Ирландиялық халық әншілері: Клэнси бірлестігінің тарихы

Irish folk band

The Clancy Brothers were an influential Irish folk music group that developed initially as a part of the American folk music revival. Most popular during the 1960s, they were famed for their Aran jumpers and are widely credited with popularising Irish traditional music in the United States and revitalising it in Ireland, contributing to an Irish folk boom with groups like the Dubliners and the Wolfe Tones. The Clancy Brothers, Paddy Clancy, Tom Clancy, and Liam Clancy, are known best for their work with Tommy Makem, recording almost two dozen albums together as The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. Makem left in 1969, the first of many changes in the group's membership. The most notable subsequent member to join was the fourth Clancy brother, Bobby. The group continued in various formations until Paddy Clancy's death in 1998. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem significantly influenced the young Bob Dylan and other artists, including Christy Moore and Paul Brady. The group was famous for its often lively arrangements of old Irish ballads, rebel and drinking songs, sea shanties, and other traditional music.

The oldest member of the group, Paddy Clancy, was born on 7 March 1922 in Carrick on Suir, County Tipperary, Ireland. Tom followed on 29 October 1924, Bobby on 14 May 1927, and youngest brother Liam Clancy on 2 September 1935. Tommy Makem was born 4 November 1932 in Keady, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. After serving in World War II in the Royal Air Force, Paddy and Tom emigrated from England to Toronto in 1947 on the S. S. Marine Flasher, accompanying 400 war brides. The only men on board were Paddy, Tom, their friend Pa Casey and the ship's sailors. Arriving in Greenwich Village in Manhattan in 1951, Tom and Paddy established themselves as successful Broadway and Off Broadway actors. They also made several television appearances. The two brothers created their own production company, Trio Productions, which led to the start of their professional singing careers. To help raise money for the company, Paddy and Tom organised late night concerts of folk songs called the 'Swapping Song Fair' (later renamed the 'Midnight Special' At this time, younger brother Bobby Clancy briefly emigrated to New York City, joining his brothers in Greenwich Village. This was the little known, first 'unofficial' line up of singing Clancy brothers. In 1955, Bobby returned home to Carrick on Suir to take over father Robert J. Clancy's insurance business, freeing youngest brother Liam Clancy to emigrate to New York City to pursue his dream of acting. Liam arrived in New York in January 1956. A month earlier, Tommy Makem emigrated to the United States from his hometown of Keady. Tommy had met Liam Clancy shortly before they both emigrated. Diane Hamilton, a friend of Paddy Clancy in New York, followed in the footsteps of her mentor, Jean Ritchie, and came to Ireland in search of rare Irish songs. Her first stop was at the Clancy household, where she recorded several members of the family, including the Clancys' mother, sisters Peg and Joan, and nineteen year old Liam Clancy. Hamilton asked Liam and recently returned Bobby Clancy to join her on a trek through Ireland to locate and record source singers. One of those source singers was Sarah Makem who had been recorded by Jean Ritchie in 1952 on a similar search for authentic Irish folk songs. Her son Tommy Makem, then twenty two, and the young Liam Clancy instantly became friends. Said Liam, "Our interests were so similar: girls, theater and music. He had told me he was going to America to try his luck at acting. We agreed to keep in touch." Tommy was recorded for the first time by Hamilton in that autumn of 1955. Among the songs he sang was "The Cobbler", which he continued to perform throughout his career.

In March 1956, Tommy Makem was unemployed. He had recently moved to Dover, New Hampshire, where many of his family members had emigrated to work in the local cotton mills. He had found a job there making printing presses but had an accident when a two ton steel press that he was guiding with his hand broke from its chain. The falling press tore the tendons from the bone in three of the fingers of his left hand. His hand in a sling, and knowing the Clancy brothers in New York, he decided that he would like to make a record with them. Paddy agreed and together he, Tom, Liam, and Tommy Makem recorded an album of Irish rebel songs, The Rising of the Moon, one of the new label's first releases. Little thought was given to continuing as a singing group. They all were busy establishing theatrical careers for themselves, in addition to their work at Tradition Records. and they made many appearances on the pub circuit in New York, Chicago, and Boston. It was at their first official gig after Come Fill Your Glass With Us that the group finally found a name for themselves. The nightclub owner asked for a name to put on the marquee, but they had not decided on one yet. Unable to agree on a name (which included suggestions like The Beggermen, The Tinkers and even The Chieftains) the owner decided for them, simply billing them as "The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem". Vawn Corrigan has stated that this was not an idle boast and that the number was probably even higher as much of the export sales of Arans happened unofficially and were not therefore properly accounted. On 12 March 1961, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem performed for around fifteen minutes in front of a television audience of forty million people for the first time on The Ed Sullivan Show. Around the same time that they recorded A Spontaneous Performance, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem cut their final, eponymous album with Tradition Records. By the end of 1962, they released a second album with Columbia, Hearty and Hellish! A Live Nightclub Performance, and they played an acclaimed concert at Carnegie Hall. Additionally, they were making appearances on major radio and television talk shows in America.

