A Secret Garden

I often wonder how her garden is doing now?  It was my mother’s pride and joy.  Like many such an oasis in the heart of Wexford Town it was long and narrow, and nestled behind crumbling stone walls.

We hadn’t been raised in the house on John’s Road, yet I came to love it. From my mother’s garden you could see the twin diocesan church spires, the Franciscan Italianate belfry, and the sweep of the narrow streets down to the harbor.

This view gave you a sense of the town, its bloody history, and the quiet determined stoicism of its citizens.

After I had my own children I stopped going home at Christmas and instead spent a vacation there every summer.

At first this was hard – Christmas being such an integral part of the Irish psyche - but the long quiet summer days possessed their own charms.

Like many emigrants my notion of “home” was challenged; I no longer totally fit in anywhere, constantly tugged between two vital forces with the new gradually gaining ground.

And yet the old maintained its own inviolable encampment deep within my psyche. My mother’s garden came to embody that particular place.

It was a quiet spot and I was often reminded of Yeats’ “bee loud glade,” for it would be in full bloom in those mid-summer days.

The sweet pea was my favorite; with its vivid colors and seductive fragrance, I found this plant calming and loved to sit nearby. My mother, however, informed me it was invasive and had to be kept in check or “it would take over the whole place.”

The Buddleia also comes to mind. She had taken a root from my grandfather’s headstone yard. It grew there out of the very walls – she suspected it liked the limestone dust.

It certainly favored her garden and butterflies swarmed around it. I could never settle on the color of its blooms. Was it mauve or purple?

I asked her opinion on this once. She looked at me oddly and said that depended on the quality of the day’s sunlight.

Many Wexford Town people of her era were but a generation or two removed from farms and had an instinctive knowledge of nature. My parents’ greatest pleasure was a drive to a rural seaside spot on a Sunday afternoon. The slow meandering passage through the countryside seemed to replenish their souls.

Perhaps that’s why I never minded the long grueling journeys around America with Black 47 – there was always something to look at, to compare with the gentler vistas of County Wexford.

Her roses were the crowning glory of her garden. She didn’t go in for the more delicate types, although she appreciated them. No, her first requirement was that they bloom throughout the summer. And they did.

She liked to study her demesne from a glass encased “sun room,” often consulting some old gardening books. My father would sit there too, his face buried in the “racing pages” of the Independent until he dozed off in the gathering heat.

In the ensuing quiet she would plan her horticultural moves. I could always tell, for a quiet look of determination would settle on her face.

My father might be resistant – he’d wonder, for instance, why a butterfly plant or rose with such deep roots had to be moved. But she was insistent and always got her way.

Those were the last pre-digital years. News came by the morning paper and the radio. Life was slower, perhaps deeper, and certainly less frazzled.

By the time I’d return to New York my own biological clock would seem to tick a little slower and less loudly. I would have had time to reflect, and plan my own creative endeavors – what book, play, or album would I attempt in the coming year?

The house is leased out now. Tenants come and go, most with little time for the garden.

And so I often picture it – the sweet pea running riot, the Buddleia high over the walls, and the roses intertwining with each other in a riot of glorious libertarian color.

Even though she’s long gone, my mother’s garden still provides the same safe center in an ever-roiling world.

Jimmy Joyce on the Streets of New York

New York is James Joyce’s kind of town - lots of bars, fevered conversations, the occasional buyback, and many the soft touch.

Well, many more than his usual stalking grounds in Dublin, Trieste, Zurich, or Paris; it is estimated that Mr. Joyce borrowed the equivalent of $500,000 in his lifetime.

New York definitely has a soft spot in its gruff heart for Sunny Jim, and why wouldn’t it? James Joyce was the most egalitarian of writers. He described in voluminous detail exactly what Joe and Josephine Citizen were thinking, doing, and fantasizing about.

Still the man does have a rap for being difficult to comprehend. The key is to either read him aloud behind closed doors, or tread downtown to Ulysses on Stone Street on June 16^th.

Need another excuse to attend this annual Joycean shenanigan – well, pints are free between 4 and 6pm. Mr. Joyce would most definitely have approved.

What makes this particular shindig so special is its populist nature. Begun by Colum McCann and Frank McCourt fifteen years ago, the emphasis is on irregular New Yorkers declaiming their favorite passages of Ulysses.

These readings range from hilarious, droll, pedantic to just plain unintelligible, but as the booze and sunshine kick in they all mesh together into a bloody great “Blooming” afternoon.

To top it all we have Aedín Moloney and Patrick Fitzgerald! I often marvel that Joyce doesn’t come bounding out of his grave in Zurich when these two hit the outdoor stage on Stone Street.

Talk about living their parts! They positively exude the life and times of Ulysses. Mr. Joyce would have adored their devotion to substance and detail, and promptly solicited a short-term loan from each. 

