Album launch has given me a taste for return to gigging, says Dervish’s Liam
Liam Kelly made a momentous decision to move back to Ireland 30 years ago. Now, after spending a remarkable three decades with Dervish, he has released a new solo CD.
JUST OVER 30 years ago, Sligo musician Liam Kelly was working as a draughtsman in London when he made a very bold, life-defining decision – probably the best decision he ever made.
He had a good job in London, but having had a taste of what life could be like back home during the AllIreland Fleadh in 1989, which was hosted in Sligo, he made up his mind that, whatever else he would do, he would be at home in Sligo for the 1990 World Cup finals.
He wanted to enjoy the games and the craic. It wasn’t all about playing music back in 1990 – it was much more about the games, the goals and being at home for the madness.
The music was there too, the fledgling days of Dervish. A first all-instrumental album in 1989, ‘The Boys of Sligo’, sponsored by Kevin Flannery and Aidan Mannion at the Record Room, had, if nothing else, got the music ball rolling.
That 1989 album was pressed into production largely because the Fleadh was in Sligo in 1989 and it was felt that they needed an album. There was a lot going on. Then 1990 kicked in with that summer of Pavarotti, Nessun Dorma, Ireland and Big Jack giving it more than a lash as part of the magic of the World Cup finals. It was enough to make your head spin. If you are of a certain age and lived through Italia ’90 in your 20s or 30s in particular, it was a crazy time, a great time in Sligo and everywhere else. But you had to be there. Liam, sitting in a flat in London, worked that one out for himself long before a ball was ever kicked in Rome or elsewhere
“In some ways, being at home was better than being in Italy. You got to be part of a special time – and Sligo was rocking that summer. It was magic”
and decided if he couldn’t be in Italy, the next best thing was to be in Sligo, soaking it all up.
He talks about the importance of being home for Italia ’90, but the importance of the lure of the music was never far away either.
Liam said: “I took the month off. I didn’t think much further than that. I know the boss in London wasn’t hugely impressed with me, but that’s what I did.
“In some ways, being at home was better than being in Italy. You got to be part of a very special time and, trust me, Sligo was rocking that summer. It was magic.”
His mind goes back to that Packie Bonner save from Timofte – “cue bedlam” and an entire country hugging itself for the next two weeks.
A flute player with few equals, in the same period as Italia ’90 held this country in its palm, Liam had become a founder member of world-renowned Sligo band Dervish.
But back in 1990 he was like so many of us, another Ireland fan hell-bent on ensuring he saw every Ireland game. He was home to be able to savour every kick, every save, every Olé, Olé, Olé as the country more or less went bananas.
Liam said: “You make decisions in life at times that you know are the right decisions. But you may not know exactly at the time why they are right. I know the boss back in London wasn’t hugely impressed. No, he wasn’t happy, but I made up my mind, I’d go home for the month.
“It turned out to be slightly longer than a month. I went back to London to gather my things and that was that, I was home, and I have, bar the touring, been at home ever since.” But as much as he came home for the fun and the football on the telly, he knew too that the music had been calling him home. In London, life was about work.
While he would have loved to have been part of the traditional Irish music scene in London, it simply wasn’t possible because of his day job. He said: “You couldn’t marry the two. I worked six days a week as a draughtsman and you couldn’t mix the late nights that were part and parcel of playing music with that job – it would never have worked. “So, to be honest, I played very little music in London because the music and the job I had just wouldn’t fit together.”
The music kept calling and by 1990 there was another reason to be back home. He had met a woman called Ger Mitchell, now his wife, who shared his love and enthusiasm for traditional music, but perhaps much more importantly, an enthusiasm and spirit for living life to the full.
A bank official much-loved in Ballyshannon and Sligo, she remains a force of nature.
Back then she was – certainly in Ballyshannon, where the local folk festival was the dominant summer attraction – a whirlwind of good fun and someone who seemed to be in everything but the crib. Hard to resist, Liam was smitten.