In late 1962 Ciarán Mac Mathúna, a popular radio personality in Ireland, first heard of the group while visiting America. He collected their first three Columbia albums, A Spontaneous Performance Recording, Hearty and Hellish!, and The Boys Won't Leave the Girls Alone, brought them back home to Ireland, and played them on his radio show. The broadcasts brought the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem to fame in Ireland, where they had been unknown. In Ireland, songs like "Roddy McCorley", "Kevin Barry" and "Brennan on the Moor" were slow, moving songs, but the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem had transformed those songs (some purists in Ireland argued, "commercialized") and made them lively. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem were brought over for a sold out tour of Ireland in late 1963. Popularity in England and other parts of Europe soon followed, as well as in Australia and Canada. By 1963, appearing on major talk shows in America, Canada, England, Australia and Ireland, as well as their own TV specials, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem were "the most famous four Irishmen in the world", according to Ireland's Late Late Show host Gay Byrne in a retrospective interview in 1984. Billboard Magazine reported that the group was outselling Elvis Presley in Ireland, adding that this was "a most unusual situation" for folk singers. In 1964, almost one third of all the albums sold in Ireland were Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem records. The 1960s continued to be a successful decade with the release of approximately two albums per year, all of which sold millions of copies. In 1963 they made a prestigious televised appearance in front of President John F. Kennedy. Makem rewrote an old song, "We Want No Irish Here", expressly for the occasion. The Clancy Brothers' follow up album, The First Hurrah!, also charted in the top 100 albums in the US in 1964. A single taken from that album, "The Leaving of Liverpool", was a top ten hit in Ireland. Another album, Isn't It Grand Boys, appeared on the British charts in 1965. In the mid 1960s, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem continued to release live albums: Recorded Live in Ireland, Freedom's Sons, and In Concert. In 1966, they also participated in the making of The Irish Uprising, an educational recording with music, speeches, and a historical booklet, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Uprising. The group's popularity in the 1960s was the result of several factors. There was already an American folk revival beginning in the United States, and men such as Ewan MacColl popularising old songs on the other side of the Atlantic. But it was the Clancys' boisterous performances that set them apart, taking placid classics and giving them a boost of energy and spirit (not that they took this approach with all their songs; they would still sing the true mournful ballads with due reverence). However, by the late 1960s, the ballad and folk boom was waning. In an attempt keep the Clancys profitable, Teo Macero, who usually worked on jazz albums, began producing their records for Columbia. Macero introduced new instrumentation to the Clancys' music, including bringing in Louis Killen to play back up concertina, particularly on their 1968 album of sea songs, Sing of the Sea. Their last three albums for Columbia Records in 1969 and 1970 represent a significant shift in style for the group, with a multitude of string instruments and synthesizers added to the simpler traditional Clancy mix of guitar, banjo, tin whistle, and harmonica. In 1969, the group recorded a song for a two minute long TV ad for Gulf Oil: "Bringin' Home the Oil". They adapted a traditional Scottish tune they had recorded, "The Gallant Forty Twa", with new words about large capacity supertankers. The song and commercial featured the then largest supertanker in the world, the Universe Ireland, which operated with sister ships Universe Kuwait, Universe Japan and Universe Portugal, all mentioned in the song and which operated from the seaport at Bantry Bay.

