ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

www.advertiser.ie May 15 2014 TheWeek Page 85 Jim Rooney’s ‘long run’ through music Grammy winning Nashville producer to launch autobiography in Galway

BY CHARLIE MCBRIDE town that was only 12 miles away committed and I love to play but I Zeppelin. grandfather came from Barna, and but there were no Irish Catholics didn’t feel I was that level of being “Those British bands were I always go out to that graveyard in our town; there were Italian a full artist and I think I was right pretty rowdy, they were quite full and there is a feeling of home ONE EVENING in 1951, in the Catholics and lots of Yankee in that judgment. of themselves, they were young there, I have so many good friends; Massachusetts town of Dedham, a Protestants; in our neighbourhood “I’ve had the opportunity to and full of vinegar and what not,” Moya Cannon, Mary Staunton, young Irish-American teenager we were the only Catholics on the work with a lot of artists and I Rooney recalls. “That was Led Sean Tyrrell, any number of happened to tune in to the local street. know what it takes to do that and Zeppelin’s very first appearance in people, so I am always very happy radio station as a country band “It was a conscious decision on to be successful which is a full the United States. I just don’t think to be there.” called The Confederate my parents’ part, they wanted us commitment to it. I do have this they had a real appreciation of the Mountaineers were playing. to be not so parochial. My mother other side which is that I am a people that were around them He was instantly smitten by the had some brothers who were pretty good organiser, and I’ve or the circumstances they sound of fiddle, , mandolin, priests while my father did a lot of especially enjoyed being a record were in. If you were in a and guitar melded with high, clear work in construction and went on producer, that has been my room with Duke singing. For Jim Rooney, then aged to do a lot of work for the favourite role that I found in life. I Ellington and people 13, it was the beginning of a life- archdioceses of Boston, but they can do it well, I enjoy the process, of that calibre you long love affair with country and both wanted to get a little space.” and it is something someone needs think you might folk music, a passion that would Given his passion for American to do. It’s a big help to the artist to want to shut up set him on a varied, exciting, and folk and country music, it is have someone who is a good and pay some fulfilling career in music as a surprising to learn that Rooney producer.” attention!” performer, promoter, songwriter, was largely unfamiliar with Irish The book is full of wonderful Rooney is publisher, engineer, and Grammy- music until he made his first visit vignettes; being stuck with Bill relishing the winning producer. here in 1964. Monroe on his freezing and broken prospect of That career has brought him “It wasn’t until I met Carol down tour bus; arranging a pre-gig his Galway into contact with such iconic Langstaff [Rooney’s wife], whose supply of Chivas Regal for Muddy book figures of American music as Bill mother Diane Hamilton put the Waters; being invited by Thelonius launch. Monroe, Muddy Waters, Doc Clancys and Tommy Makem Monk to admire his wardrobe of “Galway is Watson, Howlin’ Wolf, Bob Dylan, together, that I heard that music,” tailor-made suits; trading Hank a second The Band, The Everly Brothers, he tells me. “I hadn’t heard any Williams songs with a young Bob home for Dionne Warwick, and Taj Mahal. Irish instrumental music. My Dylan. me,” he In the 1970s Rooney moved to father would sing ‘Take me home declares. Nashville where he began again Kathleen’ or ‘The Rose of Surviving Led Zeppelin “Carol and I engineering and producing Tralee’ but that was it. Once I got Rooney also provides vivid pen spent 12 records. Here he helped over to Ireland and met the likes of portraits of many of the people he years there alternative country gain a foothold Peggi Jordan it was quite encountered such as Townes Van spending five in Music City as he worked on extraordinary. Zandt, and Dylan’s manager or six months keynote albums by John Prine, Iris “I had read a lot of Irish Albert Grossman. While of each year Dement, Nanci Griffith, and literature, O’Casey, Yeats, etc, but I Grossman’s public image is that of there. My Townes Van Zandt. He was also wasn’t familiar with the music a hard-ass, intimidating figure, maternal involved in making the landmark aside from the Clancy Brothers. Rooney gives a much more TV series Bringing it All Back Then I came to and stayed nuanced take on the man. Home which explored the with Peggi and we went to sessions “Grossman was a complex very connections between Irish and around Dublin and then to Scariff. interesting person,” he notes. “He American music. It was incredible there, to hear was a hard person to work for Now, Jim Rooney has set down Willie Clancy on the street. I’d because he was very his many adventures and never even seen the uilleann pipes demanding, he was never recollections in an aptly-titled and before, and I’d never heard satisfied. But people thoroughly absorbing anything like Barney McKenna like that can get more autobiography, In It For the Long and Sean Sheehan. It was all very out of you than you Run; a Musical Odyssey exciting and stimulating.” think you’ve got.” (University of Illinois Press, €20), The book which receives its Irish launch at a Happy to mix it up ruefully reception in Charlie Byrne’s Having been bitten by the describes Bookshop tomorrow at 6pm. country music bug, Rooney taught how the himself guitar (a left-hander, he Newport Not your typical Irish-American played it ‘backwards’ and upside Festival lost Ahead of the book’s launch, Jim down,) and began performing the run of took some time to share thoughts alongside his good friend, banjo- itself, with and memories from his lengthy player Bill Keith. It was not long one post- and eventful career. I begin by however before he found himself show party asking him about something he diverted into the organisational being says on the very first page of the side of things, firstly with the Club marred by book, where he reveals his family 47 in Cambridge where the likes of the boorish moved to Dedham to be “away Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, and the conduct of from the Irish-Catholic enclaves in Staple Singers appeared, and then a Boston”. I suggest this was with the Newport Folk Festival. drunken atypical for an Irish-American Did he ever regret not focusing Led family. more on his own performing “It was atypical,” Rooney agrees. career? “My mother’s family and her “I’ve been pretty happy mixing it relations and my father’s family up,” he replies. “Pretty early on, I all lived in various parts of Boston. had a good understanding that I I think she just wanted to get out didn’t have the level of talent or from under their scrutiny. It’s determination to be an artist full interesting because we moved to a time. You have to be totally