Moore, more more... why we all love Our Christy
SETS THE CAT AMONG THE PIGEONS
MY grandson Fionn discovered Christy Moore without any prompting from me. Needless to say I was thrilled. Every Irish person should know a Christy Moore song, as the tapestry he weaves includes all the ingredients of Irishness that gives us our high standing amongst entertainers around the world. And so on Tuesday my grandson attended his first live Christy performance, in Vicar Street.
I have a bit of personal history with Christy. I was up to my tonsils in the ballad boom at the end of the Sixties. Working as a cameraman in RTÉ at the time, I heard that a ballad programme was in the system and so got in touch with the producer and assured him that I was definitely the man for the job, as of that stage I was in demand as an MC at concerts in folk clubs around Ireland.
The producer, Mike Slevin, suggested that he come and see me working. He said: ‘I’ll be out there in the darkness watching you.’
When I walked on stage he was sat in the middle of the front row, sporting a fiendish grin. Somehow I passed muster and immediately quit my job to become the host of a new programme called Ballad Sheet.
About the same time Christy was working in the bank. A catastrophic and prolonged strike created a lot of short-term emigrants to the UK and amongst them was Christy.
However when the strike ended Christy didn’t come home and instead fell in with the likes of Ewan MacColl and Ian Campbell.
The first time I got up close to Christy was when he came on Ballad Sheet as a guest. He had a straggly beard and longish curly hair and it was obvious from the start that he had a kind of intensity that made him stand out from the crowd.
The Christy we saw last Tuesday is now bald but unlike Samson his strength is not in his hair, it is in his mood, his manner, his melody, his humour and that connection with his audience that he has enjoyed throughout his career.
Perhaps his greatest gift is that he totally lacks pretentiousness and will sing any of the songs he is known for without being precious.
The biggest impression he made on me was the absolute sense of enjoyment that he himself was getting from the gig and his affection for the audience.
Although he trades on serious songs, Christy is the Eminem of Irish folk. Lisdoonvarna, Weekend In Amsterdam and Joxer Goes To Stuttgart are the finest example of Irish rap and maybe somebody will be smart enough to pair Christy with Jay-Z one day!
By the By, I was in New York and I met a man who had been to see Christy in the town hall. ‘How was the gig?’ I asked him.
‘He sang a lot of sad songs and there wasn’t a green card in the house,’ the man replied.
Not content with just Christy Moore, my grandson is now into the other Christy, Christy Hennessy.
Courtesy of Aonghus McAnally’s delightful tribute show, which earned him a standing ovation at the final performance in the Bord Gáis Theatre.
Christy Hennessy, like Christy Moore, had instant communication with his audience.
It a was a soft, diffident warmth that surrounded him, and his style of singing imparted sorrow and joy on an intimate level.
There were lots of things I didn’t know about Christy Hennessy.
He could neither read nor write and it was remarkable under those circumstances that he could compose such tender love songs not to mention his humorous songs of which the most famous is Don’t Forget Your Shovel which coincidentally was made famous by our No 1 Christy.