>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, DC.
>> Steve Winick: My name is Steve
Winick and we're here at the Library
of Congress with Billy McComiskey
and his friend Myron Bretholz
and his son Sean McComiskey.
And we're here to talk about
Billy's career in music.
And it's on an occasion that's
sort of a dual occasion.
Number one, we're celebrating
the 40th anniversary
of the American Folklife Center
here at the Library of Congress.
And Billy was one of the
performers who played
at the party celebrating our
creation back in February of 1976.
So we're very happy to have
Billy here for that reason.
And the second reason is--
this hasn't been announced yet
but by the time this video
is available it will be--
Billy is a recipient this
year of the National Endowment
for the Arts National
Heritage Fellowship Award.
And we're really happy to have
Billy here to sort of continue
to document his life and
his career as a musician.
And of course we're very happy also
to have Myron who's been active
in Irish music for all
these years alongside Billy.
And Sean, because one of the
reasons for having this concert was
to show how the tradition had
continued to develop over 40 years
and we thought there was
no better symbol of that
than to have Billy here
with some of his children
who also play Irish music.
So, welcome to all three of you.
>> Billy McComiskey: Thank you.
>> Myron Bretholz: Thank you, Steve.
Pleasure to be here.
>> Steve Winick: And
I guess we'll start
with some general questions
for Billy.
I know your music career
started in your original hometown
which was Brooklyn, New York.
So, talk a little about
Brooklyn and that scene.
>> Billy McComiskey: It-- We started
kind of right at the beginning,
my grandfather emigrated out
from Ireland from Nenagh--
near Nenagh, let's put it that way.
Actually, he was actually
from Newport in Tipperary
and his wife was from Castleconnell,
which was in County Limerick.
And so, their daughter
Mae McComiskey,
that's-- that would be my mom.
So she was actually
the first to the--
of the Brooklyn-- of
our Brooklyn family.
She was the first daughter.
She had two brothers, one
older and one younger.
And they were all crazy mad in
love with Irish traditional music
and it had an awful lot to do--
Nora-- Nora was just a great mother
but it was my grandfather
was Andrew Caplis
from Newport in County Tipperary.
And he was a lovely fiddle player.
The great Larry Redican from Dublin
came to visit my grandfather.
As soon as he landed, as he landed
in New York, he found my grandfather
and he just wanted to meet him and
talk a little bit about the music.
So it was kind of like that.
But it was-- We grew
up in a row house,
I don't know how my
grandmother did at first.
They were right in the depths
of the depression somehow.
And they bought a house right
in the neighborhood called
Windsor Terrace in Brooklyn.
And my mother was just-- They were--
She was just so close and just
loved her parents so much.
We ended up living
exactly right next door
to them, which is no easy feat.
Brooklyn is a-- Brooklyn
is a tough town.
She met-- she met my father--
She met my father on
the Catskill Mountains.
Her brother had a-- he
had a-- I'm slipping.
You'll have to edit
that a little bit.
A boarding house, in...a
boarding house called the Overlook
in the Catskill Mountains.
And my father had come
out from Northern Ireland.
My father was an Irish Catholic
from Northern Ireland and he chose
to defend the crown during
the Second World War.
He had a good talk with his
father and his, and they agreed
that what was going on in Northern
Ireland, what the British were doing
to the Irish Catholics, the natives
of Ireland just wasn't--
it wasn't right.
But it was nowhere near
as bad as what was going
on with the-- in Nazi Germany.
So somehow or another, my
father actually became a pilot
for the Queen's Royal Air Force.
And he came out to Oklahoma to train
and he made a pact with himself
that if he survived the war, he
would make his way back to Oklahoma.
Or may-- I mean, maybe,
maybe just America.
But he kind of, well, I'd really
like to get back to Oklahoma.
When he got one look at it,
all of these land that was here
and all you had to do is work
for it and you could have--
you could do anything you wanted.
It was what I loved when he would
talk about it when he first came
out here because this as a-- You
know, as a member of the old world,
you know, Northern Ireland,
it just wasn't the case.
So he did, he came out.
And he only made it-- He only
made it as far as Brooklyn
and he was staying at his aunt's
house and there was a burned
out house down the
street from her house
and he just couldn't
stand it and he bought it.
So, it was in Brooklyn
that he decided--
There was a couple there
on the street that said,
could you bring us
up, we want to go--
We're going to stay in the boarding
house in the Catskill Mountains.
Could you drive us up there?
And he did, he went with
his best friend Pat Thompson
and Pat McComiskey hopped
in their '39 Chevy and drove
up to the Catskill Mountains.
And there was Matt
Caplis and he says, you--
you two fellows should
stay over tonight
because there's a great
box player in town.
And there was a bunch of women
playing badminton out in the lawn.
And he says, and you have your
pick of the Catskills right there.
You can have anyone.
And my father said, I like that one.
And this guy says, oh,
no, no, no, not that one.
So that's my mother
that my father picked.
And his best friend, Pat Thompson
picked Kathleen Thompson, his wife.
And they all kind of
stayed in Brooklyn.
So there was this lovely
little community.
The box player that they went out
to hear that night was Joe Derrane
who it-- he has been
such an inspiration.
I listened to Joe's
music at the house.
My mother had all of Joe's records.
My Uncle Matt played the accordion.
He couldn't play like Joe Derrane
and he just-- he adored Joe Derrane.
And so it's amazing, these
crazy little connections.
There was always-- So there
was always great music there
in Brooklyn.
My grandma-- And my
grandfather passed away.
I never got to meet my grandfather.
But my grandmother and my mother
would take me up to 39th Street
and 5th Avenue to the Rainbow
Café on a Sunday and we would go
down to the back room
in the basement.
And Paddy Sullivan, the Kerry
fiddler would be down there.
And he'd all-- And as soon as I
came in and it was 25 cents to get
in to the Irish music club
and he would come up to us
and he would say, Mrs.
Caplis, you don't have to pay.
It was 25 cents and that was a
lot of money for my grandmother.
And he would bring us in and
we would get to just listen
to the great musicians
that were living in
and around Brooklyn in those days.
And awful lot of-- Mostly fiddle
players and flute players.
It was just a really--
It was a lovely thing.
Sometimes we'd save the money
for the bus and we'd walk in.
When my grandmother was younger,
we'd walk around Green-Wood
cemetery.
So that's kind of how-- That's kind
of how Brooklyn was, I
guess in those times.
My grandmother would not
let my grandfather go
out to play in the Irish bars.
During the depression, she would
not let that happen because here
in Washington now with the
Dubliner or the Irish times
in the four province, all these
beautiful Irish restaurants.
That was not the case in Brooklyn
when my grandfather
was hanging out there.
It was like you kind of had-- You
kind of had to know how to fight.
And you kind of had
to know how to run.
And it was just kind of how
Brooklyn was and so that--
No, it was a kind of a-- It was a--
There wasn't a whole lot to do
with Irish music at the time.
You know, we're talking
about very modest people.
We were, you know, we were the
Latino speaking people of their day.
I don't know how, I don't know is
that the right way to phrase that.
But we were kind of-- We were
the downtrodden, you know,
just kind of coming out of
this whole traumatic experience
with colonialism, you
know, and all that,
just trying to figure their
way through the war --
for independence over in Ireland.
So it's a pretty-- It was
pretty hard for that generation
of players-- generation of people
that were coming out in those days.
You could see how relieved
they were to get to America.
Lovely, quiet people.
>> Steve Winick: So how
about when you were growing
up a few years later was--
the music, had it taken off a
little bit more in Brooklyn?
>> Billy McComiskey: I
didn't realize it at the time
but the music was actually
on the verge of extinction.
It was-- There was very,
very little of it left.
My Uncle Matt and my Uncle
Andy were on a mission.
They went and found the bars
in the Catskill Mountains
that would host the great
musicians of the time.
My uncle-- There would be fellows--
song and dance kind of guys that
would playing in these guys' places.
And my Uncle Matt would be
determined to get the likes
of maybe Paddy Killoran,
the great sligo player.
Maybe get him a gig or just
when he-- somehow or another,
he was able to get Joe Cooley to
come up to my godfather's bar.
Again, and I would-- I might have
been like 11 or 12 years old.
So when you would go and nobody
was paying these people to do this,
they would go because-- They would
go because Joe Cooley was there.
Bobby Gardiner, the great Clare
box player from Lisdoonvarna,
after he won the All-Ireland, he--
He ended up in the Catskills
because he wanted to--
he wanted to hear Joe Cooley.
So it's funny how it, how
it kind of-- and kind of--
it was this inside kind of thing.
It was like a-- it was
before the internet
but there was somehow they
were able to communicate
to Boston players,
the New York players.
So that was kind of it:
Boston, New York, maybe Chicago.
In these little modest
Irish communities,
there would be these
unbelievably talented players.
I was stunned and mortified to
learn that the great Joe Heaney,
the great sean nós singer,
actually lived in Bay Ridge.
It wasn't even 10 minutes
from my house.
But we just didn't know.
We didn't know.
It wasn't until the National
Council for the Traditional Arts
that we realized that we're
in the presence of genius.
It was an amazing-- It was an
amazing thing that happened.
A lot-- people like Larry Redican,
Larry Redican actually
would have gotten
to play on the Ed Sullivan Show.
He would have played
for the McNiff dancers.
Maybe it was Jerry-- I think
he played with Jerry Wallace,
the pianist from Northern Ireland.
And this would-- That
would be about--
that would be a really great gig.
He wouldn't get any money from that.
