Keeping in key with Dad
Christie Hennessy’s daughter on his children’s stage show which celebrates their father’s legacy with his fans
BY day he was up and down ladders, working on building sites and painting houses to keep the wolves from his young family’s door. But by night Christie Hennessey was where he belonged, in the spotlight, thrilling audiences with songs and stories, in pubs and working men’s clubs around Britain. The rough, hand-to-mouth life demanded of any solo musician trying to claw their way to the big time in the famously ruthless music business has pushed many a showman give up on their dreams — but not Christie Hennessy.
Certainly, he had the odds stacked against him. His dad died when he was six, and he left school in his native Tralee —dyslexic and unable to read or write — aged 11. He found himself in London, on building sites, sending money back home.
But it was here he got his biggest break of all, when at the age of 18, he found his soulmate and greatest cheerleader — his wife Gill.
Next came his children Hermione, now 52, Amber, 46 and ‘baby’ Tim, now 32 — who would be just as instrumental in their father’s career success as he would be in theirs.
For the world might never have known Christie and his soul-stirring body of music — gems like Christy Moore’s Don’t Forget Your Shovel and Francis Black’s All The Lies That You Told Me — if it wasn’t for his unwavering wife and family behind the scenes, willing him on when the world was against him, towards his richly-deserved destiny.
It’s been more than ten years since singing legend Christie was taken far too soon from his beloved family and millions of fans around the world at the age of 62.
But now his fans are in for the treat of their lives as Amber, Hermione and Tim take to the road for a series of intimate gigs.
And it certainly wasn’t from the ground that the trio licked their own musical talents going on to enjoy wonderfully successful and varied musical careers as artists and managers.
Fans of Christie are already very familiar with Hermione, who regularly joined her father on stage and whose album — Songs My Father Taught Me — topped the charts for five weeks in 2011.
‘I have recordings of myself and dad on a reel singing You’re The Lady and I would do the girl’s part,’ smiles Hermione.
‘I was two and he was in his studio where his drums were and he’d just started playing guitar — that’s when it started when I was tiny. I started on the piano when I was five.
‘My great grandad was a concert pianist and his piano was up for grabs and dad agreed to take it into the flat if I promised to play it.
‘Dad made sure I practised but mainly he made it fun. Everything with dad was fun and he was a very considered person. He tried to make everyone happy and he had a joke and a smile for everyone.’
It was this intrinsic goodness, coupled with his then undiagnosed dyslexia, which left him at the mercy of cut-throat music producers, that in many ways held Christie back as a young musician trying to carve out a solo career, while also juggling his family responsibilities.
Hermione remembers: ‘He was such a devoted dad and devoted to everything he loved — up at 5am doing ironing, making us breakfast.
‘He’d be on the sites painting people’s houses all day until 6pm then come home get changed and go out to bars and come home on a freight train at 2am for two hours sleep and up again.’
But out on the road, Christie found himself being taken advantage of — and Hermione remembers plenty of horror stories that would have triggered a lesser musician to throw in the towel.
‘He’d turn up at a gig and play and they wouldn’t pay him and he might not have the money to get home,’ she recalls. ‘His tapes would get into the wrong hands and he had some of his songs stolen and we’d be hearing some other singer on the radio, taking the glory.
‘I was only about ten or eleven, knowing how cruel this all was. I was just heartbroken as I knew how dedicated to his craft he was and how Dad was the last person who would ever try to do anyone over. He never looked for anything from anyone.’
But his wife Gill was constantly at his side, willing him on, despite the challenges of trying to raise a family in a sporadic income.
‘My mum was his first manager,’ Hermione says. ‘Preparing for this show, I’ve been going through boxes of his memorabilia and came across all her notes, calling folk clubs, organising — all that.
‘Mum was dad’s pen, although my dad was incredibly well-read and bright and unique — he devoured audio books and loved Shakespeare and Dylan Thomas but his dyslexia was an obstacle he battled through.’
