Martin Hayes plays fiddle. Dennis Cahill plays acoustic guitar. Singly, Eileen Curran each is remarkable. As a duo, they are sublime. — ABC Radio, Perth, From “The Lonesome Touch” Australia The Booley House Jig From “Welcome Here Again”
National Public Radio: Tiny Desk Concert O’Carolan’s Farewell to Music; The Beare Reel Photo credits: top: Derek Speirs Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill, Irish fiddle and guitar, are one of the world’s Daniel Sheehan bottom: Erin Baiano great musical duets.
Together they have toured throughout North America, Europe, Australia and Ja- pan bringing their sublime interpretations of Irish traditional music to venues as Tour Schedule vast as the Sydney Opera House as serene as Buddhist temples and to university performing arts centers and community auditoriums everywhere. ravishing…entrancing… Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill dig deep into the melodies of the Irish canon, making poetry out of tunes and finding treasure within the notes. Guided by the inventive…eloquent…elegant… inherent and irresistible rhythm of Irish dance music, they build slowly into fiery “ reels and take audiences on an ecstatic musical odyssey. essential…astonishing virtuosity… soulful expressionism… Read individual bios… Read full reviews… ”
Read album notes from “Welcome Here Again” by Martin Hayes…
Elizabeth Roth [email protected] www.rotharts.com Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill Bios & Album Notes
Martin Hayes | Martin Hayes’ unique sound, his mastery of the fiddle, his acknowledgement of the past and his ability to place the tradition within a wider contemporary context, combine to create a unique and insight- ful interpretation of Irish music. He has drawn inspiration from many musi- cal genres, but remains grounded in the music he grew up with in East County Clare where the tradition he inherited from his late father, P. Joe Hayes, was the formative influence on his musical accent and ideas. He has recorded two acclaimed solo albums, “Martin Hayes” and “Under the Moon” on the Green Linnet label and three duet albums with Dennis Cahill: “The Lonesome Touch”, “Live in Seattle”, and “Welcome Here Again”. Martin is the Artistic Director of the Masters of Tradition Festival in Bantry, West Cork and the touring show of the same name. A co-founder of the new band, The Gloaming, he also tours and records with Peadar Ó Riada and Caoimhin Ó Raghallaigh in the traditional Irish trio, Triúr. He has collaborated with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the innovative string quartet, Brooklyn Rider, the viola da gamba player, Jordi Savall and jazz guitarist, Bill Frisell as well as projects in theatre, contemporary dance, televi- sion and film.
Dennis Cahill | A master guitarist born and raised in Chicago, Dennis is the son of Irish-speaking parents from the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry. Trained at Chicago Music College, Dennis began his career playing in rock bands and country bands in Chicago before immersing himself in Irish music with Martin Hayes. His innovative and spare accompaniment to Martin’s fiddle is ac- knowledged as a major breakthrough for guitar in the Irish tradition. Dennis is a member of the Gloaming with whom he tours internationally. He is also a record producer in Chicago and a talented photographer.
Album Notes from Welcome Here Again by Martin Hayes | There are as many ways to play Irish music as there are people to play it. One of its greatest strengths is in its flexibility of interpretation: everyone has the opportunity to put their personal stamp on it. We try to avoid an overly technical or cerebral approach. Instead, it is all about inhabiting the world of musical intangibles —the place that is governed by heart, soul, feeling and instinct. The humility necessary to play this music meaningfully arises from a continuous struggle to enter that place. It is there that the melodies are shaped by gut responses to the feelings they evoke. These feelings are the goal and the litmus test for the musical decisions we make. Each choice of tempo, phrasing, ornamentation, chording and arrangement originates from the wish to express that central feel- ing of the tune. The result may be a simple and uncomplicated piece of music but hopefully something that speaks from the heart.