There was no money in playing
Irish traditional music.
And there were just a few old men
that were just incredibly
good, you know.
And it was kind of-- the funny thing
was it was the same in Ireland.
We would get over there.
When I finally had the money, when
I had my little job in the Bank
of New York, I managed to come up
with enough money for my air fare.
And all I had to do was get over
there and in between my relatives
who also love the music, the whole,
the Limerick players
and people, family.
And then the people that just loved
the music, so all I had to do is
to come up with the air fare and
I can get to stay for three weeks.
And again, my Uncle Matt, he'd be a
couple of steps ahead of me trying
to figure out, well, maybe we can
go to Feakle tonight, maybe a couple
of the old fellows or may--
You know, maybe we can
find some of these guys.
Maybe Matthew Ryan will be in town
until maybe we can work this out.
So this was say 1969-1970, and
for where I was in, I just--
well, to me, it's just
like this little secret,
this beautiful little jewel.
And I was too young to
realize it was almost vanished.
>> Steve Winick: Well, so
at some point before this,
you actually started to play
and you started to play,
you've been mentioning the box.
And of course that's typically
the button accordion--
>> Billy McComiskey: That's right.
>> Steve Winick: Typically
BC tune like yours.
>> Billy McComiskey: Yeah.
Maybe not-- I guess that the tuning
kind of came later but, yeah,
we would be like I like it here, you
know, hey, I like that squeezebox.
But the Irish never really
called it a squeezebox.
It would be a box or a melodeon, you
know, is another lovely expression.
My cousin John Sweeney
really admired my Uncle Matt.
So he went in the--
He was in the navy.
He was a-- His mother passed away,
so he had to fend for himself.
He went into the navy and he
went to Germany and he decided
to bring back an accordion.
And just completely out of the blue,
he bought what's called
Hohner blackdot,
which happens to be a BC
semitone button accordion.
And it's an interesting thing that
was-- that they, an Englishman,
of course, I can't
think it was back--
back in around 1910 discovered
that if you take two old scales,
two major scales, two
diatonic scales,
if they are a half a
step apart, you more
or less have the full
circle of fifths.
It doesn't make for a great
harmony playing instrument
but it was just ideal for the
lovely way that the Irish tradition.
And Irish music is kind
of like pre-G clef.
It's pre-chromatic.
It's a diatonic kind of music.
So when they figured
out what if it takes--
It's kind of like what
the Cajun fellows play.
And it's exactly the same
except there's two rows
and one will be a half step
apart from the other one.
Or up in Quebec, it was a
little single row accordion.
So you get that lovely pulse.
But when it's a semitone like that,
it's a little bit more capable.
>> Steve Winick: Yeah.
Well, it helps you play in
more keys so you can play
with other people among
other things.
>> Billy McComiskey: Well,
again, like yeah, it-- what I--
Irish music is we don't
really know--
We don't really know how old it is.
My friend, Jerry O'Sullivan
made a couple of--
He's a great piper up in New
York, scholar, and he did a couple
of recordings that he just
called O'Sullivan Meets O'Farrel.
So the O'Farrel collection
was like the early 1700s.
O Carolan's music is mixed in there.
I guess that the amazing thing
about this-- And we would--
Patrick Street, Patrick, what is it?
Something, so-- What's
the name of the record?
Fisher's--
>> Myron Bretholz:
Oh, Fisher Street,
that I mentioned today, right ?
>> Billy McComiskey: Yeah, did
a whole bunch of tunes from--
>> Myron Bretholz: Yeah, right.
That's right.
>> Billy McComiskey: They
found this O'Farrel collection,
and the amazing thing about, as you
listen to these lovely old tunes
from the O'Farrel collection,
your immediate think--
You immediately think, well, that
sounds like so and so, you know.
That sounds just like
so-- that other tune.
But it turns out the other tune
might have been written 200 years
after this one from the
O'Farrel collection.
>> Steve Winick: Right.
>> Billy McComiskey: So that
stuff is really, really old.
It might not be as old as the music
from the Middle East,
or maybe it is.
I don't know, I'm not an
ethnomusicologist or a folklorist.
But it goes back there and it
exists in these beautiful modes
that the pipers were--
are able to interpret
and it's just a-- it's-- it goes up.
It goes up like a do, re, mi, so
these whole steps and half steps.
And the little modes that
existed around there.
So, the one that saw the
pipers play these tunes.
And so there's little blind
spots in the pipes that kind
of identified the music
and it gives it--
It makes it sound the way it does,
just like the little blind spots,
the open strings on the
fiddle and stuff like that.
So this is what the people
that were composing this music.
I don't think we even
regard it as composing.
We kind of-- we were talking
about making up a tune, you know,
you kind of-- not really say
compose, you know, that's too fancy
for Irish music because
we're just regarded
as a folk, as a people's music.
>> Steve Winick: So, one
thing that you tend to mention
when you mention an Irish musician's
name is where that person was from.
So let's talk about the
regions a little bit and how
that influenced the music or
in your experience anyway.
>> Billy McComiskey: I'd be
kind of identified as a--
and more loosely defined, as an
east Galway style accordion player.
And the place, the reason that
would get a little dicey is Irish
accordion as I understand it came
into being, it started to exist in
and of itself someplace around
maybe 1950, the instrument--
that Paolo Soprani built--
well there was this black
dot Hohner accordion.
But it wasn't complete.
They hadn't quite figured
out how to make--
Help the left hand to
accompany these tunes.
So Paolo Soprani took
this idea from Hohner.
Paolo Soprani from Castelfidardo,
pre-- and I guess beforehand,
before and maybe even-- I'm not--
I don't know about
during but definitely
after World War II Paolo Soprani
was-- when Paolo Soprani went--
from Castelfidardo was
considered like a national hero
because he was a-- one of
these people that were able
to get his countrymen employed.
You know, we were talking
about the Chinese fiddle maker
and it's kind of-- This is--
It's a beautiful craft, you know,
being able to just come
up with these little simple
inexpensive little bits of things
and put them together so that these
lovely regular common people can
make this beautifully--
beautiful, beautiful music.
It's just a lovely gift.
So, I don't know, I-- So, somehow in
the course of that and around 1950,
this Irish style accordion--
this Italian accordion
just became adapted--
adopted by the Irish people.
And there'd be a couple
of different semitone.
There's two.
Basically there's a BC and a C sharp
D. Joe Cooley would have played a C
sharp D.
So he would be from
Peterswell in east Galway.
Paddy O'Brien, this is where
it gets a little dicey.
Paddy O'Brien is from
Nenagh in County Tipperary.
So it would be-- It'll be
like more of a-- It would be--
If you are cycling from
Nenagh up into Galway,
it would take you a little while.
But this is kind of
what happened there.
When they talk about-- So when they
talk about this east Galway style,
it's not particularly
accordion music.
It's the music that
existed in east Galway
when the fiddle players would play.
The great Paddy Fahey, that's still
alive, a very prolific composer,
would be writing these absolutely
stunning beautiful, beautiful tunes.
There-- and sometimes there would
be-- and it would be like an--
if you take the scale, maybe
a Mixolydian scale or a kind
of combine a major scale with
this modal one and get a--
all this beautiful stuff
going on with the fiddle.
And the flute players
ended up having to resort
to chromatic flutes, which
is so, you know, the--
all right, the old Irish players
would have the six hole diatonic
flute, the transverse flute,
and all of a sudden it
became borderline chromatic.
It is like a really
interesting thing to happen.
And the accordion players
picked up on it.
So it would have been
maybe Joe Cooley would be--
that this is the person that
everybody immediately thinks
of with East Galway music.
And Kevin Keegan, who
was a BC player,
Kevin Keegan adored the playing
of Paddy O'Brien from Nenagh.
And Paddy O'Brien from Nenagh is
the man that kind of showed the way.
He started creating a
technique for the BC accordion.
That Joe Cooley was
able to bring that--
bring the accordion a
step closer to what--
to the essence of the music so that
pipers and fiddlers would want to--
They wanted to play with Joe.
And then Paddy took that and the
technique grew because of that.
Kevin Keegan would never play
in front of Paddy O'Brien.
He just wouldn't, he just wouldn't.
But he was able to
be around Joe Cooley
without being totally
intimidated by him.
And then shortly after that-- So
that's the ground works up there
and then people like Raymond
Roland from the town of Loughrea
where Paddy Fahey would have--
would have met up with the great
Paddy Carty, the flute player.
Loughrea was just one of
these great towns and-- but--
So, Raymond Roland would be there
and then he ended up in London
and this whole thing
started in London.
The great Raymond Roland
quartet was there.
Liam Farrell -- It's
funny now my-- our--
my daughter-in-law is married to
the grand-niece of Liam Farrell.
She was Lisa Farrell.
So there's all these really
beautiful musical collection--
connections.
So then from Raymond Roland came
these mighty, mighty players.
Sean McGlynn from-- right from the
town of Tynagh, he actually played--
and one of the oldest of the
gray Paolo Soprani accordions.
It was just a beautiful thing.
He bought it from a tanker.
His mother was ready to-- His mother
didn't talk to him for about a month
after he bought this accordion.
He paid 50 pounds and gave the
tinker a brand new accordion
and his mother was mad.
And then she realized
that he was right.
So there are-- It kind of reflect.
It kind of hearkens back almost
to where the Anglo concertina
is very similar to that.
And of course the great Joe,
the great Joe Burke also
from in around Loughrea.
