K a R a N C a S E Y WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE to DANCE with CHILDSPLAY?

WITH SPECIAL GUEST KARAN CASEY

FIDDLERS, FIDDLES AND FIDDLEMAKER MUSICIANS

FIDDLES BASS Sam Amidon Ralph Gordon

Bonnie Bewick FLUTE Hanneke Cassel Shannon Heaton Amanda Cavanaugh PENNY WHISTLES Shannon Heaton Bob Childs Mark Roberts Graham Dezarn Sheila Falls GUITAR Keith Murphy Ellen Gawler BANJO Steve Hickman Mark Roberts Laurel Martin BOUZOUKI Katie McNally Mark Roberts

Naomi Morse BODHRAN/SNARE Lissa Schneckenburger Mark Roberts

VIOLA HARP Naomi Morse Kathleen Guilday

CELLOS PIANO Elsie Gawler Keith Murphy EXECUTIVE PRODUCER BOB CHILDS McKinley James VOCALS PRODUCER PETE SUTHERLAND Karan Casey 1 CUCKANANDY-CHRIS CHILDS TRADITIONAL / HANNEKE CASSEL, ARRANGED: HANNEKE CASSEL & KARAN CASEY Cuckanandy is a dandling song from Cúil Aodha in West Cork. Collected by Jean Ritchie from the singer Bess Cronin, it’s also said by Seán O Cróinin to have been sung by a pooka or ghost known as Caillichin na Glaoití (calling of the women) that haunted the hills around Cúil Aodha. In addition to doing the arrangement for the song, Hanneke also wrote this fine fiddle tune for Bob’s son Chris. ~ Karan 2 NOODLE VENDOR-SWEETEST BLOOMS-AVERY'S MAZURKA SHANNON HEATON / TRADITIONAL / SHANNON HEATON, ARRANGED: SHANNON HEATON I wrote “Noodle Vendor” for my adopted Thai dad: Khun Paw sold his large retail store and opened a very small noodle cart. He’s never been happier. “Sweetest Blooms” is a reimagined version of the beautiful and comforting traditional song Duang Dawk Mai, which I learned from the great Jiraporn Lekpong. And I wrote the last tune for my friend Avery, as she expanded her range on the cello. ~ Shannon 3 BUDDY'S STRATHSPEY-THE WOODEN WHALE-THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER HANNEKE CASSEL / ALASDAIR FRASIER / TRADITIONAL Buddy’s Strathspey was written for the great Cape Breton fiddle player, Buddy MacMaster. I met Buddy as a teenager and he was an incredible inspiration to me. We go into a tune by Alasdair Fraser, The Wooden Whale, next, and we finish up a with The Farmer’s Daughter, a tune I learned from Laura Risk. ~ Hanneke 4 WHERE ARE YOU TONIGHT I WONDER ANDY M. STEWART, ARRANGED: HANNEKE CASSEL As Andy says himself. “Sometimes things can seem very dark and hopeless, and yet if we hold on, somehow we survive to see that all-important chink of light that heralds a new dawn.” ~ The Andy M. Stewart Collection 5 LARA'S JIG-THE BURNING SNOWBALL-FAREWELL TO LONDON SHEILA FALLS / JOHNNY MCCARTHY / BRENDAN MCGLINCHEY I composed the first jig for my daughter Lara, who is a dancer. The second jig is a composition of flutist, Johnny McCarthy, nicknaming his car that burst into flames. The final tune is a reel composed by Armagh fiddler, Brendan McGlinchey. ~ Sheila 6 SAILING OFF TO YANKEELAND TRADITIONAL, ARRANGED: KEITH MURPHY & KARAN CASEY A famine song that I got from Frank Harte. The famine was the single most catastrophic event in Irish history. Over a million people died and over a million more were forced to emigrate, many to America. This song tells of the ‘American Wake’ which took place the night before people left Ireland for good. It refers, like so many of our songs, to the sorrows felt by the parents who would never see their children again. Frank used to call the people who travelled across the ocean, “a mighty people.” I agree and sing this song for the thousands of emigrants worldwide, victims of starvation and persecution fleeing today and sing it as an expression of my support for these people. If we go back far enough we all come from somewhere else. Please be kind to the immigrants. ~ Karan 7 THE BLOOM OF YOUTH-TEMPLE HOUSE-SAILING IN TRADTIONAL / TRADITIONAL / CHARLIE LENNON Often called Tansey’s Favorite, The Bloom of Youth has such a great rhythmic groove to it, how could you not