Singer, songwriter

Category: Tours of Ireland

Notices of upcoming tours

St. Patrick’s Day Rant

I warned my readers in the beginning that this blog might contain occasional rants. So far I have kept the lid on but no longer. When I see our great rite of spring referred to as “St. Patty’s Day,” I am ready to blow a gasket. Where did this abomination come from?

St. Patrick’s Day is fine if a little formal. “St Paddy’s Day” is comfortable and unpretentious especially for those of us with a healthy skepticism of religious formality. But what kind of fiend coined “St. Patty’s Day?’ Every corpuscle of my Irish blood rebels against this Disneyized, Hallmarked, Fox-newsed abomination. Like the anemic spawn of a morning television show presenter and puerile sitcom star, this appellation has all the insincerity and triviality of a game show. I never once met a man called “Patty.” It might suit a hamburger or a peppermint but not the patron saint of Ireland even if he was a Roman Briton. This has to stop. Don’t let them get away with this.

I know that other problems like global warming and the war in Iraq and Nero in the White House may seem more pressing but 1600 hundred years of Irish history and culture are at stake here and deserve to be treated better than minced beef.

Okay, I think I’m all better now, at least until next March.

Luckily, Aoife, George and I got out to Chicago on Thursday night last to meet up with Matt & Shannon. If we had waited until Friday, we might very well have been stuck here in Providence with the snowstorm that disrupted flights for four days. We had lovely gigs Glen Ellyn, IL, Wausau, WI and Schaumburg, IL and great weather to go with them. Many of our friends on the east coast had to cancel gigs because of the weather so we felt very fortunate.

Isn’t it odd that in thirty years of traveling around the USA and Canada in the month of March, the only gigs ever cancelled due to bad weather were in Dallas, TX and Richmond, VA? We had some close calls in other places. I remember rushing off stage into a taxi on Prince Edward Island in a mad dash to the airport to get out before a blizzard hit and crunching through the snow on Third Avenue in New York when a taxi could not be found at any price. But overall the show went on regardless and people turned out no matter what the weather. I guess it’s all part of March madness and I don’t mean basketball. So here’s to Naomh Padraig and the rites of spring!

The Great Procastinator

Being Irish, I have the procrastination gene in abundance but, on Thursday, I actually took the wicker chairs off the porch and put them in the cellar. I had been thinking about doing that since October and it felt so good to get it done that I even put up Christmas lights. Not only that but I stacked firewood and burned the remaining gas in the lawnmower and cleaned and covered the gas grill. What the Hell is wrong with me! If this keeps up, I may start working on my taxes. I’m pretty sure it’s just a passing aberration but I’m going to keep an eye on myself just in case.

The first posting

For the past few months I have been spending a lot of time in the recording studio. I just finished producing Marie Duprey’s new CD. Marie has a beautiful voice and the album is a wonderful collection of traditional and contemporary songs, including several fine songs written by Marie and her fiancé Michael Ross. It should be available early next year. I have also started work on my own new CD and I will also be producing Aoife Clancy’s next CD so it looks like I’ll be spending even more time in the studio.

Luckily for me, Mockingbird Studio opened in Mansfield, MA about a year ago. It’s great to be able to work close to home and Derek Pisano is a wonderful engineer with a great sense of humor. Recording can often be a stressful experience but laughter is a great tension breaker. We’ve had a lot of laughs while getting the job done and it has been a great working environment. It reminds me of the time Johnny Cunningham produced a CD for me and I would literally go home a pain in my face from all the laughing.

Debbie Casey from Irish Music Cruises tells me that there is still some space available on the January 22 -29 Cruise. If you want to break up the winter, you could join us for a great week of Irish music and cruise the Hawaiian Islands while your envious friends are stuck here in the January doldrums. Check out the great line-up of performers. I have never been to Hawaii so I’m really looking forward to this cruise. You can get more info on the website or at 888-56-IRISH (888-564-7474).

I have also been busy writing stories for an upcoming book called Clean Cabbage in the Bucket. It is a collection of stories from the Irish music scene over the past few decades. There are five contributors, Dennis O’Rourke, Seamus Kennedy, Frank Emerson, Harry O’Donohue, and myself. Dennis came up with the idea and he has also done a marvelous job as the project editor. Anytime musicians get together, they tell stories of their adventure and mis-adventures on the road and he thought it would be great to let people listen in. There are all kinds of stories; some of them hilarious and the five different voices make a delightful mix. We all got together last month at Kevin Barry’s in Savannah, GA to have some pictures taken and we spent a most enjoyable couple of days hanging out and telling yarns. The book should be available in February and you will be able to find it at Celtica Music Shop. I’ll do an update on it when I get more news.

I recently visited WGBH studios in Boston to record a live concert for Brian O’Donovan’s Celtic Concert series. Along with two superb musicians, George Keith and Shannon Heaton, I spent an hour before a live audience singing and chatting with Brian. The show will air this Saturday, 25 November between 12:00 and 3:00 PM on FM 89.7 in the Boston area. It will also be available online live and in the archive at WGBH.org. Just follow the links to “radio” or “Celtic Sojourn.”

Shannon, George and I are also part of A Christmas Celtic Sojourn that Brian will host in Boston, December 14–17. I was part of the first show in 2003 at the Somerville Theatre and it has now grown into a Christmas tradition and moved to the elegant Cutler Majestic Theatre in downtown Boston and grown from one show to five. If you are interested in going, don’t delay as I hear it is almost sold out already.

I will also be doing a Christmas Concert with Aoife and Donal Clancy and George Keith in Fairfield CT on December 2nd. Info about this and other upcoming gigs can be found here on my calendar.

As I have done for the past twelve years now, I will be taking a group of music-mad adventurers to my favorite parts of Ireland in May 2007 on our Celtica Heart of Ireland Tour, South By Southwest. You can check out the itinerary at the Celtica website. As usual, we will have several repeat passengers and Alice, Sean, Joe and I look forward to seeing them all again as well as making new friends on our rural rambles and at our nightly music sessions. The tour is about half full at the moment and filling fast. For more information call 800-299-CELT (2358) or email me.

Some of my recordings will soon be available for download at the Apple iTunes Store. The link is not active yet but will be in the next couple of weeks so if you get an iPod for Christmas you will be all set. As always, my CDs and many others are available at the Celtica Music Shop. We expect to add some new titles before Christmas.

Here’s a little sound clip that my friend Don Blain sent me and it’s so funny I just have to pass it on. Click to download MP3.

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving, the best holiday of them all.

Robbie

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