So there was a really
incredible really well-rooted,
highly respected group-- core group
of these musicians in eats Galway,
so-- And that's what I
was really privileged to--
John Joe Forde would be another
one of these box players.
Ned Coleman was one of
the flute players there.
The Ballinakill Ceili Band,
the Leitrim Ceili Band,
these were beautiful dance bands
that actually got a
chance to record.
>> Steve Winick: But
it's probably fair to say
that McGlynn was the
most influential on you.
Tell me about Sean McGlynn.
>> Billy McComiskey: Yeah.
I will have trouble
talking about Sean.
Sean was a carpenter and-- by trade.
And when he immigrated to Boston
and he met his wife there,
Maura and he-- Well, he just
thought Maura had great style.
Maura was also-- is
also from Galway.
Maura is still alive and we--
He had gone up to the Catskills.
There was this one-- Again,
my godfather had a pub
in the town of South Cairo.
And my uncle was always coming
up with these little schemes
to get people to go so he could make
enough money to hang on with a bunch
of kids, six or seven kids.
Pat Murphy, crazy, completely.
He was a great hurler but he
loved the Irish traditional music.
And he loved the Tulla Ceili
Band and he was in love
with Bridie Lafferty, the piano
player with the Tulla Ceili Band,
and really the stories would
be hilarious, great fun.
So in one of these-- one of these
summers, I guess this happened
on Labor Day or the Fourth of
July, he'd have these gatherings.
And the one that really
stuck with me was the year
that Joe Cooley was there.
It was just-- I was
only about 11 or 12.
And then we didn't get
there the next year,
but Joe Burke had just won his
second All-Ireland championship.
Joe Burke was about 28 years old
when he first came to North America.
Very, very, very-- a brilliant,
brilliant man, a great role model,
you know, a little crazy, a little
crazy like a lot of us were.
But he-- So he came to
the Catskills and just
as the way things turned out, Sean
was living in Boston and he heard
that Joe was going to
be in the Catskills.
So he made a point to get there.
And in the process, he met my Uncle
Matt and they became fast friends.
My Uncle Matt played more in
Derrane's style as I said.
But you could hear
in McGlynn's music
that it was really deeply rooted.
You couldn't-- you couldn't
miss that about his music.
And he reminded me very much
of Bobby Gardiner when
I first heard him.
But again, different again.
And he-- I mean just a
great and tremendous store
of music just floating
around in his head.
And my uncle wanted
him so much to meet me
that he actually gave him
the down payment for a house
in the New York area just
so he would just be down,
just so we would kind of
have a chance to meet him.
And he came over to the house.
One day my Uncle Andy brought
Sean and Maura over to the house.
And then when we were talking away--
And I'd gotten kind of frustrated
as I'd meet these players.
Joe Cooley was an amazing
man to meet.
He would take the time to talk
to a child, and I was only 11
when I met him and it really
had a big effect on me.
But most of the guys were just
young and there would be beer
and a few shots and that would
be a little crazy and they did.
And I actually asked one
of these players one time,
could you show me how to do that.
And he goes, oh, I'm
sorry, my hand hurts.
And it was like a joke.
And I thought, well, never--
I'm never going to make
that mistake again.
So I'd watch players
and I'd watch them play.
But when Sean came
over, he was just great.
He was just a really great,
great guy and he just--
He told me that day in the house,
he says you're going to be--
You're going to be a great player.
I was so intimidated when I met
him there that I actually went
up to my room and did homework.
This is not my style at all.
It's like the only
time I ever did that.
And he came up and he came up
and he said you're going
to be a great player.
And it's funny, Joe Cooley
told me that same thing.
They were so anxious, they were so--
it was so important to
them to share this culture.
And then as I got to know
Sean, I was up in there--
I went to the Catskills and there
is Sean McGlynn up my uncle's house.
He had a pickup truck.
And we went for a ride in
the pickup truck just driving
around up in the mountains.
Where do you live?
And then next thing, we stopped
at this little gas station.
I remember this stuff, I was
maybe 14 and a half years old
and it had a clutch in it.
I was going, boy, this is terrific.
And by the time we got back to
the house, he was my best friend.
And it's just-- That's
just kind of how it was.
So, yeah, it was really
something-- He loved coming down.
He loved coming down.
When he meet Dr. Moloney.
I guess Mick was probably-- I
guess he had gotten his scholarship
to do his graduate work over at
Penn-- that's where you went.
And Sean just loved
coming down and he was--
He'd come down and just enjoy the
couple of pubs that they would work.
And then-- And they got to play the
19...the bicentennial folk festival
and Jimmy Carter was in it.
My God, but-- Think about the people
who there, and the Irish that came
out it was, it was--
I mean just the Irish.
>> Steve Winick: So, you must
have gone to that, right?
>> Billy McComiskey: We?
Yeah. Mick got us.
He got us to go and we were like
we were doing the Dubliner gig
and we werent well behaved at all
and we missed half of everything.
>> Steve Winick: So
we're talking about the--
>> Billy McComiskey:
We were frustrated.
>> Steve Winick: -- what's now
the Smithsonian Folklife Festival
but then was the Festival
of American Folklife
in 1976 was a particularly
big festival
because of the bicentennial.
>> Billy McComiskey:
It was unbelievable.
And the great Junior Crehan
came out from Milltown Malbay.
And Sean was the featured--
Thought that it was great
that I was his student there
but Sean was the box--
Sean was the box player.
They brought Denis Doody,
the great Kerry box player
down as well, and De Danann.
Michael Flatley was
actually the featured dancer.
It was like, what is going
on here, you know, so.
And we were-- we were very lucky
at the time just playing there
in the Dubliner-- thank
goodness, nobody got hurt.
>> Steve Winick: Right.
>> Billy McComiskey: You know,
there is no harm done
really, I don't think.
>> Steve Winick: Right.
So, but before that happened, I
mean you had to first of all--
So you met McGlynn and
became good friends.
And--
>> Billy McComiskey:
And he was my mentor,
he was my absolute--
He was my best friend.
And he was my best man.
>> Steve Winick: Yeah.
And did you take formal
lessons with him
or did you just watch him
play and play alongside him?
>> Billy McComiskey:
There was no such thing
as getting a formal lesson on-- for
the Irish accordion at the time,
which is really something
in Brooklyn,
that there were a bunch of them.
Not a bunch but a few
Italian immigrants
that were able to play
the accordion.
So there are a bunch of
young kids playing "Lady
of Spain" on the piano accordion.
I never quite got that.
I didn't want to do that.
But I loved-- I just loved
the way McGlynn played.
It was-- He said there's
a-- There is a roughness,
there's a certain roughness in it,
he says, and the people liked that.
And he had-- he had big-- He's
a very strong man but the tips
of his fingers were very small.
He had great dexterity in his hands.
And he loved continental
accordion music and we--
if you heard the great
jazz players now,
the great chromatic jazz players,
I mean all over the place,
a lot of stuff going on.
And there was a book called "The
Bourbon Method" [assumed spelling].
So you could open this book
and sit out there and you go--
[ Singing ]
And he just ended it
with that, lovely.
And I-- that he'd-- He
was able to read it.
He went to -- Mario Tacca
was the great accordionist
in the Upstate New York area,
and Sean would drive up there
for a lesson when he had the time
and he got a continental accordion.
And he loved that technique
that the Italians had figured
out for the continental accordion.
But there really wasn't technique
for the Irish accordion and he--
Sean said, well, it's
great for the Irish music
but it's really-- it's just a toy.
It's not a real instrument.
And I guess in a way
he's kind of right,
you know, because that's true.
It's older, it's an
older type of music.
And there was no technique.
But that's kind of--
that kind of spark there.
I remember sitting in my
uncle's house and up in Leeds
and Sean's wife and the Leonards
and my uncle, they were all down in,
down in Gilfeather's Sligo
House and having a great time
with the show bands
and it was great fun.
And Sean and I were sitting
in the kitchen talking away.
You can hear the crickets
outside of the screen and the door
and the moths were coming
up against the door.
Then the little things you
can hear going on out there.
And we were sitting there trying to
figure out the fingering for a tune
that was written by
the great Martin Wynne
from Sligo who lived in the Bronx.
And we were trying to-- the fiddle
player, we're trying to figure
out how can you take-- how-- and
we just sat there trying to figure
out how to cover about
an octave and a half--
octave and a half and about
eight, you know, nine notes to get
down there, how are you
supposed to do that.
And we finally figured it out.
And Sean says, he says, there's
the difference right there.
And I said, what's that?
He says that-- there they are,
they're all down there in the bar
and they're having a great
time singing and dancing
and here we are worried
about one note.
And there was just a great-- there
was just great logic to that.
>> Steve Winick: There's
a lesson in it.
>> Billy McComiskey: So-- yeah.
So we had a-- he had a great love
for technique and he was fascinated
by it, and he would then show me
show so much as, well he'd go,
how do you think we--
how could you--
you know, after we knew each
other for a little while,
how do you think-- what
would you do there?
And we would sit and just figure
out these finger patterns
kind of like dancing.
I'm like instead of using two
feet to dance, you have fingers,
which is kind of nice, yeah.
>> Steve Winick: Now, you mentioned
McGlynn's beautiful accordion.
And if I'm not mistaken,
you inherited that.
Is that--
>> Billy McComiskey: I did.
We had an argument one night.
We had a little-- We had a little
bit too much to drink when the--
when the first Green Fields
tour came to this area
and they were performing
at Georgetown University.
And it was a great night.
And back in those days, they'd stay
with whoever would put them up.
