Finbar still has the fire and the Furey
After 50 years on the road, Ballyfermot’s folk hero is blazing away, and happier than ever
At 71 and after a 50-year professional career, it’s heart-warming to hear Finbar Furey say ‘I’ve never felt happier with the music I’m doing than right now.’
Of course, he has enjoyed the sell-out shows at Carnegie Hall as a musician with the Clancy Brothers. He repeated that feat with The Furey Brothers and Davey Arthur. Chart success with them led to appearances on Top of the Pops, but for Finbar, his recent acclaimed solo releases please him most.
Success with those solo albums, which largely feature his own songs rather than folk standards, led to a major label offering him a UK deal.
‘I could hardly be happier about that,’ he says. ‘I’ve got great people working with me now.’ Those people include Suzanne Doyle (ex-U2 and MTV) who got Finbar the deal with BMG to re-package the last album, Paddy Dear, and release some new tracks in the UK.
The album was released in Britain last week, under the name Don’t Stop This Now. It features a couple of duets with his daughter, Áine, and songs inspired by heroes and heroines both here and gone. One such standout track is Co-exist.
The tale of its creation elicits a top-notch yarn from the Ballyfermot man. ‘I was asked to play for Sean Penn on his 50th birthday in Dublin a few years ago. It was arranged by Bono and the lads out of U2,’ he says in a decent opening gambit.
‘I’ve done a good bit of acting now and Sean is real hero of mine. I suggested to Bono instead of a party, to just bring him to O’Donoghue’s and we would be waiting upstairs.’
Finbar rang friends from The Dubliners and other folk luminaries. They were welllubricated when Penn arrived.
‘Sean arrived with his son Hopper and the U2 lads. We played everything and anything and then everybody had a go as we passed the guitars around. It was one of the great nights. They started asking me: “How can we ever repay you?” and I said to Sean: “I want nothing but to see you playing Brendan Behan. You’d be brilliant and you’re a ringer for him!”’
‘He said he’d really like to and maybe he will… but anyway a few weeks later Bono gave me this present of a white necklace and on it were the words Co-exist. Later, I was playing the banjo one night at home and the music and words for the song just came out of the air. It would never have been written without that special night, the necklace from Bono and what it stirred up in my mind.’
Finbar’s late father, Ted, introduced him to the uileann pipes when he was six and they travelled to play sessions in the west of Ireland for years as Finbar developed his skills. The family had just moved to Ballyfermot after his Traveller parents decided to settle in the west Dublin suburb.
‘My mam and dad came off the road, so we could be educated,’ he says. ‘One thing that united all our extended family, wherever we ended up, was the music. That was the bond that wasn’t broken.’
But when the time comes to put away the pipes and banjo for good, he says: ‘I look forward to getting older and sitting like the old red Indian chief, spitting on the fire to send the smoke a different way…
‘I’ll be sending the young singers, players and songwriters out into the world like the old chief would send out his warriors, and I’ll be saying: “Off you go lads, and bring back the goodies.”’
Finbar Furey begins an Irish tour in Vicar Street on May 10. www.finbarfurey.com