Ahead of its announcement tonight, SIOBHÁN LONGlooks at the list of winners in the tenth TG4 Gradam Ceoil (Traditional Music Awards) and talks to surreal songwriter Con 'Fada' Ó Drisceoil, an imaginative choice as Traditional Composer of the Year
THE ART OF MUSICAL composition can take many forms. From the formal notation of a Mozart concerto to the oral transmission of a new tune written in a traditional idiom, music finds its own home, in concert halls, kitchens, wide open plains and backroom snugs. Since their foundation in 1999, TG4’s Gradam Ceoil (Traditional Music Awards) have honoured a host of composers, including Brendan Tonra, Richie Dwyer, Charlie Lennon, Jim McGrath, Peadar Ó Riada and others whose métier is primarily that of tune or suite compositions.
This year, the Traditional Composer of the Year award winner is primarily a wordsmith. He's a man who revels in a surreal world where canine neutering, demonic spoons players, Shakespearean drama and the prophylactic properties of accordion-shaped, tequila-drenched cakes are all equal and fit subjects. Comic songs are a breed apart which, at their best, can skewer some insignificant event or cast a leery eye on subjects too often intimidating to their students (such as King Lear). They can also turn daily life on its head, so that listeners see and hear it from an altogether different perspective. Visit any singing circle, from Dublin's Clé Club or An Góilín to the Cork Singers Club, and revel in the rhyming couplets that wed the unlikeliest of bedfellows (Mona Lisa and Condoleezza, Vera and Al Jazeera, pipers and vipers, and, wait for it, oesophagus and "offered us"). It is called poetic licence and Con "Fada" Ó Drisceoil is the master of it, bar none.
A teacher by profession, Ó Drisceoil, who lives in Cork, took early retirement last year, so it's likely that his output will become even more prolific than it already is. The publication, in 2006, by Craft Recordings, of his first collection of songs took the form of both a book and a CD, called The Spoons Murder and Other Mysteries. It's already a collector's item, as comic songwriters are often strangers to the recording studio, many of them not given to airing their compositions anywhere but at a live (and lively) session. After years of regaling not only his fellow comrades in The Four Star Trio (with whom Ó Drisceoil plays a formidable accordion) but rafts of hungry radio listeners from Miltown Malbay to Malin Head, Con "Fada" wisely gathered a dozen of his finest lyrical conundrums under the one title. But despite the evident success he enjoys plying his wily trade in witty observation and canny puns, Ó Drisceoil seems amazed at the news of his Gradam Ceoil award.
“I can tell you, I got a bit of a shock when I heard it,” he says, laughing down the phone from his home in Cork. “For one thing, the Composer of the Year, or Cumadóir na Bliana, has always been a music composer rather than a songwriter. But it’s great news anyway.”
Ó DRISCEOIL SEES himself as a member of a dispersed amalgam of songwriters and chroniclers of local life and, with any luck, local mischief.
“Every town in Ireland has its local bard,” he suggests. “Most are unknown outside their own area – and I wouldn’t call it a subculture because that would demean it – but there’s a certain element of it not being recognised, I suppose.”
A perplexing facet of the world of traditional music is the tendency to sunder songs and tunes as if they bear no kinship whatsoever to one another. The late Frank Harte, one of the finest collectors and singers this country has ever produced, remarked mirthfully that musicians saw singers as useful fillers who could keep an audience distracted when the call of nature came and the musician had to exit (briefly) stage left, but that they saw little else of value in their repertoire. This musical apartheid puzzles Ó Drisceoil too, particularly as he’s both a musician and a singer, and doesn’t view the two facets of his musical personality as irreconcilable in any way.
“Back in the 1970s, it was taken for granted that you’d have a mix of tunes and songs in any session,” he recalls, “and there was no sense of ‘them and us’ – but something happened since then, which I think might be due to a bit of over-enthusiasm on both sides. All of a sudden musicians began to see singers as a bit of a threat. They seemed to think that if you let them sing a song, they’d take over the whole bloody night, and vice versa. It was an unfortunate development all right, and I’m caught in the middle. I find myself that if I go to a song festival or a singing weekend, after one day of it, I’m dying for a couple of tunes.”
The singer’s need to connect with an audience is one that can often dictate the success or otherwise of a performance. For comic singers, that umbilical cord is even more crucial, Ó Drisceoil admits.
“That’s true for all singers, but it’s a lot more obvious with a comic song, because if you’re met with a stony silence it means that you’re a disaster,” he says. “The comedian is like that too. He’s more vulnerable than anyone else really.”
Ó Drisceoil’s early experiences as a student in UCC undoubtedly proved a significant influence on his (then) slow-burning songwriting instincts.