And they all got kind of bored.
So they decided-- one by one, they
would say, Billy, can I come over?
It's OK. I think I have room
at your-- at the apartment.
So, we ended up-- I ended up
with the whole Green Fields.
The first Green Field--
>> Steve Winick: There's
like 12 people in that or--
>> Billy McComiskey:
Yeah, Liz Carroll,
Michael Flatley, Donny Golden.
It might have been the second
Green Fields tour, sorry for that.
Sean McGlynn, Jack Coen.
Who else? There was a great piper.
Of course, Mick was-- he
was out paving the way.
All the other guys were
partying like way too much.
And so, we got in an argument, Sean
and I, about who loved who more.
[ Laughter ]
>> Sean McComiskey:
It's pretty adorable.
>> Billy McComiskey: Yeah.
>> Myron Bretholz: Who won?
>> Billy McComiskey: And he
said, he said, "Well, OK."
He says, "You think you love me."
He says, "The day I die you're
getting my gray accordion."
And that was the end
of the argument.
>> Steve Winick: Yeah.
>> Billy McComiskey: That was-- And
Flatley, Michael Flatley was like,
"Come on, where's--
what's crackin'?"
They were having 902s,
they had gone to Jamaica.
>> Myron Bretholz: 702s.
>> Billy McComiskey: 702s.
>> Myron Bretholz: It's all right.
>> Billy McComiskey: So
you knew the actual name?
>> Myron Bretholz: I
named the drink , so--
>> Billy McComiskey: You named it?
So they-- So they would take
a bottle of rum and Coca-Cola
and a scoop of ice cream.
>> Sean McComiskey: Gosh.
>> Billy McComiskey: And they
were talking about these 702s,
and then Sean actually made one
with all the drama, you know,
you'd think you were watching one
of these cooking shows,
on public television--
>> Myron Bretholz: Jack
was in it on that too.
It's Jack and Mike and Sean.
>> Billy McComiskey: Yeah, and the
big scoop of ice room plopped right
in the middle of it and we all
thought it was terrific, 702s.
Well now--
>> Steve Winick: All right.
>> Billy McComiskey: So, no one,
whether he would never
ever think-- nobody.
Well, there were a couple of fellas.
Martin Mulvihill, again, again, you
know, another National Heritage--
and I pled for years down
hear with Brendan Mulvihill,
still one of my best friends.
But Martin managed to make a
modest living teaching Irish music.
And my friend Maureen Glynn--
>> Steve Winick: Yeah.
>> Billy McComiskey: -- inherited
her father's music school.
There was another fella,
Pete Kelly from Galway.
And he did pretty good at it too.
But Sean would never, in a million
years, take any money from anybody
if they wanted to learn Irish music.
It was not an issue, it just
wasn't-- it wasn't how it is done.
>> Steve Winick: Right.
So, did you, when you were living
in New York, did you know Martin?
Did you know of his
teaching and all of that?
That that was going on?
Because I remember, when I was
growing up, he was still active,
but he must have been active.
>> Billy McComiskey: Oh,
Martin is a great guy.
>> Steve Winick: Yeah.
>> Billy McComiskey: Yeah.
Martin was such a gentleman
from Glin.
Yeah. And he did-- he
had a natural gift.
He's kind of like Mick Gavin.
That's who-- that's how--
Mick Gavin from County Clare.
Sean is great friends with Mick's
sons, Mick would be about my age.
But he is of these gentlemen, he
can-- he's a lovely fiddle player.
He's a nice box player in this
Cooley-- in the Cooley style,
the D tuning, and he's--
He can get an old tune
out of a whistle and a flute.
But the thing-- he's kind of like
Mitch Fanning, who's right here.
>> Steve Winick: Right.
>> Billy McComiskey: He's one these
people that is just so generous
with his art, you know,
with his music.
He doesn't allow himself to impede,
you know, a student's growth.
So, you know, Gavin--
Mick Gavin is that way.
But Martin, Martin Mulvihill would--
he would just grill these students
with all the competitions were
getting, were gaining an importance.
My nieces are all into
this competition.
But you had a real good
chance back in those days
if you were a student
of Martin Mulvihill.
You were going to do all right.
I'm a huge repertoire, a huge
store of music, and really, really,
really highly, highly regarded
and respected in Ireland.
Martin Mulvihill was hilarious.
>> Steve Winick: Yeah.
So, at some point, you ended up
moving first to the Washington area
and then you settled in Baltimore?
>> Billy McComiskey: Yeah.
>> Steve Winick: How
did that come about?
How did you come to
Washington first?
>> Billy McComiskey: Well, it
started a little bit before that.
Johnny Cronin from Gneeveguilla
from County Kerry, one of the--
Sliabh Luachra player, Paddy--
the brother of Paddy Cronin.
Paddy Cronin is probably are--
he's arguably the most renowned
of the fiddlers of our time.
He passed away recently.
He gets-- It wasn't that he
was a whiz kid or something,
but Paddy just played
the music so right,
and it was like so
close to what it is.
And so Johnny, Johnny was
a sandhogger in New York.
And he was great friends
with Joe Cooley.
He was, again, hilarious
kind of guy.
And he's been in a bit of drinking
problem I guess you would say,
but a huge, huge, huge, huge
heart, very, very generous man.
And he said to me, "Billy, you come
and get my Irish accent is no good."
"Billy, you'll come to--
you'll come and you'll pay.
You'll play in the Bunratty Pub
with me and they'll give you $50
and all the Heineken
that you could drink."
And this was like unheard of
that you could go out on a Friday
or Saturday night and play
and people would be in there,
they wouldn't like
tell you to be quiet.
>> Myron Bretholz: They'd pay you.
>> Billy McComiskey: The
pay part was unheard of.
>> Steve Winick: Right.
>> Billy McComiskey: You know, you--
the only place we ever played was
in the basements in the back where
we weren't bothering anybody.
So to be playing in, you know, on
a stage, and as I first started
to cut my teeth there, I ended
up filling in for Joe Burke.
Filling in for Joe Burke,
you know, with Andy McGann.
Andy McGann and Joe Burke and
Felix Dolan created the sound
that Irish music still
has to this very day.
Myself and Joanie Madden and
Brian Conway and Brendan Dolan.
We have a recording out,
"The Pride of New York,"
and I talk about this Irish style.
It was Joe Burke and Andy
McGann and Felix Dolan.
So, all this crazy stuff is
going on in the Bunratty Pub
or maybe they would go out and
play ceilis or something like that.
But this was a real gig in an Irish
bar that, you know, I would say I--
for the year-- the two years
that I played there, maybe three
or four really, really fantastic
fights, you know, the immigrants.
There was one night these
two guys were arguing
about who was the better
football team.
Was it the Irish football,
was it the Longford team,
or was it the Roscommon team,
whatever they were arguing about,
and they started to fight.
But they were gentlemen, so
they brought the fight outside.
And there was-- and it was a-- and
then-- and it's kind of tragic.
There's a-- they went out and they
go down and they found a vacant lot
so they wouldn't be disturbing the
traffic when they have the fight.
And then finally, one of them
won and the other one was dead.
So, this was kind of new.
It was-- This was the
real Irish bar.
>> Steve Winick: Yeah.
>> Billy McComiskey: And
so, it was a pretty fight.
One night, Johnny Cronin, I
went in looking for Johnny
and I found them asleep
under one of the tables.
He had an expression that well, the
ceiling in this house is very low.
And so it was like pretty funny.
He was a pretty funny guy.
But I was in there playing in
the bar and there was a fiddler,
an Irish-American fiddler
named Jack Riordan.
And you wouldn't know if
he was an Irish-American
and you wouldn't know an
Irish-American might be an immigrant
that's a citizen or it might
be the child of an immigrant.
It was kind of shady.
But I kind of think--
I mean Jack was--
I think he was an Irish-American
and he played the fiddle.
And his daughter, Peggy Riordan,
was a lovely fiddler player too
and she knew all the fellows
like in the various ceili bands
that would come out,
the old Liverpool Ceili Band,
she knew all these guys.
But Lou-- So, Peggy came up to the
Bunratty on a quiet kind of night
and she brought this fellow
with her and she said,
this is my friend Lou Thompson.
And she brought this guy to
meet me and they'd come up.
Peggy at-- Peggy wasn't
living in the Bronx
for a while, so how are you doing.
Where did you go?
I went to Washington.
Oh, that's nice.
How-- Do you like Washington?
And the next time I'd
see her, she's say well--
oh, well I live in
northern-- I live in Virginia.
I was going, I thought
you lived in Washington.
I didn't do well in geography.
She said, I thought--
now I moved in Virginia.
Oh, really.
The next time I saw her, I live
in Washington and--
or, I live in Maryland.
I was going, wow, she's
really moving around.
I didn't realize she's just
hopping around this tri-state area.
She said-- so, she said, one or
two-- She introduced me to this--
Father Lou Thompson, the priest,
who was stationed here I guess I
would say or he was in a pretty kind
of progressive Catholic order.
And it was very small order.
And he did his-- he actually
did his undergraduate work
in community organization, so he's
pretty really interesting character.
And again, he played
kind of in this style
that Joe Derrane played the old
Walters and Baldoni accordion.
So she wanted me to meet Father
Lou and he said, you know, he said,
why don't you come
down to Washington to--
sometime and we can have
a ceili and you can come
down to see what it's like.
So I did and I got to fly from
LaGuardia into national airport.