Elizabeth Roth [email protected] www.rotharts.com Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill Reviews
MIX Magazine | Their first album of duets in eight years, Welcome Here Again is a quietly inspiring beauty that chiefly spotlights the Irish all-fiddle champion’s sensitive, sweet style. Cahill’s guitar work adds rhythm and harp- like embellishment to 18 soulful, traditional tunes. Almost as impressive as the flawless playing is the fact that the album is almost entirely handmade by the musicians; the music was all arranged, produced, and engineered by Hayes and Cahill. — Barbara Schultz, MIX Magazine
Metro | Martin Hayes’ ravishing fiddle style is marked by the graceful lyri- cism long associated with County Clare. [He has] an extraordinary acoustic duo with guitarist Dennis Cahill. Hayes and Cahill celebrate the release of their ravishing new album, Welcome Here Again. To listen to Welcome Here Again is to hear two artists communicating at the highest musical level. There’s a quiet intensity to their collaboration that makes the music feel complete, although part of its beauty is the sense of spaciousness. With a repertoire of traditional Irish tunes, they’ve honed a sublimely balanced chamber music sound in which their instruments often seem to breathe together. The result is a loose but finely calibrated approach that transforms dance music into concert hall fare, retaining the original terpsichorean impulse while lavishing attention on me- lodic lines that evoke life’s sweetness and inevitable sorrow. — Andrew Gilbert, Metro, Santa Cruz, CA
Slipcue.com | The Irish duo of Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill returns with another set of subtle, elegaic fiddle-guitar instrumentals. It’s moody, mourn- ful and utterly entrancing. They find the soulful, melodic core of the music and linger there, in the hurricane’s calm eye, just drinking it all in.
The Irish violinist Martin Hayes and the American acoustic guitarist Dennis Cahill’s 1999 collaboration, Live in Seattle, is regarded as the Celtic Kind of Blue, but here is Hayes’s best work since that high-water mark. The Co Clare musician imbues…the traditional tunes of his native land…with vast emotional depths and breadths, and dares a sparse, measured improvisatory approach. The high point is a slow air called The Dear Irish Boy, a frozen five minutes of superbly controlled tension. — Stewart Lee, The Sunday Times, London
Georgia Straight | On Welcome Here Again, their first release in nine years, fiddler Martin Hayes and guitarist Dennis Cahill brilliantly demonstrate their skill at drawing out the emotional essence of Irish instrumental music. Hayes’s light and lyrical style is complemented by the spare and delicate accompaniment of Cahill, the master of a range of techniques from fingerpicking to harmonics. They lean on notes, contract or extend phrases, and add traditional ornamentation with flair and Elizabeth Roth imagination. — Tony Montague, Georgia Straight, Vancouver BC, Canada [email protected] www.rotharts.com Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill Reviews
The Sunday Times, London | The Irish violinist Martin Hayes and the American acoustic guitarist Dennis Cahill’s 1999 collaboration, Live in Seattle, is regarded as the Celtic Kind of Blue, but here is Hayes’s best work since that high-water mark. The Co Clare musician imbues... the traditional tunes of his native land...with vast emotional depths and breadths, and dares a sparse, measured improvisatory approach. The high point is a slow air called The Dear Irish Boy, a frozen five minutes of superbly controlled tension. — Stewart Lee, The Sunday Times, London
ABC Radio | Martin Hayes plays fiddle. Dennis Cahill plays acoustic guitar. Singly, each is remarkable. As a duo they are sublime. If you love Irish music you will surely love their sensitive, quietly inventive approach. If you generally don’t much care for Irish music, you may well love this duo all the more! Welcome Here Again is their first new duo CD in eight years. — Doug Spencer, The Weekend Planet, ABC Radio, Perth, Australia
LiveIreland.com | Welcome Here Again is a magic piece of business. They are perfectly tuned into each other. The lads emphasized that they wanted to really, really showcase the beautiful melodies themselves that grace traditional music, and they have succeeded brilliantly. This is the real essence of the music, interpreted and offered by two masters of the form. The tunes, presented this way, remind you of what drew you to this music in the first place—and what holds you. This is a great album, played by international masters of their art. Rating: Four Harps — Bill Margeson, LiveIreland.com
The Record | It’s been eight years since Irish fiddle virtuoso Martin Hayes and his subtle guitar accompanist Dennis Cahill released Live in Seattle, the duo’s sophomore album after 1997’s The Lonesome Touch. The aptly titled Welcome Here Again features 18 tunes and sets encompassing reels, jigs and airs per- formed by this incomparable duo. Hayes carries with him the traditional fiddle music of his birthplace...defined by slow lyricism and gentle contemplation with strains of sweet melancholy. And no one plays it better. Cahill is a master guitar- ist versed in rock, classical and blues, but you would think he has been playing the traditional music of County Clare for as long as Hayes.
