Tommy Makem

[cryptique]

obituary

 

One of the great voices of the '60s.

 

Legendary Irish singer Tommy Makem dies

 

DOVER, New Hampshire (AP) -- Irish singer, songwriter and storyteller Tommy Makem, who teamed with the Clancy Brothers to become stars during the folk music boom, has died of cancer. He was 74.

 

Makem died Wednesday in Dover, where he lived for many years, his son Conor said Thursday. He had battled lung cancer.

 

The Irish-born Makem, who came to America in the 1950s to seek work as an actor, grew to international fame while performing with the band The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. The brothers, also from Ireland, were Tom, Liam and Paddy Clancy.

 

Armed with his banjo, tinwhistle, poetry, stagecraft and his baritone voice, Makem helped spread stories and songs of Irish culture around the world.

 

He brought audiences to tears with "Four Green Fields," about a woman whose sons died trying to prevent strangers from taking her fields. Other songs included "Gentle Annie" and "Red Is the Rose."

 

"He just had the knack of making an audience laugh or cry. ... holding them in his hands," Liam Clancy told RTE Radio in Dublin, Ireland.

 

The New York Times wrote in 1967 that the group was "an eight-legged, ambulatory chamber of commerce for the green isle they love so well. ... At one point, Irish teenagers were paying as much homage to them as to the Beatles."

 

After touring for about nine years as The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, he struck out on his own, but he remained friends with the brothers. Tom Clancy died in 1990 and Paddy in 1998.

 

Back in the 1950s, Makem and his friends saw their first few albums -- "The Rising of the Moon" and a collection of drinking songs -- as a fluke.

 

In a 1994 Associated Press interview, Makem recalled he was astonished when a Chicago club offered him more money to sing for a week than he was getting for acting with a repertory company.

 

"I was the opening act for Josh White. I felt sort of silly, coming out and singing unaccompanied, and then Josh coming out and almost making the guitar talk," he said.

 

As their fame spread, the band appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and other major TV shows, and headlined concerts at Carnegie Hall and London's Royal Albert Hall.

 

A young Bob Dylan was one of the folk singers who got to know Makem and the Clancys during the early 1960s.

 

"Topical songs weren't protest songs," Dylan wrote in his memoir "Chronicles Volume One." "What I was hearing pretty regularly, though, were rebellion songs, and those really moved me. The Clancy Brothers -- Tom, Paddy and Liam -- and their buddy Tommy Makem sang them all the time."

 

In 1992, Makem and the Clancys were among the stars performing in a gala tribute to Dylan at New York's Madison Square Garden. Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Tracy Chapman and Dylan himself also took part.

 

President Mary McAleese of Ireland led the tributes to Makem after his death. "Always the consummate musician, he was also a superb ambassador for the country, and one of whom we will always be proud," McAleese said.

 

Even while battling cancer, he was maintaining a performance schedule, and he visited Belfast last month to receive an honorary degree and returned to his native Armagh.

 

"He had very much wanted to get over there," said his son, Conor. "I think he knew it might have been his last time over."

[Lammycat]

I used to live in Dover and would occasionally drink in an Irish bar in town. That's all I've got, save that I do enjoy some Clancy Bros. tunes from time to time.

[Sir Stewart]

They gained newfound respect from me once I saw No Direction Home. RIP

[gogo]

obituary

He brought audiences to tears with "Four Green Fields," about a woman whose sons died trying to prevent strangers from taking her fields.

 

This article chose probably the shallowest possible interpretation of Four Green Fields (it's not really all that subtle):

 

What did I have, said the fine old woman

What did I have, this proud old woman did say

I had four green fields, each one was a jewel

But strangers came and tried to take them from me

I had fine strong sons, who fought to save my jewels

They fought and they died, and that was my grief, said she

 

Long time ago, said the fine old woman

Long time ago, this proud old woman did say

There was war and death, plundering and pillage

My children starved, by mountain, valley and sea

And their wailing cries, they shook the very heavens

My four green fields ran red with their blood, said she

 

What have I now, said the fine old woman

What have I now, this proud old woman did say

I have four green fields, one of them's in bondage

In stranger's hands, that tried to take it from me

But my sons had sons, as brave as were their fathers

And my four green fields will bloom once again, said she

 

 

I grew up with these songs. Some people dismissed the Clancy Brothers as too trite, too accessible, but they set the standard, no doubt about it.

[skyflynn]

Bye Tommy.