So if you can picture LaGuardia,
I drove across the Bronx
through Queens with all that
stuff going on, you know,
and made it to LaGuardia.
I left the car there,
paid a fortune to park it,
just the whole experience
you're doing--
and I got off at national
airport and it was sort
of like the Wizard of Oz.
All of a sudden everything
in color and I was like,
what's all this going on?
And she picked me up in a
brand new 1976 Chevy Malibu.
>> Steve Winick: Yeah.
>> Billy McComiskey:
I remember that.
I remember that.
And we drove up along the Potomac
and I was going, what's going on.
And we went and I played the ceili
and I met the Winch brothers,
Jesse and Terry Winch.
And of course Peggy had Terry
and they are from the Bronx too.
Jesse and Terry were both
very, very well educated.
Very, very intelligent men.
Terry is a poet and a box player.
Jesse is a lovely bodhran player.
And there was a couple
of other guys.
Mark Quinn played the accordion
and he was from Rockaway.
Mark had actually got tired of
living in New York and he went
to the train station and
he goes, I have 50 bucks.
He said, you know, where can you go?
And the guy, the guy said,
you can go to Washington.
So he did.
And he went into the bar
on 13th, Matt Kane's.
And he told the bar-- And he told
the cabbie, is there an Irish bar?
And he brought him to Matt Kane's.
And he went in and he found his way
and became a resident
with his accordion.
So, they have this
little nucleus and that--
I guess they were talking about it.
How can we get-- What
do you think we can do
to get the real music there
because Peggy really--
Peggy was homesick for the music.
And so they invited me.
That's kind of what happened--
I came down and played the ceili
and I told Father Lou,
I said, if you could--
if you can swing me a job
down here, a clerk's job
or something, I'll come down.
And it was right then that this
Irish pub phenomenon was starting
to take shape.
It was between Guinness
and Harp breweries,
they came up with this
idea where you're going
to have an Irish themed
bar and it would be just
like Dublin, blah, blah, blah.
And he called it the
Dubliner and terrific.
And Matt Kane's was the first.
There was another one in New
York, the John Barleycorn.
I played there in midtown Manhattan.
It looked like a little pub and
it was in the middle of Manhattan.
But the Dubliner was
like serious business.
And I guess though at that point,
on Capitol Hill was like, well,
kind of-- well, kind of tough.
We never had any trouble there but--
there was kind of more
postal workers
and stuff hanging around there.
There was nothing cool about it,
except that the Capitol
Building was right there.
But we really had a tremendous
amount of fun and these various--
I guess the other thing that
was so cool about it was people
like Alan Jabbour, am
I saying that right?
It was--
>> Myron Bretholz: Rinzler.
>> Billy McComiskey: Ralph Rinzler.
Mick, Mick Moloney again was
coming back and forth and working
on his degree in Georgetown.
So there were these really
interesting folklorists
and ethnomusicologists, and
it was like a whole new thing.
And, you know-- But I
was there and, you know,
I was playing with
Brendan Mulvihill.
I asked Brendan Mulvihill
to come down.
Brendan was-- especially
at that time,
he was one of very best Irish
fiddlers in Irish music,
of these young Irish players.
And Andy O'Brien--
>> Steve Winick: And we should say
he was the son of Martin Mulvihill,
the great teacher that
we were talking about.
>> Billy McComiskey: A son
of Martin Mulvihill, yeah.
So that's kind of how-- That's
kind of how we came down.
And then Lou wanted to start
a music school and we did.
>> Steve Winick: Well,
you would also just went
about to mention Andy
O'Brien and how he got it all.
>> Billy McComiskey: Andy
O'Brien was from Kerry,
kind of like Johnny Cronin.
And Johnny told me, he says,
you have to meet Andy O'Brien,
he's a great singer and he is
a really good guitar player.
And I-- My friend Pat Keogh and I
needed a guitar player one night
up in the Bronx before I moved down
and I asked Andy to do-- do the gig.
And it was the first time I
ever played for money anywhere
in New York City where
anybody actually clapped.
And it was Andy-- or Andy
got to play with people
like Johnny Leary or Denis Murphy.
He was from this whole
Sliabh Luachra thing
that was going on in County Clare.
But at the same time, he was stone
mad for the Scottish song tradition,
the Scottish-- the Scots were
like really, really interested
with this DADGAD tuning
on the guitar.
Archie Fisher, Andy O'Brien--
>> Myron Bretholz: Dick Gaughan--
>> Billy McComiskey: And between
Archie Fisher and Dick Gaughan
and Andy Irvine was kind of this,
you know, with Planxty or, you know.
This whole thing that was going on,
Andy was like a huge fan of that.
And he had come out, he wanted--
Andy wanted to get a job as a welder
when he came out and he was
just about ready to give
up when we got-- when we called him.
In fact, the first time, the first
week that we played in the Dubliner,
Andy used a subway token and--
>> Myron Bretholz: From New York,
because there was no
subway on DC that--
>> Billy McComiskey: Yeah, and he
used the subway token to do the gig.
And when we got paid, we got $300.
It was really very
big money at the time.
We thought anyway.
And Andy counted it and counted it.
And I said, Andy, what
are you going to--
because he was from County
Kerry, there is nothing there.
There was cows and, you know,
we're talking Kerry-- woo!
And he was going-- He was
counting it like that.
And I said, Andy, what are you
going to do with all your money?
And he says, I'm going to go
out and I'm going to buy a pick.
>> Steve Winick: Nice.
>> Billy McComiskey: He's just--
it was just a subway token.
He never let on.
>> Steve Winick: So, one of the
tricks to that by the way is
if you have a whole bunch of
tune players on the stage,
the music never stops
so no one can ever clap.
But if you have a singer, that
song is going to end, right?
So--
>> Billy McComiskey: Yeah, I
guess the cool thing about it was
to survive in the bar scene,
and none of us were, you know,
it's a kind of-- it's a
trade, it's a skill, you know.
Seamus Kennedy is a
crackerjack down there.
>> Steve Winick: Sure.
>> Billy McComiskey:
He's very funny.
>> Myron Bretholz: The Henny
Youngman of Irish music.
>> Billy McComiskey: But-- And
again, he's also one of these guys
who has a phenomenal
repertoire of songs.
But he can identify
immediately with the crowd.
Andy and Brendan and I, we really--
we just sat there and played
and it was kind of rough
going for a little while.
Pat Troy, one of the
publicans in Georgetown.
Remember he had the
bar in Georgetown,
and he had a radio show--
>> Steve Winick: Yeah.
>> Billy McComiskey: --
and he came and he says,
you guys are going to
have to jazz it up.
He goes, get them to clap
along and this kind of stuff.
So we added a little
bit of theatrics then.
And we had to-- we had to do
songs that would be associated
with Irish bars, Irish
drinking songs, "No, Nay,
Never" songs and this kind of stuff.
And then-- But every once in
a while, the way it evolved
in the Dubliner, because of
all these other goings on
and people coming in
and out, it kind of--
people started realizing
that Andy was really good.
So, there was a really nice, a
really interesting thing that went
on in the Dubliner back
then in the mid-70s.
Especially, you know,
Myron had WGTB and he--
>> Myron Bretholz: College
radio station of the year.
>> Billy McComiskey: Yeah.
So, it was like totally awesome.
What-- when was-- What
time was that?
>> Myron Bretholz: It was 12
noon on a Sunday for three hours.
And it was college radio,
free form, no formulas, no--
nobody making dictates
on what we should play.
And I said, well, I
have a folk music show.
But I like all kinds of folk music
and I have my own folk records
and it was records
vinyl, pre-CD and--
>> Billy McComiskey:
And it was just so--
>> Myron Bretholz:
I play a few Irish
and then the phones would
light up, play more of that.
I didn't have more of that.
But I got the bug and
I got more of that.
So, it built up there.
That was more or less my
introduction to it through that.
>> Steve Winick: Well,
it was interesting.
I was over at the Smithsonian
a couple of weeks ago listening
to some tapes of the
Irish tradition--
>> Billy McComiskey: Yeah.
>> Steve Winick: -- which
was the group that you--
>> Billy McComiskey: That's right.
>> Steve Winick: -- and
Andy and Brendan had formed.
And it was-- They were tapes from
the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
>> Billy McComiskey: Wow.
>> Steve Winick: And one
of the members of one
of the line ups there
was Myron here.
>> Billy McComiskey: Yeah, oh yeah.
>> Myron Bretholz:
Oh, well if it was--
in '86 they had an anniversary, 10th
year anniversary of the festival.
And at that point, the Irish
tradition was a five piece including
the people you mentioned,
as well as Chris Norman.
>> Steve Winick: Chris Norman
was there as well, yeah.
>> Myron Bretholz: -- flute player.
And we were fortunate enough and,
you know, privileged enough to play
in that festival those
two weeks in '86.
>> Billy McComiskey: And it was
kind of a story-- Well, you kind--
you kind of-- Linda Hickman
would have been one of the first.
So, she might have been the first
flute player to actually, you know,
just want to play the music.
It's one thing to play the flute
because it might, you know,
bring a-- if you want to play a
flute at a contra dance, let's say.
That's one thing.
And somewhat, you know, the
Irish flute playing is distinct.
>> Myron Bretholz:
It's very specific.
It's--
>> Billy McComiskey: There's Galway
style-- There's the Galway style,
you know, Galway, Clare and really
Roscommon and Mayo and Sligo,
these are real great flute places.
So, Linda would have been maybe the
first one to take an interest in it.
There's a few-- a good few folks
taking an interest in the fiddle
because how could you not?