Aedín is the finest Molly Bloom I’ve ever experienced and that’s saying something. There’s a fierceness to her interpretation - a willingness to wholeheartedly embrace the stark and stunning sexuality of Joyce’s greatest creation.

I’ve seen blasé men of the world blanch at her ecstatic embrace of Molly’s desires and carnal tastes.

Of late though she’s been homing in on Mrs. Bloom’s apprehension of aging, and that’s added a new dimension of courage to an already heroic character. 

Of course Molly had lost her only child and her determination not to surrender to “the glooms” has always been inspiring.

Suffice it to say that this year’s performance was Aedin’s best.

Do yourselves a favor, go to iTunes and download a copy of "Reflections of Molly Bloom" Vol. 1 and 2, with music by Paddy Moloney (The Chieftains) and Carlos Nunez.

With Aedín, piper Paddy Moloney, and Molly Bloom at home with you – what more could you ask for? Jimmy Joyce himself might even drop by for a listen – and perhaps a loan.

I’ve watched Patrick Fitzgerald since he was the young stud-star in residence at The Irish Repertory Theatre. In fact his portrayal of Christy Mahon in Playboy of the Western World back in 1990 remains my favorite.

He also played Dr. Noel Browne in my play, Rebel in the Soul, at The Rep, so I’m hardly lacking in appreciation of his acting. 

And yet nothing prepared me for this year’s fiery Bloomsday performances – both from Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake.

His timing, pitch, and attack are galvanic. I often feel that he’s channeling Joyce’s verbose, articulate and outraged father particularly in the strident “Citizen” passages. He and our expansive host Colum McCann are a great stage pairing and bring the dead soaring back to life on Stone Street. 

Patrick has written his own play 'Gibraltar: An adaptation after James Joyce's Ulysses' and performed it to acclaim in Dublin, Philadelphia, and New York.

A member of the James Joyce Foundation USA he leads a Ulysses Reading Group at the Irish Consulate on the 3^rd Tuesday of every month. Judging by the robust performances of the group’s members on Stone St., the New York Irish diplomatic day must get off to a blistering start.

Is it a coincidence that New York City has spawned the two most exciting contemporary interpreters of James Joyce?

I think not! By adding a shot of Gotham grit to Ulysses Aedín Maloney and Patrick Fitzgerald drag James Joyce roaring out of academia, and resurrect him on our raucous streets where he belongs.

Big Tom & The Jive

I played Four Roads to Glenamaddy by Big Tom recently on Celtic Crush, my SiriusXM radio show. It seemed only fitting as the Big Man had just departed this earthly coil.

I tried to highlight the importance of Mr. McBride to Ireland’s social and sexual scene back in the 1960’s through 70’s.

Everyone danced back then and if you were a genuine culchie you frequented huge ballrooms in the middle of God-Knows-Where.

Be that as it may there was a schism in the dance world. Pop bands led by the inimitable Freshmen from Ballymena competed with Country bands led by Big Tom from Castleblaney, and rarely did the twain meet!

Being a teenage musician in an “opening band” I got to experience both sides of this societal divide. 

It was great training as you got to play before a couple of thousand people who didn’t give a fiddler’s if you dropped dead as long as you kept the beat. 

You were there solely to “black the floor” so that the stars could nonchalantly stroll onstage to a full house.

And yet I recall a traumatic humbling while opening for Big Tom and The Mainliners in Adamstown Ballroom, in the far recesses of County Wexford’s back of beyond.

It had all to do with the Jive – a particular Irish form of Rockabilly social dancing. Back in those simple days dancers liked their three fast songs so that they could check out the looks, wealth, and general mobility of the opposite sex. 

That being established they then clung to their partners for three slow smooches, the closest thing to sex they were likely to experience in County Wexford.

We were not a good band. We had no problem with the smooches. But we met our Waterloo with Big Tom’s disciples, for they only wished to jive to the fast sets.

Now I knew Buddy Holly, and Rockabilly songs in general, were ideal for jiving, but around an hour into our set I had run out of such numbers with still an hour to go.

Our elderly bandleader saved the day for he had a store of old Jazz standards like Down By The Riverside, Bill Bailey, etc. that the local farmers, commercial travelers, artificial insemination agents, and shop assistants could shake a leg to.

The memory of this humiliation led me to ponder the “Jive” and just how it came to be so embedded in Irish rural culture.

For all I know it may have been invented by the Parish Priest of Cultimagh to keep virginal Irish ladies safe from the clutches of sex-mad Mayo cowboys.

But I’ve come to the conclusion that the common Jive has Harlem and ultimately African roots. But then how in the name of Our Lady of Knock did it end up ruling the roost in rural Ireland?

While researching the origins of Tap Dancing (Famine Irish meet African Americans in the Five Points) I discovered a riveting exhibition of the Lindyhop performed in the movie Hellzapoppin. 

