Time capsule! I was headed back to the legendary McCabes Guitar Shop in Santa Monica where, in my salad days, I had bought strings for my own guitar. I was going to hear a Scottish-Irish group who played traditional music and a singer who sang only in Gaelic.
…But let me first go back twenty-five years when two red-heads (nothing Irish about us but a tremendous affection for the culture) were traveling south from Dublin, staying at small-money B & Bs, hoping to hear the “Irish” spoken. We had stopped in Cork for a couple of nights before heading south to Dingle, enjoying Irish hospitality and Irish humor. As an example:
First night in a Cork B & B, room top of the stairs, no key…who needed a key? We’d come in late after a long day of touring, climbed to the second floor, turned right instead of left, and opened the wrong door. By clear moonlight through the uncurtained window, we saw a man making love to his wife. We froze in embarrassment. The man looked up, saw us standing there in shock, and smiled: “…A good evening to ya’.”
We got to Dingle, drank beer in endless pubs, but never heard the Gaelic spoken.
I heard the Gaelic Friday night at McCabes. The shop has been there since 1958 exactly as it was last night — a room filled with strings, music books, instruments on every wall… McCabes fixes fiddles and strings, sells psaltries, bouzoukis (from Wikipedia: mainstay instrument of Greek music, a round body like a lute with a long neck), setars, and ouds. And I had come to hear ancient songs in an ancient language.
An enthusiastic audience, fans of traditional music, greeted Julie Fowlis and her little group who had come on tour to play the ancient music of Scotland and Ireland. Julie — young, slender and very appealing — is a master of Irish whistles (oh, the bright little sound of one of those little pennywhistles) and also — other end of the audible scale — master of the ear-punishing bagpipes.
All the songs were sung in Gaelic. Don’t try to figure out the lyrics. Our English is a “romance language,” built out of Latin so that you can make out bits of French and Italian. Gaelic is an ancient language, sharp and tongue-twisty, related to nothing you’ve ever heard. (Her CD is titled: cuilidh. Good luck.
Julie explained that although she was Scottish, there was the Irish Gaelic as well. Very few speakers still use the language, but those few keep it vibrantly alive. The UN has now included Gaelic as an official language.
So give up on understanding words and get ready for either foot-stompy rollicking highs or teary oh-so-sad ballads.
Four players of that great evening of traditional music: Eamon Doorley, Julie’s husband, playing the bouzoukai; Eamon is the son of a family with long musical tradition, many tours and many awards; Jenn Reid was the foot-thumpy fiddler; Tony Byrne played the familiar guitar; and the singer was the lovely Julie Fowlis on her second tour of the U.S., bringing her sweet voice and her Gaelic to new audiences.
Julie Fowlis is now the official traditional singer for BBC 2. Coming from a small town in Scotland, she said that she and Jenn were here to support the troubled American economy by buying out the local shopping malls — just a little warmer for an audience eagerly awaiting the music. The bouzoukai played, the fiddler fiddled, the guitar accompanied and Julie began her songs in Gaelic…which ranged from wildly spirited tunes and reels, led by the bouzoukai and Julie’s wonderful whistles, to slow, sad old songs — for one, the tale of the daughter who had lain with a lover, discovered by her father, and punished by being tied to a rock at low tide to be drowned. (Today’s daughter gets her credit card taken away for a week. I guess you’d call that progress.) One fascinating song used “mouth music” puirt a beul in which voices imitated instruments and the only song not ancient was a translation in Gaelic of a Beatles song, for which Julie was commissioned.
Last year, wanting my kids to experience our great Irish adventure, I took them back to Dublin and Galway. Fancy hotels with Polish waiters, DSL available, elegant European food… What happened? The EU happened. The lazy old days were gone; high-tech was in.
I asked Eamon if, with the modern tech, traditional music was waning. No way, he said. We were just in the wrong touristy places. Go on to the small towns and you’ll hear the music strong.
The audience was on its feet, applauding and stamping, and the final song was Julie at the bagpipes, which I now understand is performed by first a couple of hard blows to fill the bag, then an elbow to push out the air while the fingers play the tune (such as it is, if you are not a bagpipe aficionado).
If you want to hear Julie and her ancient songs in the ancient language, go to her website for a list of her CDs.
A great evening of traditional music and a heart-tugging memory trip to McCabes, when my fingers still played those frets and those strings…a memory that showed me traditional music was still alive.
03/05/09 >> 