A major change occurred in 1969 when Tommy Makem amicably left the group after cutting one more album with the Clancys, The Bold Fenian Men. After a year's notice, Makem departed in April to pursue a solo career, armed with such recent compositions as "Four Green Fields", which had debuted on the 1968 album, Home Boys Home. He later explained his grounds for leaving: "The reason I wanted to leave was that I found myself in a groove—a very comfortable groove where I could make a very good living. But there was no challenge there for me anymore, and I needed that challenge to stimulate myself." Another Clancy brother, Bobby, filled Tommy Makem's vacancy as the fourth lead vocalist. Two of the Furey Brothers, Finbar and Eddie, also joined at this time as instrumentalists and back up singers. Paddy asked Finbar Furey if he would play the whistle and five string banjo with the group. Finbar also added uilleann pipes to his performances, creating a new sound for the group on stage, recordings, and TV. The six piece band recorded two new albums in the summer of 1969: Clancy Brothers Christmas, released later that year, and Flowers in the Valley, released in 1970. The latter was their final album for Columbia Records. Finbar and Eddie Furey left in 1970, and for a short time just the four brothers, Paddy, Tom, Bobby and Liam, performed together. This line up recorded only one album together, Welcome to Our House, in 1970 for their new label, Audio Fidelity Records. Later that same year, Liam and Bobby got into an argument that resulted in Bobby quitting the group. Bobby later said about his younger brother: "With Liam it was very hard to be equal. I try to make it as equal as possible and everybody's happy that way. It makes it a better sound." In 1971, the remaining Clancys recruited English folk singer Louis Killen to play the banjo, concertina, and spoons with the group. Together they made two studio albums for Audio Fidelity, Save the Land and Show Me the Way, on which they experimented with modernising their sound, musical style, and material, even including pop songs like Elton John's "Country Comfort". They recorded their final album for Audio Fidelity, the more traditional Live on St. Patrick's Day, at the Bushnell Auditorium in Hartford, Connecticut in 1972. It was released the following year. By the early 1970s, the Clancys reduced their touring schedule to five months a year. The brothers were moving in different directions, and all of them had young families at home. Paddy had moved back to Ireland in 1968. Tom began acting again, first on stage and then on film and television. He relocated to the Los Angeles area in 1975, where he landed parts in the films The Killer Elite with James Caan and Robert Duvall and Swashbuckler with Robert Shaw. At the same time, Liam wanted to step out from his older brothers' shadows. According to the 2009 feature documentary, The Yellow Bittern: The Life and Times of Liam Clancy, Paddy and Tom Clancy dominated the group in ways that Liam felt were personally limiting. He moved to Calgary, Alberta, Canada in 1972 and began a solo career when not touring with his brothers. In spite of the brothers' growing distance, the group made one more album with Killen for Vanguard Records, The Clancy Brothers' Greatest Hits, as well as several television appearances on the Irish Rovers Show in Canada and a TV special for Brockton television in 1974 (in which Bobby Clancy made a surprise guest appearance). A scheduling conflict between a tour of Australia and a television role with Tom Clancy provoked Liam to leave the group in early 1976. Tom allegedly accepted a television role over the tour of Australia, even though he had already signed a contract to do the tour. When confronted over the conflict, Liam later recalled Tom telling him, "Get off my fucking back, little brother." Soon afterwards, their sister Cait Clancy O'Connell was killed in a car crash. After the funeral in Ireland, Liam told his brothers that they would have to find a replacement for him. "I'm not going to work with you anymore—I can't be the 'little brother' anymore," Liam said, according to an interview in The Yellow Bittern. After the tour, Makem and Clancy and the Clancy Brothers and Robbie O'Connell respectively regrouped.

