Guitarist turns back to tradition
FEW in the Irish music scene can match guitarist Arty McGlynn for adaptability and genre-crossover. Born into a musical household in Omagh, Co Tyrone in the 1940s, McGlynn was a pioneer of the showband era. He was one of the first musicians to adapt Irish traditional tunes for the guitar. He was pivotal in big rock productions by Van Morrison and Paul Brady and was a much-sought session musician and studio producer in a myriad of musical styles and fashions. McGlynn is one of the headline acts at this weekend’s Ennis Trad Festival.
Now in its 18th year, this winter gathering of musicians and enthusiasts in the Co Clare town is a feast of all that’s good in trad, hosting concerts, CD launches, a ceili band competition, master classes and 100 informal sessions, and a staple of the festival, the trad-disco. Distinctiveness and diversity are the keys to Ennis’ success. So McGlynn slots right in.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” says McGlynn. “I’ll be on stage with Dublin accordion player Peter Browne and Clare fiddler Michelle O’Brien on Saturday night. I was also asked to stay on for the Monday night gig in the Old Ground Hotel, to play with the great Joe Burke and fiddler Eileen O’Brien. I only ever played with Joe once before, in the company of Frankie Gavin, a long, long time ago.
“Eileen O’Brien is the daughter of Paddy O’Brien, the accordionist and composer. They are both very famous musicians and I’m honoured to be asked to play with them.”
Arty has strong ties to Co Clare’s capital. “I used to play in showbands, at The Jet Club Ballroom,” he says. “I’ve great memories of staying in the nearby Old Ground Hotel and I also spent a lot of time there later on when my good friend Matt Molloy lived in Ennis.”
Maura O’Connell, now settled in Nashville, comes from Ennis, and over the years McGlynn has forged a close musical bond and friendship with the singer. “I work a lot with Maura and over the years she’s done an awful lot for musicians like myself,” he says. “I’ve a lot of friends in Nashville through Maura living there, and in fact I’ve just finished a tour with Tim O’Brien who lives there too. It was through Maura that I became associated with people like Tim, Jim Rooney and others. Maura has opened up many avenues for Irish singers and musicians.”
McGlynn’s traditional roots hark back to his parents’ involvement in music, with his father playing the accordion and his mother being a fiddler. “My father was a carpenter by trade but he played in a ceili band at weekends. He was a good accordion player and played in a style similar to Jackie Daly. Like Jackie, he played for dancers and dances. He was a big influence but my mother was very musical too. Her maiden name was Kearney. Felix Kearney, her brother, was a good fiddle player — he taught a lot of kids around Omagh. And their father, also Felix, was a local poet. He wrote famous songs like The Hills Above Drumquin and The Old Road from Omagh to Dromore. There was lots of music in the Kearney family.”
The accordion was McGlynn’s first instrument, and he played it from the age of five until his mother bought him his first guitar when he was 12.
“She listened to a lot of jazz and stuff, so when she got me my first guitar, which I think was an Epiphone, she knew a lot about chords and was able to tune it for me. So I went at it and never looked at the accordion again,” he says.
After a number of years playing the showband circuit, McGlynn made a ground-breaking album of traditional tunes call McGlynn’s Fancy, released in 1979. “I was in showbands from the age of 16 or 17, but I always had my ear to the Irish music. I was influenced by Seán Ó Riada’s work and also that of The Chieftains. Their first few records were fantastic and I was aware of all the tunes on them because my father played them too. So my ear was always tuned into Irish music although I was playing rock’n’roll. It changed the direction of my whole life really, making that little record,” he says.
* Ennis Trad Festival opens today and runs until November 14. Further information: www.ennistradfestival.com.
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