"I was studying Irish and English", he says, "and I hung around with the literary set and a lot of the poets, such as Michael Davitt and Liam Ó Muirthile, were of my generation. Then a couple of things happened. First of all, there was my exposure to the wordplay they use in the Gaeltacht of west Kerry and later of Cúl Aodh and Muskerry. I remember one night that Seán Ó Riada brought Cór Cúl Aodha up to the Aula Maxima in UCC, and they were singing some of the big songs, such as Seán Ó Dhuibhir An Ghleannaand Aisling Gheal, but they were also singing the comic songs, mainly local ones in both Irish and English. So in the midst of these big dignified songs, there were these songs that were very funny and, of course, they were knocking great craic out of them. Then, a couple of years later, when I started hanging around in the Phoenix bar, people like Jimmy Crowley were there, and they were actually writing comic songs. All of a sudden I thought 'I'd love to have a go at that'."
Ó DRISCEOIL WRITES with great flourishes in the introduction to his book and CD about the riches he gleaned from listening to everyone from Percy French and Gilbert and Sullivan to Seán Ó Riada and Lennon and McCartney. In conversation, he also doffs his cap to the surreal delights of Flann O’Brien, whose writings he devoured.
His own musical journey has taken him down many bothareens, but one thing of which he’s certain is that his influences have been diverse, despite an early attempt to shut out many of them.
“When you first get involved in something, you have the zeal of the newly converted,” he says. “I didn’t want to know about anything apart from strictly traditional music and song during my twenties. I suppose when you’re young, you tend to be very intolerant. The young blues player only wants to listen to all the great bluesmen. As I matured, I realised that all the other music that was in my background does have a relevance. I suppose we get more broad-minded as we get older – or at least I hope we do anyway.”
Ó Drisceoil may have one advantage over some other singers in that he is a musician as well, and so can navigate the intricacies of a tune without hesitation. Now that he’s retired, with a little more time on his hands, he’s pondering the possibilities of not only augmenting his song repertoire but also, possibly, of venturing into the world of tune composition.
“More and more, I’d like to compose my own airs,” he admits, with a hint of reluctance. “Now, it’s very hard to compose an original air – one that’s good, anyway. I’ve written one or two songs lately, and I can play them on the box as tunes as well. You see, the beauty of the tunes is that you can play them in a music session and pretend you heard them from some auld fella. Say nothing and see how they go!”
- The 2009 TG4 Gradam Ceoil Awards ceremony will take place in Wexford Opera House on Sat, April 4. For bookings, telephone 053-9122144
Bob's Song
– Con "Fada" Ó Drisceoil's tale of canine neutering
I sing of a dog they call Bob in this mournful rhyme;
By a surgical blade he was spayed while still in his prime.
He was properly vexed when his sexual ambitions were foiled,
He's deprived of romance, and his chances of passion are spoiled.
He put up with no slurs from those curs who came looking for a fight:
One growl at those whelps, and they'd yelp and directly take flight;
But since losing his cluster, he's flustered and shaking with fear;
With his courage gone limp, he's a wimp, without conjugal gear.
TG4 Gradam Ceoil (Traditional Music Awards) 2009 winners in full
Traditional Musician of the Year: Charlie Harris
Harris is a Limerick-born accordion player who was heavily influenced by the playing of the late Joe Cooley. An unassuming man, he is widely respected for his musicianship and is regarded as a supreme stalwart of the music.
Young Traditional Musician of the Year: Conor McEvoy
From a very young age McEvoy studied in depth the music of great Sligo players such as Michael Coleman. He displays great understanding of the music for someone of his years and is creating an awareness of the work of past generations within a younger circle of musicians.
Composer of the Year: Con "Fada" Ó Drisceoil(see interview above)
Lifetime Achievement Award: Roger Sherlock
Sherlock is a native of the rich musical area that straddles Mayo-Sligo, and now lives in Co Meath. He is highly respected as a player and was a central figure in London for many years, giving younger musicians help and advice.
Traditional Singer of the Year: Sarah Anne O'Neill
O'Neill embodies the rich Tyrone singing tradition, and is a member of an illustrious singing family. Her musical influence extends not just to her own locality but to the whole country, and her singing style and huge repertoire of songs are held in high regard.
Musicians' Award: Reg Hall
Hall recorded many of the main players in London and wrote sleeve notes for a host of records. He is currently completing a book about the history of Irish music in London. He has donated 400 of his own original tapes to the British Library. His pioneering work is of immense artistic and historical value, providing a rare archive of recordings from a time when Irish music was thriving in London.