SHE continues: ‘She knew he was immensely talented and had a dream whereas he never really believed he was a star — he more wanted to make a difference with his message.’
One example of this is the song Christy Moore made famous, ‘Don’t Forget Your Shovel’.
Hermione reveals: ‘The original was ‘Don’t Get Yourself A Shovel’ — and Dad’s real meaning was the Irish are worth more than just being labourers and useful for laying down traintracks, that they have incredible gifts.
‘Christy asked him could he change it and he was happy enough to do that and loved Christy’s version.
‘For my dad it wasn’t a narcissistic, egotistical perspective and my mum knew that.
‘She didn’t give a damn about money. She fell in love with a gentleman of integrity who happened to be fabulously handsome.
‘Once I remember at Christmastime a vile man left him short and she said, simply: “Oh well, I’ll find old toys and make clothes to give to the girls”. Money doesn’t make a man — wealth doesn’t matter — it’s about having regard for others.’
Just as the ducks were lining up for Christie and he being taken seriously as a force to be reckoned with on the music scene — when he was in his 30s — he had a nervous breakdown, just as he was about to go off on tour with Clannad.
Hermione reveals: ‘He had been juggling so much with work and the constant letdowns for a few years — nobody could cope with that.
‘It’s a ruthless cut-throat business. You have to have major mettle and know everyone is out for themselves. He couldn’t do it any more, so he stopped.
‘He got so sick, they wanted to take him away but mum got him through. The music business sent him mad in a way.’
But slowly, with his family by his side, Christie got better.
And just as he did, Hermione left school and put her jazz studies on hold so she could forge a career for herself in music promotions and entertainment.
A daddy’s girl at heart, she confesses: ‘I really was on a mission — I got into this business to try make Daddy a star. Of course, he was also pushing me to make records and long
before Eva Cassidy, he was telling me to make those records.’
Hermione’s siblings also caught the bug with Amber playing violin and a keen composer and Tim playing sax, piano, guitar and drums. But a 19-year-old Hermione put her father’s career before her own.
‘I didn’t put my life on hold for him. It’s always been about family in our house and for family you always make sacrifices,’ she says.
‘I spent my early years singing along to his playing while wishing and wanting him to be a star.
‘My dad had invested everything and received so little in return that I desperately wanted him to receive the recognition he deserved. I really wanted his life to change.’
And Hermione proved to be her dad’s touchstone. She was running the show as his manager when he signed to U2’s Mother Records at the age of 47 and released The Rehearsal, the first of ten multi-platinum selling albums.
After that, he was the darling of Ireland, playing sold-out concert halls, and a hugely-popular guest on Irish TV shows in the 1990s and 2000s.
HE later signed with Warner Records Ireland and was crowned one of the eldest performers to ever receive the Best New Artist award, at the 1992 IRMAs.
Sadly, Christie died in 2007 after contracting a fatal lung disease called mesothelioma, caused by exposure to asbestos on building sites when he was younger, prompting a successful legal action by Hermione’s mother Gill against his former employers.
His fans couldn’t get enough of Hermione’s tribute to her father with her album, Songs My Father Taught Me — also a family affair, with Tim producing and directing as well as playing multiple instruments alongside Amber on violin.
And now his children are back together for Hennessy, celebrating their dad’s career and sharing his songs and stories with those who made him a star. Hermione smiles: ‘We miss our dad every day. Coming together to perform as Hennessy seems the best way for us to honour him — both through his music and our own personal memories.
‘That we are going to be at the Cork Opera House — a place that was so special and meant so much to dad — on Father’s Day, chatting, sharing memories with a few surprises and singing dad’s songs and his own favourite songs for his fans who loved him — it doesn’t get much better than that.’
Hennessy: A Tribute to Christie will be at venues in Cork, Ennis, Galway, Kerry, and Dublin from June 13 to 17 with tickets from €29. Visit ticketmaster.ie