   

Lindyhopping became popular in American ballrooms of the 1930’s. And spread like wildfire courtesy of the Duke Ellington and Count Basie orchestras.

As ever white musicians imitated the sounds and rhythms of their black brothers & sisters. Glen Miller in particular spread the word throughout Europe and when WW2 broke out and American servicemen and women hit England they took their dance-floor moves with them.

The many Irish who worked in Britain during the war years brought these dances home to parish and townsland. 

Not to be outdone Irish musicians formed “seated” big bands, until The Clipper Carlton from Co. Donegal, stood up, kicked out the jams, and laid down the onstage schematic for showbands.

Lindyhopping might have been okay for Harlem but the Irish country punter preferred a more conservative take on such moves and voila – the Jive in all its glory! 

Take my word for it, there was nothing quite like witnessing a couple of thousand sex-deprived culchies moving to the same twirling quickstep tempo.

So farewell Big Tom! You taught this smart Alec from the metropolis of Wexford a thing or two about rhythm. Safe travels down those roads to Glenamaddy, and long live the multi-cultural Jive!

Whiteys Lindy Hoppers… Hellzapoppin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahoJReiCaPk

Astral Weeks

I first heard Astral Weeks while lying in bed in the darkness of a coldwater Rathmines flat.

I was listening to BBC Radio late at night on my old transistor radio. I must have been dozing for I don’t remember any DJ introduction – just the familiar, womblike G-C-D chords of an acoustic guitar.

But there was something about the dreamy delivery that arrested by attention. And then the voice that I was so attuned to from his days with Them and Brown Eyed Girl, cut through the hushed Dublin night.

“Down on Cyprus Avenue

With a childlike vision leaping into view

Clicking clacking of the high heeled shoes

Ford and Fitzroy, Madam George…”

So many years ago now, and I have listened to that track and album so many times since.

I’m far from alone. Astral Weeks has sent a battalion of musicians galloping down the road to ruin.

Phil Lynott once told me he’d probably never have persevered on his brutal path to stardom if he hadn’t heard it. 

Midwesterner Bob Seger temporarily forsook Rock ‘n Roll and reinvented himself as a folkie under its Belfast influence; while it crippled rock critic Lester Bangs, for he knew he’d never come close musically – better instead to write a heartfelt treatise about “the greatest album ever.”

And yet, Astral Weeks was a flop at first. Warner Brothers had expected Van to deliver an album of Brown Eyed Girls and had no idea what to do with it. But Lew Merenstein, its producer, was certain that something timeless had been created.

In fact, without Lew’s guiding hand it’s unlikely we’d even be talking about Astral Weeks now.

Merenstein had come from a jazz background and was asked by Warner Brothers to go listen to Van up in Boston where the 23-year old Belfast man was hiding out. Bert Berns who had signed him to Bang Records had died suddenly, supposedly after a vitriolic phone call between them.

Berns had shady connections and “the men in suits and pinky rings” were dismayed by Morrison discarding his Brown Eyed Girl for the more sultry, cross-dressing Madam George.

Merenstein, however, was ecstatic about the new material and its jazzy free-form nature. He immediately thought of Richard Davis, the reigning double bass player on the New York scene.

Because of Van’s unwillingness to give any kind of direction, both producer and bassist, knew that the project would demand unobtrusive but adventurous musicians.

Most of those chosen had already done two sessions that day, and they assembled after dinner at Century Sound Studios on 52^nd Street. Some drink had been taken, and the studio lights were low.

Van was already seated in a vocal booth with his acoustic guitar and didn’t care to introduce himself; when the drummer, Connie Mack, inquired what the Belfast man would like him to play, he was cryptically informed, “whatever you like.”

But Merenstein and Davis were prepared. They encouraged Van to lay down his vocal and guitar tracks. Davis listened for the groove of Van’s acoustic and the metre of his vocal, and then swooped in with the musical intelligence and distinct touch that have graced hundreds of recordings. 

When he’d settled within “the pocket”, the other band members followed him. It’s still fascinating for me to hear a killer musician teetering on the edge before diving in and, within fractions of a second, nailing the groove.

The New York “pocket” is wide and deep, second only to New Orleans, and oh how that fantastic band careened around it.

Occasionally they did a second take, but they recorded most of Astral Weeks in two 3-hour sessions. No need for computers, click-tracks, or punch-ins - what you hear is what you get - the triumph of poetry over machines and banal perfection.

And when it was over Van didn’t even bid the band good night. Merenstein reckoned he was being reborn in those days. He caught no hint of the surly superstar Morrison has since become, nor any echo of the rebellious teenage leader of East Belfast’s Them.

Instead, a half-century later, so many of us are still stunned, uplifted, and in a strange manner, redeemed every time we step into the mysterious aural back streets of Astral Weeks.