Welcome Home Again is the perfect anodyne to the hustle and the bustle, the noise and the agitation that dominates so much of contemporary life. It’s as though the duo transports listeners back in time and place to rural County Clare on an evening in mid-winter when family and neighbours gather to share the mu- sic of their ancestors. — Robert Reid, The Record, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada the Irish Examiner | Ceaselessly stretching boundaries and cajoling melo- Elizabeth Roth dies into uncharted waters, Hayes and Cahill produce a radical, yet rooted [email protected] resonance. — Gerry Quinn, the Irish Examiner www.rotharts.com Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill Reviews
The Irish Times | If your live music rations were limited to a single concert in the entire year, then you’d be either crazy or foolish if you didn’t pass that precious time in the company of Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill. — Siobhan Long, The Irish Times, Dublin
Seattle Times | The remarkable duo, which performs Tuesday at the Triple Door, has honed a ravishing repertoire by distilling the melodic essence of traditional tunes. The two can play a reel that sets feet stomping, but they’ve distinguished themselves by bringing chamber music’s intensity and dynamic control to folk tunes created for community celebrations. — Andrew Gilbert, Seattle Times
Time Out NY | …this is no New Age chill-out zone— it’s pure, simple, spare and intense. — Gwen Orel, Time Out NY
Wall Street Journal | The strength of his musical staying power stems from an unwavering devotion to melody. — Earl Hitchner, Wall Street Journal
The Chicago Irish-American News | Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill Male Musician of the Year, 2008.
Elizabeth Roth [email protected] www.rotharts.com
XX1 - V4 Irish Examiner 18 ARTS Friday 08.02.2008 r eviews Theatre The Maids TOWN HALL THEATRE, GALWAY Fresh departure ###$$ A WORD of warning to all those still in a position to employ maids in our struggling Celtic Tiger: treat Gerry Quinn them with respect, because as Jean Genet’s play illustrates, you never know what they are capable of. talks to fiddle Originally written in 1945, this new production is by Galway-based The- atrecorp and it is dark. virtuoso Martin Based on a true murder story, it charts the claustrophobic love-hate relationship between two sisters, Hayes about his Solange and Claire and their mis- tress, Madame. The claustrophobia is captured in long-aw ai t ed the opening scene, a static one, which places Madame behind bars in a set that is a cross between a reunion album prison and a church, but with opu- lent furnishings. When Madame leaves her apart- with guitarist ment the maids play dangerous games in which they take turns pre- tending to be her. The games illus- Dennis Cahill trate the depths of their misery and their complex attitude towards her — they admire the glamour and lifestyle, while hating how she treats them. It takes a while for this play, di- ELCOME Here rected by Max Hafler, to hit its Again (Green Lin- stride, but it eventually does about net Records) is the half-way through. eWagerly anticipated new album from There is a particularly strong per- internationally acclaimed fiddle/gui- formance from Andrea Kelly as tar duet, Martin Hayes and Dennis Solange, and Sheila McCormack as Cahill. It’s the first studio release Claire is solid, although Ionia Ní from the American-based Irish tra- Chróinín doesn’t always hit the ditional musicians in 10 years, since right note as the whimsical and The Lonesome Touch. spoilt Madame. The pair’s most recent offering The set is excellent and lighting was the much-feted Live in Seattle, highlights the claustrophobia felt by released in 1999. On a flying visit the characters. last week to his native Co Clare, The long-awaited new album Judy Murphy fiddler Martin Hayes frankly dis- from Martin Hayes, left, and closed the basis for such a long delay Dennis Cahill, was “certainly between releases. worth the wait”. Rock “There’s no very good reason, to tell you the truth. The record com- American Music pany was going through a lot of tur- moil for a while, so that gave me an Club excuse to procrastinate. Somebody for years,” remarks Hayes. thing. Oddly enough, there was more like Simon and Garfunkel or childhood and teenage life are just RÓISÍN DUBH, GALWAY has to give me a deadline or I can’t “So, apart