Liam is a townie, born and bred, but now he lives in a more sylvan setting in Dromahair. His father hails from nearby Sweetwood and his mum is a native of Ballymote. Dromahair is where he and his wife Ger now live a life that suits their interests and passions. Liam grew up on St Patrick’s Terrace in Sligo town, around the corner from the Hawk’s Well Theatre.
INTEREST in playing music wasn’t apparent in the family. Neither his three sisters or two brothers played music. But he found himself playing the tin whistle at eight years of age at school, where the Marist Brothers ran the show.
He also played the accordion, but it wasn’t until he was 16 that he took up playing the flute.
At Summerhill College he remembers some of the teachers being interested in music. But he points to his grandfather Robert Kelly, known as Bob, who was a very good singer, and his aunt Mary Ellen from Drumkeeran in Leitrim, who could play the fiddle, as being the catalysts who kickstarted his love for traditional music in particular.
After Summerhill he went to the then Sligo Regional Technical College, where he did construction studies. In 1985, having qualified as a draughtsman, he worked at Kevinsfort Dairies, now the Kevinsfort Estate, with his best friend’s father.
Liam said: “That kept me in Ireland for a few years, but in the mid-1980s there was a mass exodus of young people from rural areas like Sligo and by 1987 I had left Sligo to work in London.”
London was steady work, but he missed the people and the scene he left behind. He had had a sense of
what it might be like back home when he immersed himself in the hubbub of playing and enjoying the 1989 AllIreland Fleadh in his hometown. It put a taste in his mouth and he had to have more.
He cites the Fleadhs of 1989, 1990 and 1991 as “very special” and they convinced him that his life was inextricably linked to playing music for a living, but making that happen would take a little longer.
As Totò Schillaci and friends ended Ireland’s Italian odyssey, Liam didn’t quite know what lay ahead for him, but he knew one thing: he was done with London.
Becoming a professional musician
“By 1997 Dervish were flat out. Before we knew it we clocked up 30 years. I would not trade in those 30 years for anything. They have been wonderful”
may have been an idea starting to grow in the back of his mind, but it was a seed that would take more time to root. Luckily for Liam, he found himself in a group with others who also felt they could make it as a band playing music full-time.
He said that the idea of going fulltime professional really started to germinate after Cathy Jordan joined them and they knew they had a wider range with music and a strong lead singer.
He said: “We did a tour in Germany in 1993 and that gave us the bug, the sense that we could do this for a living. I always felt that if you have a job and music, there is a chance you will do neither, so I wanted to try it professionally.”
They were in fellow band member Brian McDonagh’s house when they made the decision to give it a go. The theory was that if it didn’t work out, they would return to playing part-time.
Liam said: “By 1997 we were flat out and we kept going. Before we knew where we were we had clocked up 20 years and obviously more recently 30 years, but back in 1989 when we launched that first album I never thought of music as a career. “I remember watching bands like Planxty, the Bothy Band, Stockton’s Wing. I never thought I would ever do that, but it worked and I would not trade in those 30 years for anything. They have been wonderful.”
Looking back now, it seems so obvious that this was the road he must travel. But back in 1990 there was a lot going on and it was hard to see more than a month ahead. It would have been hard to believe then that he’d be a founding member of Ireland’s internationally renowned and award-winning traditional band Dervish and an integral part of the band’s remarkable run.
IN MORE THAN 30 years as a band, an anniversary they celebrated in 2020, Dervish have produced 14 albums and have toured worldwide. Liam in that time also recorded a solo album, ‘Sweetwood’, named after his dad’s home place. With Michael Holmes on bouzouki, Donnacha Gough on bodhrán and Liam on flute, it’s a 16-track CD that stands the test of time well.
Now Liam has recorded a new album, ‘At Home With McKenna’, an amazing project in tribute to one of the first ever Irish musicians to be recorded, in the 1920s in the US, John McKenna.
At home with McKenna was recorded in John McKenna’s homestead on Tents Mountain, Tarmon, close to the village of Drumkeeran in north Leitrim.
Liam plays John McKenna’s original Concert ‘D’ flute accompanied by Kevin Brehony on piano. Both house and flute have been restored by the McKenna Society in recent years.
