IrishMusicInfo
The Sunday Tribune Weekly Traditional Music Column by Fintan Vallely
990620
On Wednesday next PJoe Hayes takes his Tulla CŽil’ Band by popular demand to New York's Lincoln Center. When this 78-year-old veteran of big-venue dance music first headed for Carnegie Hall in 1958 a thousand people gathered at Shannon to see them off. The backdrop to all of this is vividly recreated as an amalgam of sociology, musicology and Clare hagiography in Chris Keane's book 'The Tulla CŽil’ Band' (published by the author at Ballycasey Manor, Shannon). Fiddler Paddy Canny and pianist Teresa Tubridy began it all with Bert McNulty in Minogue's Bar at Tulla in 1946, they drew in PJoe Hayes, Aggie White and charismatic accordionist Joe Cooley. A Feis Luimn’ trophy galvanised them to perform for dances, to broadcast in 1948, gave them five '78' recordings within the decade and victories in the All Ireland Fleadh. The Tulla reputation was based in Canny's renown and Hayes's measured persistence. Donegal piper Sean Reid's organisational talents kept it moving, and critical too was his Morris Minor - elastic as a rag-week, record-breaking telephone box it held seven big players with their gear on the roof. Thrill and commitment was the sauce for this in post-WW2 Ireland with its serpentine roads, thorn-hedge punctures, unacceptability of music as a profession, low status of Traditional playing and emigration. The Tulla's radio broadcasts were proudly announced in local press, six full albums and seven US tours were generated, but the players kept day jobs - for them music was pleasure. Keane's records the passing through of some sixty major players, among them four women. Willie Clancy and Paddy O'Brien were in it, and scores too of well-known guests. Tied in in their earlier years is Fianna F‡il's charismatic, go-getter GP Bill Loughnane - faith, fatherland and feet in the future. This is a tale of persistent belief in 'the music of the people', exuberant, unashamed purpose that rallied local spirit and could mediate the homesickness of the post war immigrants to New York, Chicago, Birmingham and London. Chris Keane has assembled a grotto of great whooping competition goers, Cricklewood exiles looking up at the stage, tears in their eyes, fans who would go to dances to listen. The memorabilia displays tickets, certificates, letters of dispute, sleeve notes and posters that are a thesis of social change beginning in the uncomplicated pleasure of 'dancing from 9-3' at the Astor Ballroom in 1950s Scariff, meandering by cars, boats, trains and planes to seventies morality and 'Married Couples CŽil’' at Inagh, the 'Family Festival' cŽilithe at Ennistymon. This is not just music, it is sport. The fleadh is the hub, politics and pride of place are the grease, technology and the attentions of Radio ƒireann are the tarred road that has whisked the Tulla's music to the century's end.
©Fintan Vallely, IrishMusicInfo.com
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