from touring togeth- though,” proffers the virtuoso. Abbott and Costello,” he laughs. enormous. All the other happen- ####$ make it happen,” says the recently er, we were always thousands of Over the past decade, Hayes and Despite living in the USA for ings in life can never balance it THERE is a horde of overlooked crowned traditional musician of the miles away from each other. Cahill have garnished rave reviews half his life and spending an inor- out. It’s like your accent, the way bands on the sidelines of rock mu- yea r. There were other factors too. I and special mentions for their dinate time touring the world, you talk — you are imprinted sic. Only a few, though, could be A heavy international touring remember that we had one sec- unique interpretations of Irish Martin Hayes still has a strong from an early age. I’ve spent more described as criminally neglected. schedule has kept the duo busy in tion of the album set up when music — mixing the melancholic affinity for East Clare, where he than half my life away from here, American Music Club fall into this the interim and, as Hayes explains, Dennis’s wife died, so we stopped with fiery and dazzling perfor- was brought up and, in particular, but I still talk like I come from latter category. he’s loath to record just for record- everything and put it to one side. mances, peppered with elements the beautifully lyrical music of the Feakle or Killanena.” Over two decades, the San Fran- ing sake alone. “We didn’t really And when you put a project aside of classical and jazz music, region. Having played with his As regards the music of his na- cisco outfit have fashioned a tapestry want to make a record that was just for a year, it can be very strange prompting The New York Times late father, P Joe, in the famed tive region, Hayes puts forward of rich, elegiac Americana, standard like The Lonesome Touch or the to come back to it. to describe them as “a Celtic Tulla Céilí Band from an early some interesting observations on blues-rock, jazzy lounge-pop and live album. It’s always easy to go “I also had difficulty imagining compliment to Steve Reich’s age, Hayes admits to still being its diversity and durability and melancholic country. back and make an album like the this record. I wasn’t always able to quartets or Miles Davis’s Sketches strongly influenced by his birth- how it has impacted on his own Frontman Mark Eitzel displays a one you’ve just made and it’s also tie the tunes together. They were of Spain.” place and it’s distinctive character. stage performance. “What I play voice of raw, disarming emotion and easy to make a totally different one. all stored away on the hard drive How does this comparison sit How important is East Clare to on stage isn’t necessarily what you a penchant for poignant wordplay But it’s very tricky to create one and I didn’t listen to it in its en- on your collective shoulders, I en- you right now? “Irrespective of are going to hear in a pub in East and at this show he and mercurial that’s in the world that you inhabit. tirety until about a month before I quire? “We don’t think about it how important I would think it is, Clare,” he says. guitarist Vudi were joined by their I don’t want it to just sound good sent it to the record company. Al- too much, to be honest,” comes the fact is it’s just woven into me “But, in many ways, there’s a new rhythm section, Sean Hoffman for this month. I just want to make so, I changed fiddles in the middle the reply. “Though I suppose if at this stage. In life, you can have big chunk of it involved in both. on bass and Steve Didelot on sure it will still sound good in 20 of it and recording microphones. I the New York Times said that so many experiences and so many Obviously everything I do on drums, whowere brilliantly up to years’ time,” states the six-time also changed computers, so, for a about us, it is obviously very good varied things that you encounter stage isn’t East Clare music, but a the task. All-Ireland fiddle champion. time, I was wondering if there on some level, that they regard us as you travel the world, but the lot of the qualities of what I do Opening with back-to-back clas- “I’m still interested in the pure was any cohesion at all on this that highly. Maybe it should be formative experiences of your are. There’s some joy in opening sics in Johnny Mathis’s Feet and Irish traditional music and I was try- it up for people and allowing