In 1988, the Clancy Brothers (Paddy, Tom, and Bobby) with Robbie O'Connell recorded a poorly mixed live album at St. Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire, Tunes 'n' Tales of Ireland. Bobby Clancy called this album "crap", and Paddy referred to it as "not our best effort". Regardless, the album is notable as Tom Clancy's final record. In May 1990, Tom Clancy was diagnosed with stomach cancer. When he had surgery later in the summer, Liam filled in for him during the Clancy Brothers and Robbie O'Connell's August tour. The surgery proved unsuccessful, and Tom Clancy died at the age of 66 on 7 November 1990. He left behind a wife, a son, and five daughters. His youngest daughter was only two years old at the time. With the death of Tom Clancy, Liam again stepped in full time with his brothers. This line up experienced a more active schedule than the group had during the previous decade, with appearances on Regis and Kathie Lee in 1991, 1993 and 1995, a performance at the 30th Anniversary Bob Dylan concert at Madison Square Garden in 1992, seen by 20,000 live and 200 million people worldwide on television, and the formation of Irish Festival Cruises in 1991, an annual cruise of the Caribbean with live folk music. They also brought their own tour groups to Ireland, which Robbie O'Connell continues to do to this day. The Bob Dylan concert inspired the recording of the first studio album by the Clancy Brothers in over twenty years, since 1973's Greatest Hits. Released in late 1995, Older But No Wiser introduced all newly recorded songs with the exception of "When the Ship Comes In", which the group performed at the Dylan concert. It was the only recording to feature the line up of Paddy, Bobby, Liam Clancy, and Robbie O'Connell. Older But No Wiser was the Clancy Brothers' final album. The Irish Festival Cruises had led to financial disputes between Paddy and Liam. Liam decided to leave the group because of this. Robbie O'Connell, now with the group for nineteen years, was ready for a change as well. The two left the Clancy Brothers together and formed their own duo, simply called Liam Clancy and Robbie O'Connell. Before splitting up, the Clancy brothers and Robbie O'Connell gave a Farewell Tour of Ireland and America in February and March 1996. One performance in Clonmel as part of their Irish tour was televised and later released on video and DVD as The Clancy Brothers and Robbie O'Connell: Farewell to Ireland. On the album Older But No Wiser and the concert video Farewell to Ireland, respectively, two sons of Clancy brothers made their recording debuts. Dónal Clancy, Liam's youngest son, played backup on the studio album, while Bobby's son Finbarr Clancy performed with the group on the filmed Farewell concert. Bobby was not well at this time and Finbarr was brought on, in part, to aid his father for this concert. He had first performed with the group the previous year as a replacement for his father when he had heart surgery. Finbarr did not join them for the American tour.

After the break up, Paddy and Bobby continued touring as the Clancy Brothers, with Bobby's son Finbarr Clancy becoming an official member of the group. The trio added longtime friend of Bobby's daughter Aoife, Eddie Dillon, to the group for a thirteen city engagement in early 1997. The quartet was known as the Clancy Brothers and Eddie Dillon. Eddie Dillon, a Boston based musician, is the only American ever to perform with the Clancy Brothers. Liam Clancy and Robbie O'Connell toured for a while as a duo, but very soon added Liam's son Dónal Clancy to the mix, forming the group, Clancy, O'Connell & Clancy. They released two albums together, an eponymous debut album in 1997 and an album of sea songs in 1998, The Wild and Wasteful Ocean. Robbie O'Connell regards the eponymous Clancy, O'Connell and Clancy album to be his favourite of all his recordings. In 1999, with Liam in Ireland, Robbie in Massachusetts, and Dónal in New York, the trio decided to call it quits as a full time group. They did, however, occasionally regroup for additional concerts together thereafter.

The other group members as far back as 1996 had noticed Paddy Clancy's unusual mood swings. In the spring of 1998 the cause was finally detected; Paddy had a brain tumor as well as lung cancer. His wife waited to tell him about the lung cancer, so as not to discourage him when he had a brain operation. The tumor was removed successfully, but the cancer was terminal. When he was told of the cancer, he accepted the diagnosis "with great bravery and courage", according to his wife Mary Clancy. Paddy Clancy died in the morning hours of 11 November 1998, at the age of 76. Two weeks before he died, Bobby called Liam and Paddy together to reconcile their differences—they had been at odds for two years since Liam had left the group. The two brothers did reconcile and the three brothers sang together that night at an informal session at their local pub. Two years later Liam Clancy died of pulmonary fibrosis, the same ailment that had taken his brother Bobby. He died on 4 December 2009 at the age of 74 in a hospital in Cork, Ireland. He was survived by his wife and seven children.

The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem were significant figures in the American folk revival of the early 1960s and played important roles in promoting and influencing the early development of the folk boom. In December 1964, Billboard Magazine listed the group as the eleventh best selling folk musicians in the United States based on sales figures for that year. The Clancys' friends, Peter, Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan, and Pete Seeger, also appeared on the list in first, seventh, and ninth positions, respectively. Tradition Records, the small company that Paddy Clancy ran with the help of his brothers, recorded several significant figures of the folk revival and gave some important musical figures their first start in the recording industry. Tradition produced Odetta's first solo LP, Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues. Bob Dylan later cited this album as his inspiration to become a folk singer. The success of that record helped to further finance the nascent company and led to an additional LP with Odetta on the Tradition label. After the success of her Tradition records, Vanguard records signed her to a prestigious recording contract that led to many more albums. The Clancys recorded numerous 1960s folk singers, including Jean Ritchie, Ed McCurdy, Ewan MacColl, Paul Clayton, and John Jacob Niles. Carolyn Hester's eponymous album with Tradition led to her first public recognition and her signing with Columbia Records. The Clancys also released the only album on which folk song collector Alan Lomax sang. Paddy Clancy and Tommy Makem were among the first singers to ever appear at the Newport Folk Festival in 1959. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem appeared there subsequently several times during the 1960s. The festival is renowned for introducing to a national audience a number of performers who went on to become major stars, most notably Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.