>> Steve Winick: Right.
>> Billy McComiskey: You
know, here at the foothills
of the Appalachians, that's amazing.
There's another whole
story there with Sean but--
So, Frank-- Dr. Frank Claudy.
I think he-- He's a
Washingtonian, right, I think.
>> Myron Bretholz: Correct.
>> Billy McComiskey: And he decided
he wanted to go to medical school.
He was-- He had some
kind of regular old job
and he decided he want
to go to medical school.
But he came in with
a whistle one day
and then the next day he had some
kind of recorder thing and trying
to play it and I was
using my Brooklyn humor.
So, why don't you get you--
Why don't you get yourself--
you get yourself a flute and
start playing some real music.
And I'll be darned, he did.
So, he ended with a
black transverse flute.
And Chris Norman kind
of came, after that.
And Chris has had a
pretty interesting career.
He's a brilliant, brilliant
musician.
But he was, you know,
right from here.
They just honored Linda
Hickman up in the New York area.
Ceoltas Ceoltoiri Eireann would
have their annual gathering
and they'll pick some--
they pick a--
Brendan Dolan this time and
Brendan Dolan and Linda.
And it's just a lovely thing.
They didn't even know that, well--
Linda has been living
up there for 25 years.
Nobody really asked her--
>> Steve Winick: Right.
>> Billy McComiskey: -- where
did she learned how to play.
She learned right here, here.
>> Myron Bretholz:
And they've got the--
They're the latest Hall of Famers
up there for mid-Atlantic--
>> Steve Winick: Yes.
>> Myron Bretholz: -- and the CCE.
And good for them, good for them .
>> Steve Winick: Yeah,
that's another sort
of second generation story
because Brendan is the son
of Felix whom you were
mentioning before,
one of the great accompanists of all
time in Irish music on the piano.
And Brendan is too now, I mean.
>> Myron Bretholz: Outstanding.
>> Billy McComiskey: Brendan,
you know, they are all--
When Felix came up with the--
with that style of accompaniment,
there was-- If you listen to
the old Michael Coleman records,
they'd have to have a union
musician in the studio.
So, some pretty god-awful
piano playing on there.
There is a--
>> Myron Bretholz: They were
reading in front of them, right?
>> Steve Winick: Yeah.
>> Myron Bretholz: -- just they'd
never seen it till that day.
>> Billy McComiskey: Yeah.
And there was a joke going
around that they were able
to isolate the piano accompaniment,
made a record out of that,
going to be a really big
hit and was, you know,
sadomasochist kind of thing.
Horrible stuff but yeah,
so-- But Felix just heard it.
He heard the spot where Irish
music exists and he was able
to show the world how
much he loved it.
And it was really good.
And he actually used this
1-6-2-5 and, you know, and--
[ Singing ]
-- heart and soul that time.
>> Steve Winick: Right.
>> Billy McComiskey:
And he was actually--
And he told me, he was papering a
room in his house and he heard that
and he goes, let's see if I
can work that into a tune.
And he did.
So, you can hear it there.
>> Myron Bretholz: And it worked.
>> Billy McComiskey: You can hear it
on "A Tribute to Michael Coleman."
It's like [whistling] and, you
know, really, really-- right.
And it caught on in Ireland.
>> Myron Bretholz: That's a whole
discussion too about the role
of accompaniment in Irish music.
That's for another day.
>> Steve Winick: Right.
>> Myron Bretholz: But Felix made it
OK to do that because it's suppose--
it has been some cases still
is frowned upon, its melody.
That were the only, and
accompaniment doesn't belong there,
according to some purists.
>> Billy McComiskey: Yes, I-- And
so like I have the tunes would have
like a harmonic inference,
let's say.
So, depending on how the, you
know, the melody will flow
and it's really lovely to hear.
What's the brilliant
guy with the Bothy Band?
I always have trouble
thinking of his name?
>> Myron Bretholz: Oh, Donal Lunny.
>> Billy McComiskey:
Yeah, Donal Lunny.
>> Myron Bretholz: Love the guy.
>> Billy McComiskey:
Yeah, and he is able to--
he made these Bothy Band records
but he produced the record kind
of like how a rock and
roll producer would.
>> Steve Winick: Right.
>> Billy McComiskey: So-- And it's--
So he presented Irish
music like Rock.
Actually my own, "Outside the
Box," it's kind of like that.
Kind of like this good
road trip record.
>> Steve Winick: So, here you--
So now you're in a band with--
>> Billy McComiskey: Those guys.
>> Steve Winick: --
with Brendan and Andy.
And that lasts for a while
like 10-15 years, right?
>> Billy McComiskey: Yeah, I
think we managed to-- We did--
We managed to survive
in the Dubliner
for about three and a half years.
And, you know, they were time--
and they were ready to move on.
And there was an influx
of these singer,
guitar player, entertainer type.
So, if you have, you know, you
have a saloon on Capitol Hill,
you want that square footage
to generate X amount
of, you know, dollars.
So it made all the sense.
You know, it's not a
folk club, it's a bar.
Have to get, you know, it takes
a-- takes players a little while.
There's no loyalty in this.
It's a bar.
It's not the Smithsonian.
It's not the National Council....
It's a bar, you know,
that they can make money,
that they can make money.
And then they'll do these other
things to try to make more money.
So, I guess then we
played next door.
Hugh Kelly was opening
another bar, you know,
we played there for
another two years.
And somewhere in and around there,
Lou and Peggy, that the order
that the-- The order that
Lou was a priest in whatever
that he vowed allegiance--
whatever Catholic stuff they do.
And the order lost a whole pile of
money on bad real estate holdings.
So, he was off the hook.
He was done and they-- You know,
I guess they wanted
him to sign up again.
No, that's fine.
So he married Peggy.
And so he asked Brandon and Andy
and me to play at the wedding.
And we were a little late to
the wedding because we were--
You know, well, I guess we moved--
probably still at the
Dubliner at the time.
Yeah. And right before
we got fired from there.
And we got to play for
them at the wedding
and they would teach ceili dancing.
Lou loved to teach ceili dancing
and Peggy just loved everything
about Irish culture, she just
loved it and just wonderful person.
She was an actual Irish
step dance teacher.
She was accredited and
all these kind of things.
So, they had all their students--
After they had their wedding
ceremony, then we went to the hall
and we have a lovely meal
and it was really nice.
And we-- And Jesse and
Terry and a few of the guys,
we threw together a
kind of wedding band.
It was pretty funny.
And then all of these really
nice people showed up.
And next thing, everybody is
dancing all over the place.
And it was all these people that Lou
and Peggy had showed how to dance.
And these two girls
went by like that
and I said to Brendan, that's it.
And one of them was my wife, Annie.
From Baltimore.
and I was like no question
about it, it was like, whoa,
I got to try to get her attention.
And she didn't care
anything about her sister.
Franny loved to go to the ceilis.
>> Myron Bretholz: Was that
Franny with her that day or?
>> Billy McComiskey: Franny asked
her to go, so the two of them went.
And the odd thing was
they had learned--
They both learned to
dance from Peggy.
They learned to waltz from Peggy.
So they-- She danced-- Annie
danced like an Irish-American girl.
I was just unbelievable.
But the other thing that was really
funny about it was Peggy used
to say, you should come up to
Baltimore because there's a girl
up there and you really should meet
her because you'd really like her.
And I was, really, what's her name?
And she says her name
is Franny Caskey.
And so, what I-- after
the wedding was over,
how did you enjoy the wedding?
I said, I met this really-- It's
great, I met this great girl
and then her name is Annie
Caskey, isn't that the one that?
She says, no, we wanted you-- We
were-- We thought just about Franny.
So they were off by one
genome thing, you know.
>> Steve Winick: Yeah.
Right.
>> Billy McComiskey:
Whatever that thing is.
The only one biological thing.
>> Steve Winick: But--
>> Billy McComiskey:
It was really good.
Took me a little while to get
her attention and then, you know.
>> Steve Winick: Worked out.
>> Billy McComiskey: She
knew she was out of luck,
what are you going to do?
>> Steve Winick: So, yeah, I mean
as you said that during the concert,
without her maybe, you know,
none of these would have happened
but certainly some of these
wouldn't have happened.
>> Billy McComiskey: She is--
>> Sean McComiskey:
Technically speaking.
>> Steve Winick: Right.
>> Billy McComiskey: She is the--
She is the rock, you know,
you can ask the boys.
She works for the Sisters of
Mercy at the Mercy Medical Center
in Baltimore, which are-- which
were founded by the Sisters of Mercy
on Baggot Street in Dublin.
Her father was from the old
10th ward up in Baltimore.
They were that dirt
poor, and that poorest
of the poor from the famine times.
So, yeah, they are a real, you
know, a really great family.
Her mother is a Polish-American.
And it's just a real
lovely, good solid,
good solid churchgoing
Baltimore family.
Like they were completely like
that's all about education
and health, you know, kids--
>> Myron Bretholz: Giving back
to the community for sure.
And if I could put something there
about Annie, which I've observed
about many people but Annie would
be prominent who follow the music.
There are people who
have instruments
who aren't really musicians
but they have instruments.
And I'm not naming names.
No one anywhere in our vicinity,
but they're out there
and God bless them.
There are other people who
don't have instruments,
they're around instruments
but they don't play,
but they're musicians
through and through.
And to me Annie is exhibit
A. She's got more music
in her than a dozen people.
She doesn't happen
to play an instrument
but that's just mechanics, but
she's got the music right here.
