Martin Hayes on Dennis Cahill: 'Dennis was a buddy, a colleague, a friend'
Martin Hayes will lead a tribute to the late Dennis Cahill at the Masters of Tradition festival in Bantry. Picture: Joe Chapman
Moments before the guitarist Dennis Cahill passed away peacefully in June, The Lament for Limerick, a tune from his album with friend and collaborator Martin Hayes, was playing in the background. It was fitting that music they created together was there to comfort him at the end. The pair were inseparable for most of their adult lives.
The 68-year-old Cahill first met Hayes, the East Clare fiddler, on the south side of Chicago — where Cahill grew up — in the summer of 1985. A few years later, they formed Midnight Court, a jazz-rock fusion band. They also shared a house together. It was across the street from the Abbey Pub, a live music venue on Chicago’s north side. Musicians were constantly coming and going in the house.
“It was like Seinfeld, but it was Seinfeld for musicians,” says Hayes. “Dennis was a mysterious kind of character. He didn't give away much at first sight. He was private but kind. The words that keep rattling around in my head since he passed are ‘gentle’ and ‘thoughtful’. He was a gentle human being, discreet and elegant. We could be in the company of significant performers. It could be Sting. It could be Sineád O’Connor. We could be in big concert halls, but you always find Dennis hanging out with the tech crew. He was just as happy to slide away from the hip company so he could find himself in the company of the sound engineer. Not just some of the time. Always.”
Hayes says Cahill was quiet and reserved at distance. “Then all of a sudden, a little crack opens and the floodgates open up. Suddenly you know everything about the man. He was into having long conversations about music and politics in particular. All these Republican administrations during his lifetime were driving him bonkers. He and I ended up in the White House with President Obama in 2011. That was a great day. Suddenly all his politics had come good. There was a Democrat — who had been a senator for Illinois — as president. The world was set to right. We ended up hanging out, chatting with Obama. It was lovely.”
Cahill and Hayes scaled the heights as an acoustic duo, interpreting traditional Irish music. In 1997, they released The Lonesome Touch, the first of three albums. Along the trail, they collaborated with some greats, including Paul Simon; the Grammy-winning bluegrass and country star Ricky Skaggs; as well as the Irish Chamber Orchestra. In 2011, they co-founded the supergroup The Gloaming, along with Iarla Ó Lionáird, Thomas Bartlett and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh. As a guitar player, Cahill broke new ground.
“He had a great willingness to be ego free,” says Hayes. “He never put himself forward. Instead, he was only interested in serving the music, not how the world perceived him as a guitar player or was he getting well known or how were we being received. He was mature enough to be content playing minimalist parts sometimes, which didn't make him look like a burning guitarist. People didn't go, ‘Wow. I can't believe what he's doing there. It's amazing.’ But the results — in my own humble opinion — many times were amazing in their simplicity and emotional impact. His parts had the ability to underpin and illustrate the natural beauty in melodies.
“Dennis could burn, too. Dennis was capable on electric guitar of doing burning solos. I saw him do plenty of that. He was well capable of slamming it. When we got to do traditional music, he was thinking differently. He was a fan of Bill Frisell, for example, whose guitar playing has a deceptive simplicity to it as well. It seems simple, but of course it's not. He's never using all of the things he can do. Every now and again, he lets you know — what he's doing and what he can do, just in case you're lulled into thinking that Bill Frisell could only do simple things. Dennis had a similar take.”
Cahill’s parents emigrated to Chicago from the Dingle Peninsula. His first wife tragically died in a car crash five years after they married. He met his second wife, Mary Joyce, at the Feakle Traditional Music Festival. They were married for a decade. She was by his side when he passed away from a long illness. He wrote a tune for her: Mary’s Waltzing. They used to love dancing together in their kitchen.
Cahill has been an ever-present at the Hayes-curated Masters of Tradition festival in West Cork since its inauguration, including an appearance on the final night of the festival in 2019. To celebrate his memory, Hayes will be joined by fellow musicians for a discussion about his life and influence. Hayes has lost a soul brother, but his memory will live on.
“Dennis was a buddy, a colleague, a friend,” says Hayes. “There's a shared life and experience that no matter how I tell it, only he and I ever really know. When he passed away, I'm left being the only human being that knows that story that we had together, working our way up from the bars of Chicago to having a life on the road, understanding where we came from musically in Chicago to eventually having a career. It's a story that we share between the two of us. It was a real bond.
“It’s like having done this arduous, big climb. We were very proud of having gotten to where we got. We were grateful for how it worked out. When we would see each other, we had ways of making each other feel grateful for it. There were lots of moments — walking on a big stage or playing with [a big star] — where we’d go, ‘Can you believe it?’ The main thing for us was that we got to succeed doing exactly what we wanted to do.”
- Remembering Dennis Cahill, a discussion to celebrate the man and his music, will be held at 3.30pm, Sunday, 28 August, Bantry House, Bantry, Co Cork, as part of the annual Masters of Tradition Festival. See: www.westcorkmusic.ie
The festival’s opening concert throws the fiddler Martin Hayes together with Cork pianist Cormac McCarthy, accordion player Brian Donnellan, sean-nós singer Saileog Ní Cheannabháin and the dancer Stephanie Keane (7.30pm, Wednesday, 24 August, Maritime Hotel)
The Kathryn Tickell Trio, which is fronted by Kathryn Tickell, the highly regarded piper and BBC broadcaster from Northumberland, will perform in evocative church surroundings (7.30pm, Thursday, 25 August, St Brendan’s Church)
The shaman of sean-nós Lorcán MacMathúna will join fiddlers Sorcha Costello and Daire Bracken, pianist Catherine McHugh and pianist and fellow sean-nós singer Saileog Ní Cheannabháin for a session (7.30pm, Friday, 26 August, Bantry House)
Concertina player and dancer Caitlín Nic Gabhann and fiddler Ciarán Ó Maonaigh take to the stage alongside accordion player Derek Hickey and the legendary guitarist Steve Cooney (7.30pm, Saturday, 27 August, Bantry House)
Candlelit late-night níos déanaí provides a stage for the Cormac McCarthy Project, featuring original compositions by McCarthy, who is accompanied by fiddle player Aoife Ní Bhriain, cellist Kate Ellis and singer Nell Ní Chróinín (10.30pm, Saturday, 27 August, Bantry House)
