Folk – ‘It’s good for the head’
What happens if you stay cool as a cucumber for almost half a century and just concentrate on good music?
You end up celebrating the 43rd Cork Folk Festival, a truly precious event that transcends time, recessions, genres, pandemics, nonsense, and – most recently – adjectives.
For anything to last 43 years is a big deal. We’re talking generational inheritance/appreciation of something that is buried deep in the notion of Irishness; one person – one instrument – one melody.
When you put it that way, it sounds almost fragile, but it’s anything but. Give me a machine with 3 parts against one with 300 and we’ll see which contraption lasts longer.
This year’s Cork Folk Festival kicks off on Thursday with the absolute cream of the crop of Irish folk artists, all folk-us-ing their super powers on Leeside for a weekend of guaranteed craic.
In the build-up to this year’s event, the Cork Independent caught up with organiser William Hammond, who said “pure interest in music and doggedness” are the main reasons for the festival’s continued popularity and success.
“It's been through so many lifetimes. In the early years, the ‘70s and ‘80s, it had good sponsorship and it ran along nicely. It went through Guinness to Harp to Murphy's,” explains William.
“Then it finished – we were running the festival basically on small money, very little, no sponsorship, nothing. We didn't have grants or anything like that.
“We started looking at, where could we get some money without basically selling our souls? Because, when you do sell your soul to a commercial group, you just have to give them lock, stock and barrel. You have to give everything to them.”
These days, the Cork Folk Festival is supported by the Cork City Council Arts Committee, The Arts Council, Fáilte Ireland and MTU Cork.
Asked what defines folk music and what makes it such a constant while other genres come and go, William said: “I don't know what it is, but I know that traditional people like to say that traditional music is traditional music, and folk people like to say that all folk music is folk music. The thing about folk music is that it's one person and one instrument, one person and a song, and it's trying to tell a story.
“I don't know where it all comes from. It could go back to Dylan or Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, I mean, they're the kind of people that everybody tries to emulate in their song writing, that pure, basic style – just strumming a guitar and singing.”
This year’s headlining act will be Irish icon Mary Black, accompanied by Bill Shanley, Pat Crowley, Nick Scott, Richie Buckley and Liam Bradley, with support from Gráinne Hunt at the Cork Opera House on 2 October.
Trad audiences will also be delighted to hear that Na Deise band DANÚ will feature along with legendary Chieftains’ musicians Sean Keane and Matt Molloy.
The line-up of leading traditional musicians includes 3 duos: harpist Máire Ní Chathasaigh with guitarist Chris Newman; concertina player Caitlín Nic Gabhann with fiddler Ciarán Ó Maonaigh; and guitarist Seamie O’Dowd with piper Leonard Barry.
On 30 September, Live at St Luke’s will celebrate the album launch of composer and fiddle player Clare Sands, accompanied by performances by Liz Doherty’s Fiddlesticks, North Cregg, Catriona McKay & Chris Stout, and Lena Jonsson & Johanna Juhola.
An Spailpin Fanach will host concerts by Gerry Harrington, Peter Browne, Seosaimhín Ní Bheaglaoich, Charlie Piggott, Matt Cranitch and Jackie Daly, plus Thomas McCarthy, Brendan Mulvihill, Jimmy Crowley and Eve Telford. ‘Gals at Play’ featuring 5 women composers this year will feature Mary Greene, Niamh Murphy, Sarah O’Gorman, Alannah Thornburgh and Aileen Mythen. A Celebration of Sliabh Luachra will feature Eoin Stan O’ Sullivan, Emma O’ Leary, Pat Fleming, Maura O’Connor and Bryan O’ Leary. Some might argue that the measure of a real folk song is that nobody knows who even wrote the thing. William goes along with this idea, referring to a body of work produced by a late friend of his, renowned Cork poet Paddy Galvin.
William recalls of Galvin: “He wrote a load of songs, and he wrote James Connelly songs, but he was telling me that he produced 3 CDs back in the '60s and he didn’t put his name to any song. For him, the kudos was going to a folk club and singing a song that nobody else knew, and they'd say to him, 'Where'd you get that song?', and he'd say, 'Oh, I don't know, I just picked it up'. He wouldn't tell them that he wrote it.”
Folk isn’t for everyone, and many people, when pressed, couldn’t even tell you what folk really is. William says one needs an open mind at the very least, and a bit of luck, maybe.
“You just have to open your mind to new music. I don't know – I fell into music myself purely from sitting in pubs and listening to all the musicians playing and being wowed by somebody just sitting in a pub and playing a fiddle or a flute.”
To those who love folk music in their hearts but haven’t realised it yet, William finished by saying: “Chance it . . .”