The Clancy Brothers were contemporaries of Bob Dylan, and they became friends as they played the clubs of Greenwich Village in New York in the early 1960s. Howard Sounes in his biography of Dylan describes how Dylan listened to the Clancys singing Irish rebel songs like "Roddy McCorley" which he found fascinating, not only in terms of their melodies but also their themes, structures and storytelling techniques. Although the songs were about Irish rebels, they reminded Dylan of American folk heroes. He wanted to write songs on similar themes and with equal depth. Dylan stopped Liam Clancy and Tommy Makem in the street one day in early 1962 and insisted on singing a new song he had written to the tune of "Brennan On The Moor", a song from the eponymous Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem album on Tradition Records. It was called "Rambling, Gambling Willie" and was Dylan's attempt to replicate Irish folk heroes in an American context. Dylan continued to use the melodies of songs from the Clancys' repertoire for his own lyrics several more times, including "The Leaving of Liverpool" for "Farewell To You My Own True Love", "The Parting Glass" for "Restless Farewell", and "The Patriot Game" for "With God on Our Side". In an interview with U2's Bono from 1984, Dylan recalled: "Irish music has always been a great part of my life because I used to hang out with the Clancy Brothers. They influenced me tremendously." Later in the interview he added, "[O]ne of the things I recall from that time is how great they all were—I mean there is no question, but that they were great. But Liam Clancy was always my favorite singer, as a ballad singer. I just never heard anyone as good." Dylan reiterated this view on camera for the documentary, The Story of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. Dylan never forgot his debt to the Clancys, which is why he invited them to perform at his 30th anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden. It was Dylan's wish that the party after the concert be held at Tommy Makem's Irish Pavilion, a Manhattan pub owned by Makem. At the exclusive party, attended by George Harrison and Eric Clapton among others, Liam Clancy tentatively asked Dylan if he would mind if the Clancys recorded an album of his songs, arranged in a traditional Irish style. Far from minding, Dylan was flattered by the idea: "Man, would you do that? Would you?" He added, "Liam, you don't realize, do you, man? You're my fucking hero." Although the group never made an entire album of Dylan's music, two of his songs, "When the Ship Comes In" and "Rambin' Gamblin' Willie", appeared on the final Clancy Brothers album, Older But No Wiser, three years later. The 1997 eponymous Clancy, O'Connell, and Clancy album also contained a Dylan number, "Restless Farewell".

In assessing the impact of the Clancy Brothers, Irish American author Frank McCourt wrote in 1999: "They were the first. Before them there were dance bands and show bands and céilidhe bands but not since John McCormack had Irish singers captured international attention like the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. They opened the gates to the likes of the Dubliners and the Wolfe Tones and every Irish group thereafter." In addition to performing with guitarist Ted Davis from Boston, on the show she talked about her work with Cherish the Ladies. Another of Bobby Clancy's daughters, Roisin, sometimes performs with her husband, Welsh singer Ryland Teifi. In 2006 An Post issued 75 cent stamps featuring the classic line up of Bobby, Paddy, Liam and Tommy Makem. In the brothers' hometown of Carrick on Suir, the Clancy Brothers Festival has taken place every spring since 2008 to commemorate the group's achievements and legacy. In 2010, a new theatre production about the Clancy Brothers entitled, "'Fine Girl Ye Are' – The Legendary Story of The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem", commenced a theatrical tour of Ireland. Produced and narrated by RTÉ Producer, Cathal McCabe, the show featured the Irish ballad group, The Kilkennys. The 2013 film Inside Llewyn Davis, directed by the Coen Brothers, includes a performance of the Irish song, "The Auld Triangle", by four unnamed folk singers in Aran sweaters intended to be Clancy Brother like figures. Additional characters in the film were modelled after other real life singers from the Greenwich Village folk scene in 1961, including friends of the Clancy Brothers like Tom Paxton, Bob Dylan, and Jean Ritchie. In 2018, an Aran jumper was featured in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York after it was chosen as one of the 111 most iconic fashion garments and accessories over the last century.