57 f
Once I was about 16 I started going to these places on my own, but the introduc- tion to the place was always through my parents. They were big into the music, though they didn’t play. My mother loved to dance, so we’d go to a lot of the dances, and once I was able to play I was often with the band. I got to know these people when I was really young, so when I was 15- 16 my parents were quite comfortable with me going out.”
Irish sessions in London were infor- mally put together. “There was usually a regular or two, who I suspect were paid to be there because you’d be sure of seeing them. The Favourite on Sundays, for exam- ple, was Jimmy Power’s session, and Reg Hall was usually there. And then who else would show up? It could be anyone – somebody visiting from Ireland, or some- one like Lucy Farr, Julia Clifford, or Martin Byrnes. Jimmy would usually do a few tunes with Reg, then he might get Martin to come up to play with them, and after a few sets of tunes Jimmy might say, ‘Martin, would you like to play a couple on your own?’ After that Jimmy would look around to see who else was in. And it was the same routine – a few tunes with the lads, a few on their own, then he’d get down and have a pint, and near the end they’d get Martin back up and if I was there I might get up with him, so in the last twenty minutes you might have five or six people playing together.”
“It was kind of
managed, but not like an English folk club. There wasn’t anyone saying ‘OK, he’s going to do two songs, and you’re on next’. It was just someone would play a tune, then put down their instrument and go for a pint or a pee, and Jimmy would just say ‘Micheál, do you fancy coming up and giving us a song?’ And Micheál would probably wave him off with something like ‘Jeez, I’m only just in the door.’ ‘You’ll sing later, will you?’ ‘I will – but let me have a pint first’. That kind of crack.”
“At the same time Jimmy did a great job of keeping the flow going – he always managed to turn it into a great couple of hours of entertaining music. Often it would spill out into the street afterwards, when the pub shut at 2 p.m. or so, as they had to do back then. Everybody
would be on the street and quite often, if the weather was decent, the music would start up again. They’d sit outside the pub and start playing, and maybe even danc- ing. One of the covers of Paddy In The Smoke [Irish dance music from a London Pub – Topic, 1968/1997] has people danc- ing outside the Favourite.”
was probably four of those five living in London then. And there was a whole bunch of guys who wouldn’t be anywhere near the top five but they’d be really good. Maybe they only knew a small repertoire, or maybe they were very shy, or maybe they felt like ‘there’s half a dozen really good players here, I’m not going to upset the apple-cart by joining in, I’d just bring the level down.’ If you can’t make it better, stay out – a lot would feel like that.“
“T
“There were musicians like Con Curtin, Edmund Murphy, Paddy Malynn, Joe Whelan and his brother Michael, two
here was loads of music. If you picked your top five players on any instrument – fiddle, flute, accordeon – there
great accordeon players from Offaly. John Carty – the dad of John Carty that’s playing now – played the fiddle, the flute and the banjo, like young Johnny. He was great on them all. And a guy called Mick Woods, who was in show bands but was a great traditional player as well. They’re all peo- ple that most fellas following traditional music today would never have heard of. But I learned a lot of tunes from them, and a lot about the music. And of course regional styles. You often learned about the regional style from the run-of-the-mill players rather than the best ones, who usually had a unique twist on it that made them stick out a bit.”
According to Kevin there were plenty of women involved. The two he recalls most clearly are Lucy Farr and Julia Clif- ford. “Julia came from Kerry – the sister of Denis Murphy, one of the great Kerry players. They were taught by Padraig O’Keeffe, another legendary Kerry fiddler. She was married to John Clifford, who played accordeon but was completely out- classed musically by Julia. That was a case of the man taking a secondary role. Their son Billy was a very good flute player, but Julia was looked at as the principal musi- cian in the house. She was a very hum- ble woman, and wouldn’t present herself like she was a big shot. It was always a pleasure to see her playing because the Kerry music was very dif- ferent – different repertoire and slightly different sounds and rhythms. So it was always intriguing to hear her on her own. When she was with everyone else she’d play the standard session tune, but on her own it would be her Kerry music.”
On An Evening With Kevin Burke, Lucy Farr is evoked in the introduction to Lucy’s Fling Medley – first recorded on Portland, Kevin made the album with Bothy Band col- league Mícheál Ó Domhnhaill in 1982 not long after the band split up and they both moved to Oregon. “Lucy was a very good player, and a great source. She had a head full of music – all kinds of tunes, and versions. Sometimes it was just a different take on a well-known piece of music, or sometimes it was a really obscure tune. In
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