Blue And Grey Shirt, the band ing to find something that didn’t them to maybe look into the road-tested material from new al- deviate from that too much, yet had IT’S certainly been worth the and complex manner at the same world of Joe Bane and John bum The Golden Age (their finest a slightly different wrinkle on it. wait. After eight years since Live Martin Hayes and time, with minimalist guitar, giv- Naughton or Paddy Canny and since 1993’s Mercury). Of these, All One might listen to this album and in Seattle and 10 since The Lone- ing the track a truly elegant feel. letting them have a little feel of it. My Love and Who You Are were easily think that it should have only some Touch, Welcome Here Denis Cahill With recognisable tunes in un- Anyway, East Clare music is open the standouts, the latter a beautiful taken us a month to record, but I Again heralds Hayes and Cahill’s WELCOME HERE AGAIN common keys and lesser known for interpretation,” he suggests. hymn on the value of preserving reject an awful lot of stuff before I dedication to creating a soundtrack ##### melodies sitting comfortably to- “For example, Andrew McNa- one’s identity in the face of a world make a record,” he admits. for ethereal and plaintive medita- in tow with Cahill’s deftly picked gether, the album fashions a work mara, Mary McNamara (fellow hell-bent on homogeneity. Did it become a chore at any tions. mandolin, subtly entices the listener of exquisite tone and annuncia- East Clare musicians) and myself There was one bum note when stage? “I suppose it kind of did,” he Here, they demonstrate master- into a world of astounding virtuosity tion. Equally lonesome and hos- have subtle opinions as to what wistful tearjerker Western Sky was replies. “It’s like as if you decide to fully that Irish traditional music and soulful expressionism. As close pitable, this music negotiates yet this same music we’ve been listen- blasphemously funked up. That build a shed in your backyard and can, in the right hands, be knead- to a spiritual experience as a musical another landmark on an ev- ing to is. Andrew has quite differ- aside, the show was a corker until you complete everything except for ed and expanded imaginatively. recording can be, this magnificent er-evolving exploration for the ent characteristics in his music to Eitzel’s mood took a turn for the getting around to putting the win- The duo carefully avoid the pitfalls presentation is food for the soul. unearthing of a musical truth. me. Growing up, we knew exactly worse. Mumbling something about dows and doors on it, but promise of pastiche and musical dilution. Eloquent and at times sparse, Hayes and Cahill’s opus main- the same people and heard exactly the crowd not “digging it”, he led to get back to it later.” Ceaselessly stretching boundaries Hayes’ fiddle dances, swings, sways tains an enthusiastic commitment the same music, yet for him, he’s the band through furious renditions Other extenuating circumstances and cajoling melodies into un- and saunters, astride familiar and to investigation and magnificent absolutely immersed in that wild of Wish The World Away, Hello led to further delays along the way charted waters, Hayes and Cahill some not so well-known tunes, un- innovation, but at all times remains dance rhythm that is also part of Amsterdam, and Jesus’s Hands be- and, at times, fans probably de- produce a radical, yet rooted reso- derpinned by Cahill’s understated true to the core beauty and time- East Clare music. So, there’s fore walking offstage. spaired of ever getting an opportu- nance. but essential and elegant guitar less cadence of Irish traditional schizophrenic things going on The abrupt departure failed to nity to experience the new record. The opening track, The Clare phrasings. The Wind Swept Hill of music. Beauty and sublime artistry even inside a regional music.” dampen the experience much. In “For one thing, Dennis lives in Reel, with its laid-back tempo, Tulla, an air from Hayes’ native east p rolife r a t e. the midst of songs of this calibre, Welcome Here Again, by Martin Hayes and Chicago and I’m now living in measured features and lithe fiddle Clare is played on fiddle in a simple Gerry Quinn Dennis Cahill, will be released on Green Lin- you can put up with a lot. Connecticut after being in Seattle net Records on February 12. Padraic Killeen Making use of the gifts they’ve been given