How can she not, being around them.
She knows it.
>> Billy McComiskey: She was
the one that spotted today here
that we hadn't-- we didn't have
the concertina, right, among these
and she's going that--
There's something wrong there.
We have to have one.
>> Myron Bretholz: You
mean the sound of it.
>> Billy McComiskey: Yeah, so--
And it was just a matter
of getting another mic.
But she brought that,
we think, oh, it's fine,
but she heard it, you know.
Yeah.
>> Myron Bretholz: She-- Her
ear is as good as anybody
who plays the instrument.
>> Billy McComiskey: She
connects-- she connects people.
Yeah, it's really good.
That our little community, our
little Irish music community.
We call that the Celtic corridor.
They are on Harford Road, there's a
whole bunch of us that play there.
And Annie is like-- Well, what
would Annie say about that?
She is like doesn't--
She thinks, you know--
>> Myron Bretholz: OK, so if
Annie says it's good, it's good.
>> Billy McComiskey: Yeah, she
has a tremendous listening ear.
>> Myron Bretholz: You
don't need a second opinion.
You can take her to the bank.
That's what I think of Annie.
I think she's awesome.
>> Billy McComiskey: Except she has
zero interest in money, you know.
It's not--
>> Myron Bretholz: It's a
figure of speech, you know, so--
>> Steve Winick: So I guess
jumping off from discussing Annie
and the fact that we have
this concert specifically
to showcase your children as well
as your own playing
and we have Sean here.
So let's talk to Sean for
a minute and ask, you know,
what elements of your music did
you draw from your dad's tradition
and what have you done
with it that's different?
>> Sean McComiskey: Well, I
mean, he was my primary influence
as you can obviously imagine.
I was not in a situation
where I immediately wanted
to play the accordion.
When I was younger I was kind of--
which is some trend in my life
that I've come to realize,
I tend to be a bit of
a late bloomer in terms
of figuring out what I want.
And I played piano, I learned
piano from Donna Long before
and then took some fiddle
lessons from Brian Conway,
who I just saw this weekend.
Who made a funny joke, he was like--
and he said this, he said he likes
to joke around on the stage with
you guys, that he's responsible
for my playing the
accordion because he gave me--
>> Myron Bretholz:
He's a fiddle player.
>> Sean McComiskey: -- he gave
me my very last fiddle lesson.
And after that-- after the--
after that I started playing--
I kind of waffled for another
couple months or a year,
I forgot exactly how long.
But I started playing the
accordion in the Catskills
with my cousin Noreen,
Noreen Murphy outside
of Stack's pub in East Durham.
And actually it was John Redmond who
gave me and taught me my first tune.
>> Myron Bretholz: Yeah.
>> Sean McComiskey: I
still tell him that.
>> Myron Bretholz:
Yeah, Wexford man.
Great, great man.
>> Sean McComiskey: And from there
just kind of organically happened.
I was around it and it came easily.
So-- and then I would
kind of tag along and go
to the Augusta Weeks
and the Catskill Weeks.
And there was a good
10-year stretch,
where I did that every year.
So, through that I,
you know, I got hooked.
I made a bunch of friends.
I started meeting girls
and kind of once you do--
once you experience that sort of
dynamic, you kind of get roped in.
And, you know, through that,
obviously, I learned a lot
of what I-- very wide majority
of my musical technique
and style from him.
And in recent years, I've kind
of taken that and kind of gone
in different directions
with it, experimentally.
Because one thing that I did when
I was younger I found to be sort
of intimidating, growing
up in the shadows,
so to speak of, you
know, all of this.
And how do I kind of figure
out what I want to do?
Do I want to copy that?
Or do I want to do something else?
And so, I, you know, I'm from
Baltimore and I'm an American
and around me is a lot
of American music so some
of the collaborations I've
done in the past few years,
in addition to my traditional
Irish collaborations with people
like Sean Gavin from Detroit and
Tony Smith, his daughters which--
that's a whole story that
we didn't really cover.
>> Billy McComiskey:
There's a hundred.
>> Sean McComiskey: Yeah.
That's a tangent I'm trying
not to go down but, you know,
I've taken what I've learned
in my, you know, lessons
or whatever you want to call it
from my father and gone, you know,
collaborations with people
like Christylez Bacon.
I don't know if people
know him in DC.
Christylez Bacon is a resident
DC pop artist and I've done a lot
of stuff with him over
the past few years.
And playing different kinds of like
go-go and jazz and hip hop music
and playing more recently into
Appalachian music and Bluegrass
and that sort of stuff, so.
>> Myron Bretholz: Tell them your
band name too for the record.
>> Sean McComiskey: The past
couple years, I've been playing
with the group called Charm
City Junction which is the name,
you know, is getting back
to Baltimore, the Charm City
and the junction point of our
different music coming together.
So, it's a collaboration
with Bluegrass
with a player named Patrick
McAvinue, full time banjo player,
Brad Kolodner, who's the
son of Ken Kolodner who's
in Helicon with Chris Norman.
All that. And jazz
bassist Alex Lacquement.
So, he's a military brat, he
comes from all over the place.
So, it's kind of taking me all sorts
of different places
that I, you know.
And one of the interesting
things about that, for me,
I remember being a little kid
is going to these festivals.
And you know, I would say,
"You never know, you never know
where music is going to take you."
>> Billy McComiskey: Yeah.
>> Sean McComiskey: And wherever
you go you have a friend.
So yeah, you know, in the
past between the past 5
and 10 years I've, you
know, toured in Germany
with Josh Dukes and quite in Spain.
All of the country here.
It's pretty interesting.
>> Steve Winick: Great.
So, you know, one thing you're
talking about these webs
and it was funny because when you
brought up the Bothy Band Billy
and were asking "what's
the name of the guy."
I thought you were referring
to Mícheál Ó Domhnaill,
because he added in a
lot of the harmonics.
>> Billy McComiskey:
Yeah, all those guys.
>> Steve Winick: Although
obviously Donal was--
>> Myron Bretholz: He could--
But he could pick either one,
I picked Donal but
it could be Mícheál.
>> Steve Winick: And the reason I--
>> Billy McComiskey:
Was it Kevin Burke?
>> Steve Winick: Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I thought of him because,
you know, you weren't in a band
with Mícheál but you were in a band
with someone very closely associated
with Mícheál early on
with who was Dáithí .
>> Billy McComiskey: That's right.
>> Steve Winick: And so,
that style of guitar playing.
Yeah. So talk a little bit about
Trian, just because we didn't get
to it, and you mentioned
Liz from the stage today?
>> Billy McComiskey:
I remember being in--
But before I moved down here,
I went to a feis in Manhattan
and then we thought it was a
really a big time at the feis
and that's an Irish
dancing competition thing.
And that there was a few musicians
I actually went to and a couple
of friends of mine said,
"There's some girl, she's tall,
she's really crazy she and she's
been asking, she wants to meet you."
I said, "Really?"
I said, "What's her name?"
They said, "Her name is Liz Caroll."
I said, "Really?"
I said, "That sounds great and I
think I'm going to have to look."
And they say, "Yeah, she's really
tall, she's about six foot tall."
And she's a basketball.
She's like a softball player,
she's an athlete, you know.
I said, "Really?
That's really something."
So I was just-- We were
just kind of walking
around and having a few tune.
Eugene O'Donnell was there, Michael
Flatley was there playing a tune,
he sounded very much like a
Seamus Tansey, he plays in Sligo--
who was the great Sligo flute
player that lives in Chicago now?
>> Myron Bretholz: Kevin Henry.
>> Billy McComiskey: Kevin Henry.
He was a student of Kevin Henry
and I was looking for her,
I thought Mike Flynn was there and
it was this kid, Michael Flatley.
And the next thing, where
all of the, all these nuts,
everybody is on the
elevator and you should--
nobody, you shouldn't have beer
in the hotel because, you know,
you get in trouble for
having beer walking around.
You're spilling all over the rugs
and it was stupid and a big mess.
And the doors open and this girl,
Patty Moriarty, a box player,
very well educated, but again,
totally crazy, great, great person
and a lovely player for the dancing.
And the door is open and
she goes, "There he is."
And this girl, she's
about 6 foot 2, she goes,
"Is that Bi-- " and
the doors closed.
So, that was the first time
that I met Liz Carroll.
I was like, you got
to be kidding me.
And we-- And so-- And I didn't
see her again that weekend.
And then, something
was going on here.
One of those, there was a
while when there was a couple--
There was a fellow, Sean -- what the
hell, it was Sean or Brian, what--
Brian that's always with
the concertina Copley.
Sean Copley [assumed spelling] got
himself a little three-year grant
to have a folk festival.
And we go, "What are
you going to do?
Someone's going to give you money."
You know, he's like, "This is--
My Uncle Matt would have
love that, you know."
So, he gets in and he calls
up, he says, "Who do you think,
who do you think is a good player?
Who should we get?"
I said, you know, "Liz Carroll,
you know, she's really good."
The next thing, she
started being places.
But the real big one, again, was
the 1976, the bicentennial festival.
There she was.
And it was like between herself
and Michael, there was kind of,
you know, the rest of us
were feeling a little rusty,
a little we-- we kind of have to
start practicing a little bit.
Liz is like, you know,
I think she's a genius.
I think she would be pre-eminent
player, period, you know.
She's just-- She's unbelievable.
I don't even know how many
solo recordings she have.
But that should, you know, and
then, you know, when I got married,
I ended up in Baltimore then.
