Kansas City’s Contribution to Ireland and Folk Rock
Here’s one I meant to link to a couple of weeks ago. It’s a feature on The Elders of Kansas City around the time of their recent gig in Tulsa, Oklahoma mostly focusing on the lads’ forthcoming trip to Ireland, as well as their formation.
In the Tulsa World frontman Ian Byrne is quoted as saying - in response to the reported reticence of the rest of the band to traveling to Ireland the first time:
“But I kept telling them, ‘No worries, lads,’ ” he said. “Because we’re not a traditional music band — we’re a folk-rock band. What we do is completely different from anything people in Ireland have heard.”
And just in case anybody got the impression from that - as I have seen in other places on the web - that Ireland is unfamiliar with folk-rock or Celtic rock, I wanted to say some things.
And Horslips
And of course since you’re all Pogues fans, you’ll know that Terry Woods was in Sweeney’s Men with Johnny Moynihan and Andy Irvine, and then Henry McCullough who had toured with Jimi Hendrix. And who on earth would argue that what they were doing in 1960-something, years before Horslips, decades before the Waterboys, the Saw Doctors or Goats Don’t Shave, was anything but Folk Rock?
I’m not suggesting that Ian is claiming to be bringing folk rock to an Ireland unfamiliar with it, but that some people have thought that to be the case and, well, they’re wrong. Very wrong. People in Ireland have been loving and hating folk rock for at least 40 years.
Music critic Simon Jones has a piece on the history of Celtic Rock. It’s in 2 parts, the first perhaps more philosophical but very much worth stating, and the second, prompted by reactions to the first, goes into specifics of bands, performances and recordings.
The Elders tour Ireland again, this time with Canada’s Enter The Haggis from February 29, 2008 to March 8, 2008.
And There’s More on This Celtic Rock Lark:
• Celtic Rock Assaults England
• Celtic Music News Podcast #63
• Celtic Music News Podcast #79
• Celtic Music News Podcast #67
• Celtic Music News Podcast #64
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
“The band started in 1997, when bassist Norm Dahlor was doing time with the Tommy Shaw Band.”
Well, only off by a year (a couple months really), on when the Elders started, accurate enough on that. But they are off by a decade with when Norm was in Tommy Shaw’s band.
Yep, I’ve learned to read what’s put in front of us in newspapers with a serious degree of salt, an approach that wouldn’t go astray reading Irish KC