FOLK REVOLUTION !

As we began last year, so we end 2009 -
as we hear the sad news of Liam Clancy's passing.

From the Irish Times website:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/
obituaries/2009/1205/1224260145986.html

Last survivor of legendary Clancy Brothers
with special voice for a ballad

LIAM CLANCY: LIAM CLANCY, who has died aged 74,
was the last surviving member of the Clancy
Brothers and Tommy Makem, the band which
revitalised Irish traditional music by blending
showbusiness with the folk tradition.

The group, described by Gay Byrne as the
"most famous four Irishmen in the world",
recorded 55 albums which sold in their millions
around the world.

Liam Clancy later played in other formations
before enjoying a successful solo career.

Bob Dylan said: "I never heard a singer as good
as him ever. He was just the best ballad singer
I ever heard in my life, still is probably."

Born in Carrick-on-Suir in 1935, he was one of
the 11 children of Robert Joseph Clancy and
Joanna McGrath. He was educated by the Christian Brothers.

Working in the insurance business in Dublin, he
attended night classes at the National College
of Art. He also enrolled in Brendan Smith's
acting school, and had a small part in a
production of The Playboy of the Western World
which starred Siobhán McKenna and Cyril Cusack.

At home in Carrick-on-Suir he met Diane Hamilton
Guggenheim, who visited the town to record his
mother's singing. By now unemployed, he
accompanied Hamilton on her travels through Ireland.

It was in 1955, when Hamilton visited Keady,
that Clancy first met Tommy Makem, son of
the renowned singer Sarah Makem.

Clancy decided to try his luck as an actor in New York.
His adventure began in Greenwich Village, where
he stayed with his brother Paddy and his wife.

A small part in a stage production of The Countess Cathleen
was followed by minor roles in short films and television dramas.

He began to frequent the White Horse Tavern in
the Village, where Dylan Thomas famously
had his last drink. There he rubbed shoulders
with jazz and folk musicians, writers
and aspiring actors like himself.

But it was difficult to make a living as an actor,
and singing took over. Clancy was reunited with
Makem in New York. Along with Makem, and his
brothers Pat and Tom, in 1959 he recorded
The Rising of the Moon, an album of republican ballads.

Now performing as a group, they built up a
following through live performances in Boston,
Chicago and New York. A 16-minute appearance on
The Ed Sullivan Show on St Patrick's Day in 1961
brought them to national attention and they were
signed to Columbia Records.

Under the shrewd management of Marty Erlichman
and Lenny Rosenfeld, the Clancys went from
strength to strength. Dressed in Aran sweaters
and belting out songs with great gusto,
they broke from the standard Irish-American
repertoire, and introduced songs like Jug of
Punch, Shoals of Herring and Leaving of
Liverpool, to young folk audiences.

They brought a new consciousness to Irish music
and, in Clancy's words, made it "respectable
again for so-called respectable people
to sing working-class songs".

In 1973 he left the group to pursue a solo career.
He moved to Calgary, Alberta, where he became
an established television performer.

In 1974 Clancy and Makem were booked to perform
separately in Cleveland, Ohio. Persuaded to do
one set together, they soon afterwards became
Makem and Clancy, recording touring as a duo
until 1988. They made Eric Bogle's song
And the Band played Waltzing Matilda their own.
In the mid-1980s they teamed up with
the other Clancys for a reunion tour.

It was a mixed blessing for Clancy. "One of the
great things I discovered about working solo,"
he said in April 2007, "is that all my life I'd
worked with other people, and I was looking over
my shoulder. There had to be a certain amount of
approval. There was always a pecking order,
especially when you're working with family.
But they all died off, and I got to the top of
the pecking order, with nobody looking over my shoulder.
There's a great sense of freedom about that."

After his brother Tom's death in 1990, he teamed
up with his brothers Paddy and Bobby and nephew
Robbie O'Connell, though he still performed
shows with his Fayreweather Band as well as
with the Phil Coulter Orchestra.

He almost stole the show in Martin Scorsese's
award-winning documentary on Bob Dylan,
No Direction Home, made in 2004. He went on
to feature in Alan Gilsenans documentary
The Legend of Liam Clancy, which won
an Ifta award in 2007.

In recent years he ran a recording studio in
Ring, Co Waterford, where he lived. His most
recent album The Wheels of Life, released this
year, features duets with Mary Black and Gemma
Hayes, along with tracks by Tom Paxton and Donovan.

He is survived by his wife Kim, daughters Fiona
and Siobhán and sons Eben and Dónal, as well as
his daughter Anya from a previous relationship.

Liam Clancy: born September 2nd, 1935;
died December 4th, 2009


************************************************
************************************************

Listen to one of Ireland's very best banjo players,
Gerry O'Connor from Nenagh, Co. Tipperary.


TO HEAR HIM, PRESS THE LINK BELOW !