You know, I didn't want to be coming
down here going crazy all the time
and trying to figure out, you
know, how to be a man, you know.
And so, we all kind of
changed what we were doing.
One of the big things that I managed
to do was I just stopped drinking,
I thought-- I love to drink
but I love to play more.
>> Steve Winick: Yes.
>> Billy McComiskey: So,
I figure, OK, I'll just--
I think I'll just be a player.
So, I did my best in AA,
you know, things are sort
of like calming down, realizing
what it is, I asked where I was
and all these kind of stuff.
And Liz was nesting in Chicago.
She had a couple-- She
had a son and a daughter,
great kids, really lovely.
And her husband is terrific.
And he was a carpenter and he would
play blues, Charles, Charles Lacey.
>> Steve Winick: Great
blues harp player?
You know, harmonica.
>> Billy McComiskey: And then
she just gave me a call one day
and she says, "Billy, why
don't we have a group?"
And I said, "Well, OK.
Works for me."
I had a little job, it was
a little tough getting away,
but as I was starting to get
little bits of vacation time
and maybe could go on
the weekends and we go--
and really go on the
way again as we could.
And Dáithí had-- Dáithí had come
out with a box player from Offaly,
again named Paddy O'Brien,
named, you know,
the same as the great Paddy O'Brien.
And-- But James Kelly
was the fiddle player.
So, it was the three
of them that came out.
And the first time I heard
them was at the Dubliner.
You know-- I could--
I was like, my Lord,
their repertoire was really great.
Paddy was the box player
in the Castle Ceili band.
He took the James Keane seat
when James immigrated to America.
James Keane is the brother of
Sean Keane from the Chieftains.
So, Paddy came out
and I think it was--
I got the feeling that it might
have been James Kelly's idea.
He'd been out the year
before on a Ceoltas tour
and he came in to Dubliner.
And he saw what was
going on over here.
It was pandemonium.
It was mobs of people-- it paid
a weekly cash, you know, we've--
some of us paid taxes, I think, you
know, everybody was all pretty good.
And he's like, "Maybe
I'll try this."
And his father, John Kelly
would be one of the pillars
of Irish traditional music,
the great West Clare fiddler.
He was one of those founding
teachers for the Willie Clancy Week.
I think, I'm pretty sure
John was still alive
on the Willie Clancy Week start up.
So, James is like-- James is
living down in Florida now.
And I just learned so much from him.
He's like-- He would be
defined as a fiddle--
the fiddle player's fiddler.
You know, a fiddler
player's fiddler.
That's James.
And he asked Dáithí Sproule.
And Dáithí had been--
he was living in--
I guess, he was living in
Dublin and he was going to--
he'd finished college and he was,
I guess, was a little bit angry.
He was from Derry and all his
stuff was really interesting.
When he gets to-- It's
just now that he's starting
to talk about it, you know.
All these idiotic, awful
stuff, this murderous stuff
with the British army
there in Derry.
And so, he was there.
He saw some of this, but he was--
he's a totally not a violent person.
But he absolutely fell-- He fell
in love with this DADGAD tuning.
And I never-- I'm not sure,
but I think Arty McGlynn
might have been the first
of the great guitar accompanists.
He was the first really, really,
really great guitar player.
Andy O'Brien knew his music inside
out and he was able to interpret it
with the skill that he had acquired
from watching other players.
I don't know if I'm
saying that right,
but Arty was an unbelievably
great guitar player.
>> Steve Winick: Yeah.
>> Billy McComiskey: With
a natural love and respect
for Irish traditional music.
And what's his wife--
>> Myron Bretholz: Well,
ex-wife Nollaig Casey
and they still work together.
>> Billy McComiskey:
They're still great.
>> Steve Winick:
>> Billy McComiskey:
Brilliant, brilliant,
brilliant player, brilliant
accompanist.
So, these would have
been the people--
kind of like the people that
Dáithí would have been listened to.
So the three of them came out and
we heard them there in the Dubliner.
And they went on to
make two records.
And Liz was gotten so-- the
Irish tradition, we were kind--
we would kind of had our time.
We were-- We weren't
a very good bar band.
We-- everything worked really,
really well for us
there in the Dubliner.
We were very, very lucky that the
audience that we had on Capitol Hill
at the time was as
attuned as they were.
It was just a magnificent thing that
happened, again, Myron with WGTB
and then National Council
for the Traditional Arts.
We had tremendous support, you know.
And then, all of a
sudden, we didn't.
And it was-- We couldn't
really take it.
We wanted a concert, we
definitely were not travelers.
We were-- We did not have that.
We didn't have that.
And so-- And Liz was
the one-- that Liz--
when the kids got a little
bigger and then she just said,
"Why don't we have a group?
We'll start a group?"
And we did.
And we did gigs in the Midwest
while we're figuring out how to--
I'd figured out how
to accompany Andy.
Andy liked all these
flat keys, you know.
The great singers will
sing in the key
that suits the song suits the voice.
So, we are able to come up with
some really nice settings of tunes
and we-- Liz and I were
both composing tunes.
Liz still is, Liz is a
really prolific composer.
So, yeah, so we made
the two records.
And it was really good.
We got quite a couple
of-- the national fest--
folk festival and we
played in Ireland.
We played at the Ennis
trad festival.
We got to do some really
interesting things.
I just-- I was just talking with
Dáithí and just played a couple
of gigs with Joanie Madden
with the Pride of New York,
which is our little-- my
little band with Joanie Madden
and Brandon Dolan and Brian Conway.
And Dáithí joined us.
It's such a great band.
And he had a really
stellar career with Altan.
So, he really knows he fits
right into this lovely ensemble.
>> Steve Winick: Yeah.
And that Pride of New York just,
again, shows that connection
to the previous generation
because you think of Brian Conway,
learning from Andy McGann and
you learning from Sean McGlynn
and Joanie learning from
her father, Joe Madden,
just such great connections
there and--
>> Billy McComiskey: I
guess the incredible thing
about the record was we made--
we recorded it in a
weekend in Joanie's house.
And so, the idea was, "Well,
what should we play first?"
And we all thought (Sings tune).
We all thought of this.
They call it "The Dublin Reel"
now with Larry Redican, right.
And so, when we were--
>> Myron Bretholz: Galway Reel.
>> Billy McComiskey:
The Galway Reel.
What did I say?
>> Myron Bretholz: Dublin.
>> Billy McComiskey: The Dublin.
So, here, you know, he's-- So,
we started-- No, it's fine.
So we started playing the tune and
then we go, boy, Larry wouldn't--
oh, Larry was just terrific.
And we'd sit there
and talk about it.
Well, what would be good with that?
Well, you know.
Why don't we put that
one in the tunes?
That tune that James Keane...oh,
yeah, those are really good.
OK. And we never really
rehearsed the record, you know.
It's just-- We put them together
and it's great fun with the--
I got the chance where I butt
heads there with Brendan,
you know, or how should, you know.
How do you see this and what do
you think we could, you know,
lilting little chord ideas he had.
And he's so fast he never--
he never had to punch.
He never had to edit anything,
anything that Brendan
Dolan did on that record.
"How do you like that Brendan?"
"Oh, it's fine."
>> Steve Winick: So, I'm afraid
we're running low on time.
So, I would like to just
ask Sean and Myron quickly
to give a little comment about Billy
and his playing and maybe his--
the award that he's going to
be picking up in a little bit.
>> Myron Bretholz: Can I go first
because I think it will be right
to end with Sean being Billy's son,
that would be very valedictory.
Is that OK Sean?
>> Sean McComiskey: Gives me
time to think some thoughts.
>> Myron Bretholz: You
differ the age here.
I do believe McComiskey
coming on 40 years.
I met him not long after he
started playing at Dubliner.
And he is a massive,
massive musical influence
on me playing the humble
lowly Irish drum.
But, you need an education
to play anything
and I had the best teacher alive
and that's Billy McComiskey.
And I also feel-- I've
said it anyone who--
anyone who's ever asked, they go,
"What's it like playing
with Billy McComiskey?"
I always said.
I'll tell you what it's like.
I'd rather get on the stage with
Billy unrehearsed and unprepared
than with anyone else
with 10 rehearsals.
That's how sure I feel around Billy.
It just going to be right.
Not that we don't rehearse, not
that we don't keep our game up,
but I know that if he says something
it's going to lay down just right.
And it's going to be-- it's going to
have integrity, it's going to last,
it's going to be musically viable
and it might even be some fun.
Billy is-- I have two wonderful
sisters, I didn't happen to grow
up with a brother, but I
consider Billy a brother.
So, that's me and Billy McComiskey.
I differ to Sean now.
>> Billy McComiskey:
On the spot now.
>> Sean McComiskey: Well, I can go
down the road of being meaningful
and profound, but I think
probably just the simplest thing
that I can say about my father
is thank you for teaching me
and my brothers and my
cousins all the good things
that you taught us about music.
And the value-- when I
was listening to you talk
about Sean McGlynn it was--
I was kind of reminded of some of
the things that you do in terms
of like never taking money for
teaching lessons or, you know,
it's all about passing it on.
It's not about, you know,
anything more than that.
It's about keeping it
going and sharing it
because that's the
most important thing
and being open-minded about it.
So, thank you.
Congratulations.
>> Billy McComiskey: Thank you.
>> Myron Bretholz: Yeah.
And congratulations on the newest
award, too, as what Sean said.
>> Steve Winick: Well,
thank you all very much.
>> Myron Bretholz: Steve,
thank you for your time.
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.