeless view of things is a great asset in the world of rapid change that we live in. Certainly, it enables Len to give the sort of mesmerising perfor- mance that he gave the evening before I interviewed him. He talked about the peo- ple that he has learned his songs from, some of them dead over forty years; he managed to evoke their presence and
then sing their songs like the true master of traditional style that he is, singing in a voice that has all the qualities that one would die for.
J
Len brings those same virtues to his publications. In the 1990s there was Har- vest Home: It’s Of My Rambles… a double cassette with an accompanying 100-page booklet with clear, densely written descriptions of his local tradition accompa- nied by fine vintage photos. The same lov- ing care went into his more recent and much more ambitious Joe Holme: Here I Am Amongst You. Songs, Music And Tradi- tions Of An Ulsterman, though the process was not without its difficulties. “Well, I’d intended to do it for ages. I had all sorts of ideas about but I finally got down to it. Then I finally got a publisher which was nearly as difficult as writing it!” Four Courts Press of Dublin published it in 2010 and clearly put a major effort into what seems a very lavish product. 80 songs and 53 of Joe’s fiddle tunes are enriched by Len’s skilful commentary and by more lovely photos.
oe Holmes was, of course, a singing partner as well as a friend and he enabled Len to continue the unison singing that he had previously shared with members of his family; something that calls for great concentration and application. Both with this and with selecting the songs to be accompanied when he was in Skylark, careful thought had to be given to the choices. “We had to choose songs that would lend themselves to accompaniment where I would not have to compromise what I was doing. It’s the same with unison singing. You have to choose songs that have got a rhythm. Others, the ones that need ornamentation, are best on their own.” Of course this was not such a problem during the years, fondly remembered, that he shared performances and workshops with the storyteller John Campbell.
Len continues to be in great demand dividing his time between performances, leading workshops and giving presenta- tions on both sides of the Atlantic. He has seen great changes in Ireland and its song and music in his lifetime, so how does he see its future?
“Well, the instrumental music has never been stronger… but I can’t say the same about the singing. It takes a bit more commitment. There are some very encour- aging young people coming up, but it is not as numerous or as vibrant as the aston- ishing instrumental tradition. Singing is something more solitary, somehow.”
www.storyandsong.com F
Photo: Sean Laffey
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