The King of folk leads Scullion in a musical celebration

As Philip King takes to the stage with Scullion at a musical celebration hosted by UCC, he tells Ed Power how his studies there helped shape him as an artist

PHILIP King stands outside London’s Royal Albert Hall, lost in thought.

The musician turned TV producer is reflecting on the past — specifically the musical education he received at University College Cork in the early 1970s. With his folk band, Scullion, playing a headline show in the city tonight, this period of his life has been much in his mind. It was hugely influential in shaping him as an artist and as a film-maker. He owes much of his musical outlook to his years in Cork.

“It was a very formative experience for me,” he says. “I went to UCC at an interesting time, around 1970, 1971. There was a very powerful thing going on across the University and the City in that period. [Iconic composer] Seán Ó Riada had been teaching in UCC. He died in 1971. His influence was very much still in the air. There was a lot happening. I feel lucky to have been around it.”

King, 61, is in London for discussions regarding a forthcoming event he is helping curate at Royal Albert Hall (he is sworn to silence until April). It’s been a busy year for the Cork-born, Kerry-based impresario. The latest season of Other Voices, the intimate concert series shot in Dingle and Derry, will air on RTÉ shortly, with a typically impressive line-up (including Polica, East India Youth and Ásgeir). And then there is the weekend’s Scullion concert, for which he will reunite with bandmates Sonny Condell and Robbie Overson. Part of UCC’s Fuaim festival, it sees Scullion share a bill with chanteuse Julie Feeney at Cork Opera House.

King recalls how he first met Condell in UCC’s Kampus Kitchen.

“It was a very exciting time to be in Cork. Along with everything in UCC, you had Rory Gallagher and that whole Blues thing coming through. And there were groups such as the Lee Valley String Band, part of that new wave of players influenced by Americana. It was a rich musical landscape. You sensed change in the air — a feeling anything was possible.”

He vividly recalls attending a concert by the original incarnation of the ‘progressive trad’ band Planxty, featuring Christy Moore and Donal Lunny, at Cork City Hall. It led King to reconsider his relationship with folk music and ultimately motivated him to start Scullion, an outfit which, like Planxty, blended the ancient and modern to often dizzying effect.

“We watched them supporting Donovan. It was as if we were hearing something for the first time. They had brought [traditional music] to a new generation. It introduced those forms of playing it to a different audience.”

In the hallowed halls of UCC a similarly progressive outlook held sway — with composers such as Aloys Fleischmann and Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin (later to establish the Irish World Music Academy of Music and Dance at University of Limerick) building on Ó Riada’s achievements. They also paved the way for the college’s current School of Music and Theatre and its acclaimed Fuaim programme of concerts and seminars.

“It was the first time the music department of a university brought trad into the tent, as it were,” says King. “Before that, it was always regarded as outside academia.”

Scullion were mould-breakers in the ’70s and early ’80s. Drawing on experimental rock, Americana and folk, they won praise for albums such as Balance and Control and White Side of Night. Since then, King has carved a singular course. His songs have been covered by Sinead O’Connor and Dead Can Dance. In the ’80s he set up a television production company, and made the acclaimed documentary series Bringing It All Back Home, an exploration of the links between Irish and American music for which he received an Emmy. He was later nominated for a Grammy for his study of musician (and U2 producer) Daniel Lanois, Rocky World.

He discerns a direct link between the open-mindedness of his student days and the free-thinking atmosphere of UCC today, as underscored by the popularity of the Fuaim programme in the last five years. He points to acclaimed newcomers The Gloaming, fronted by UCC traditional artist in residence, Iarla Ó Lionaird, as an example of the past and the present coming together.

“It’s very interesting the way The Gloaming has become the ‘seed’ once more,” he says. “As with Planxty they have brought in a whole generation of people who would never have listened to that genre previously. Fuaim is a celebration of this approach to music.”

Scullion, though not active on an ongoing basis, remain a living concern (releasing an album as recently as 2012).

“Sometimes the gaps are longer than others,” says King. “We always continue to play. To be able to get up on stage is an important part of my life. I hope it will continue as long as possible. I love it — and it’s a great honour to get to perform at Fuaim.”

He feels the education he received at UCC helped inform the values he brings to Other Voices, which returns to television on March 30.

“It’s brilliant to see a whole new generation coming through,” he says. “We had The Gloaming in Derry and, in Dingle, Hozier, who studied music at Trinity but is essentially a soul singer from Wicklow. What Fuaim and the music department at UCC does is open doors and encourage people to broaden their horizons. They have been enormously influential.”

* Scullion play the Fuaim opening gala concert at Cork Opera House tonight.