N a grimy Glasgow rehearsal Scotland’s Sons and more folksy counterparts The Pro- space, David Gow, of ac- Cult band Sons Daughters — left to right, claimers aside — is the fact that claimed Scottish rock band Adele Bethel, Scott they sing in thick Scottish brogue. SIons and Daughters, is holding Paterson, Ailidh Lennon You might even call them trailblaz- forth on the benefits of socialism. and Daughters and David Gow — have had ers — in their wake, a generation of “The internet has changed the great critical acclaim, but artists have started to sing in their music business and major record la- have yet to cross over into own accents. bels are in a real bind at the mo- may have the mainstream. “We didn’t think about it much at ment,” he says. “And it’s all their the start,” says Gow of the decision. own fault. It just shows what hap- “Adele used to be in [Glasgow art- pens when you don’t respect the hit the big house group] Arab Strap — she artists that are on your label. When used to sing in her own accent then. it all comes down to accountants It would have seemed false for her and you’re not respecting the artists, time with to come out and put on a big yan- you’re going to be banjaxed.” kee accent. In truth, it is easier to Sons and Daughters, a boy/girl sing in an American accent from a four-piece long beloved of critics, their latest purely phonetic standpoint. But, as have no such worries. Signed to we see it, we’ve nothing to be fiercely independent Domino ashamed of. It seems to be more in Records, home to Mercury Prize album, writes vogue now than when we started. winners Arctic Monkeys and Franz You hear a lot of bands now in re- Ferdinand, they are part of a musical gional accents.” collective that looks after its own. Ed Power This Gift reaches record stores this “At Domino, it’s all about sup- week, but if you really wanted to porting the artist, whether it’s the hear the album it’s been floating il- Arctic Monkeys, who are huge, or and didn’t want to come back and musical all-rounder Ailidh guy, but he is opinionated about for our ideas, it would inject more licitly around the internet for several the smaller artists,” says Gow. “The with a record everyone was ex- Lennon hooked up with producer music, as are we,” says Gow of passion into the record.” weeks. Gow shrugs his shoulders. money that is made from the bigger pecting,” says Gow of their pop- Bernard Butler, best known as the Butler’s reputation as a confronta- Did the tension, as has been re- “What can you do? All records artists gets shared around. It’s a very ulist new direction. “A lot of peo- guitarist with 1990s Britpop tional producer. “We’re good ported elsewhere, develop into leak. In a way, it’s always been like socialist kind of idea. Nobody gets ple see us as this band that lives in dandies Suede. Butler is establish- friends now, but at the time, it full-blown shouting matches? that. When I was a kid I taped mu- left behind.” a kind of country-punk niche. We ing a reputation as the go-to guy was quite horrible. He likes pro- “Well, he didn’t hold back in sic because I didn’t have enough Tipped for success for several wanted to do something that was for crossover success (he recently ducers like Berry Gordy and Phil his opinions, and we didn’t hold pocket money. What’s annoying is years now, Sons and Daughters seem going to surprise ourselves and collaborated with Amy Duffy, the Spector, people who created an back either. It’s nice now to look that it was probably a journalist who poised to finally make good on their surprise everyone else.” Welsh chanteuse tipped as this air of constant tension in the stu- back. We’re on friendly terms. I’m leaked it, someone you would have promise — new album This Gift, On the suggestion of Domino year’s Amy Winehouse). But he is dio and made beautiful records. I just glad we made an LP that’s re- thought it was safe to trust.” their most commercial yet, is set to supremo Laurence Bell, drummer also rumoured to be difficult to think he thought if we were too ally going to surprise people.” This Gift is out on Domino Records. Sons and catapult the group out of cultish ob- Gow, together with guitarist Scott work with. laid-back, we’d make something One thing that has always set Daughters play Whelan’s, Dublin, on Sunday, scurity. “We’d been away for a bit Paterson, vocalist Adele Bethel “Obviously he’s a really talented lacklustre. If we were all fighting Sons and Daughters apart — their February 17.