For the John McKenna Society it was clear from the outset when Liam played McKenna’s flute for the first time at a local McKenna session in Drumkeeran that the flute was in good hands. A mutual respect was evident between musician and instrument. Kevin Brehony, who hails from Castlebaldwin, has a long-standing empathy and a deep-rooted understanding of McKenna’s music. Kevin was first introduced to the music of John McKenna in the 1990s and has been involved with traditional music in the area ever since. Kevin has
featured on many acclaimed recordings associated with the music of Sligo and Leitrim. While the album is available as a CD and download, they are proud to also have produced a vinyl edition as a nod to the wonderful 78s recorded by McKenna in the early 1900s in New York, critically important recordings which have influenced and guided the course of flute-playing to this day.
EXPLAINING the importance of John McKenna’s contribution to Irish music, Eugene Chadbourne wrote: “This great early Irish flute player from the 1920s and ’30s was for many years known only to specialist collectors, his original 78s sought after like wads of moss off the Blarney Stone. Beginning in the late 1990s, compact disc reissues begin to surface on labels such as Topic, once again making these wonderful recordings available on a scale similar to the old days, when the release of each new John McKenna disc was a local event, and a man would “sell his last cow” before going without one, as one oldtimer recalled.
Liam said: “McKenna was one of many Irish musicians who found the only possibility of a real career as a performer upon leaving their native land for the United States. “Particularly in the Roaring Twenties, traditional players found ravingly enthusiastic, hooting and hollering audiences in the beer halls and dance parlors across America, as well as opportunities for both recording and broadcasting. In comparison, Dublin didn’t even have one recording studio of its own in the 1920s.
“His recording career spanned a period of 16 years, from 1921 to 1937. During that time he recorded 60 sides for the American companies New Republic, Vocalion, Gennett, O’ByrneDeWitt, Columbia, and Decca.”
John McKenna was renowned for the driving speed at which he played, a point not lost on Liam, who is no slouch himself on the flute. He said that having the honour of being allowed to play with one of McKenna’s lovingly restored flutes was also very special.
He said: “I listened to the 78s when the music was rerecorded and I played in tune with the John McKenna recordings, the speed was incredible; these guys were tearing up the road. “The recordings were very representative of the speed they played at. It was wonderful to attempt to match what I was hearing.”
A few weeks ago the Hawk’s Well Theatre, only a cough and a hop from Liam’s original family home in Sligo, hosted the launch of the new album. There was a live launch, before “a real audience” as Liam puts it, and it was different, but it was special.
Liam said: “Playing in front of a live audience was great, but different. I have tried to do some gigs online, but there is nothing like playing for and with people in an audience.
“There were 50 people there because of the regulations with Covid, a first gig in front of people since March 12, 2020. I was nervous, but it worked well.”
Without prompting, he opened up about how he has found lockdown as a musician, it has been tough. He said: “Lockdown hasn’t been great. One minute we were flying and then the curtain just comes down on music, the arts and drama.
“I hear people talking about how it has taken away our work, our earning capacity, which is all very true.
“But for me personally it has done more than that, it has taken away our lifestyle as musicians, the camaraderie, the chance to meet people in a pub or at a gig, the informal sessions just to play music for the hell of it, to be what we are – all of that was taken away too.
“I found that difficult. All I can do now is take it slowly, like every other musician and artist, we need to build this back up again, carefully, slowly and get it right.”
THE FUTURE for live music and musicians such as Liam Kelly of Dervish remains in the balance. Since March 2020 the ‘on hold’ button has been pressed, but Liam and others have been far from idle, this latest album a case in point.
However, it’s clear from talking to him and listening to other musicians from all genres that they need to get playing, they need the fourth wall to be live, they need the audiences. Until that happens, slowly as Liam suggests, the music remains ‘on pause’ with albums and online gigs most people’s best chance at enjoying the race of a reel, the voice of an angel or the brilliance of a flute player such as Liam Kelly.
l Liam Kelly’s new album is available at www.johnmckenna.ie
“Lockdown has taken away our lifestyle as musicians, the camaraderie, the chance to meet people in a pub or at a gig and the informal sessions”