name the album after it? Found in O’Neill’s music of Ireland, The Temple House has been known by many titles including the Tipsy House and the Evergreen Lasses. The last tune, Sailing In, was written by the great Irish composer Charlie Lennon. ~ Bob 8 TURKA OLEG PONOMAREV This arrangement was inspired by the Russian gypsy jazz violinist, Oleg Ponomarev, who recorded it in 2006. I arranged it for Childsplay in 2010 and both band and audience never tire of it. Or you could say it has been played by Childsplay members late into the night upon occasion. ~ Bonnie 9 THE FIDDLE AND THE DRUM JONI MITCHELL, ARRANGED: BONNIE BEWICK This songs lyrical sad lament puts me in mind of many old Irish songs. Of course it was written by the most important and influential songwriter of the twentieth and twentieth- first century, Joni Mitchell. I guess I must identify with the outsider position she takes when asking America to cease its warring. Like myself she loves and appreciates “all of the good things you are” and there is much to love about America. I have been singing anti-war songs for twenty-five years now. I was hoping or maybe somewhat naively thinking when I started out that this would change. I do still live in hope and I do believe in my heart of hearts in humanity and our great capacity to change. ~ Karan 10 ACADIA MARCH-THE ESSEX WEDDING REEL KATIE MCNALLY / KATIE MCNALLY, ARRANGED: KATIE MCNALLY I wrote Acadia March after my partner, Neil, and I spent a weekend up in Blue Hill, Maine. We had plans to hike Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park one afternoon and we were on our way to the trailhead when we realized we had locked the keys in the car! He graciously takes credit for that. We didn’t end up climbing the mountain that day, but I did get this tune out of it. The Essex Wedding Reel was written for Wendy Marston and Steve Schumacher’s long-awaited marriage in July 2016. ~ Katie 11 MAIDS OF GALWAY-JENNY PICKING COCKLES-EPIC REEL LIZ CARROLL - TRADITIONAL - KEITH MURPHY, ARRANGED: KEITH MURPHY This set starts with half of the band playing a fine Liz Carroll tune, the Maids of Galway, with the other half jumping in with the well known tune, Jenny Picking Cockles. Then we play I tune I wrote, the Epic Reel, which started life as a straight ahead, driving reel; not too many notes, but with a hypnotically intoxicating rhythm. Later, the multi layered harmony parts became an integral part of the tune’s identity and Childsplay was the perfect vehicle to bring that to life. ~ Keith 12 LOVELY ANNIE KARAN CASEY, ARRANGED: HANNEKE CASSEL This song was written for my lovely mother Anne Casey after she died in 2010. We were great old pals and I still feel her presence every day. She had a keen spirit, a wicked sense of humour and great grit so she lives on. Somehow I managed to capture that stark loneliness some people feel after a parent dies, or as a friend of mine said, “the day you grow up.” Hanneke’s beautiful arrangement brings this song to life. ~ Karan 13 ONE TO ONE WALTZ TOMMIE CUNNIFFE, ARRANGED: SHEILA FALLS I first met button accordionist, Tommie Cunniffe, when he visited Boston years ago and handed me his album, “Unbuttoned.” This is a gem of a waltz! ~ Sheila

question), would be to say that it lingers instruments and through Karan’s voice is inside all of us, musician and audience the ultimate gift to me. alike. Whether you are new to hearing Finally, I would like to say something Childsplay or have been with us on our about what it has been like to be a musical journey for many years, my hope craftsman in a world that has become is that our music has moved you, made saturated with commercial and you feel the deepest sense of the emotive corporate interests. It seems like the power of music and the power of the pace of life is so fast these days. One music to connect us all. of the greatest pleasures of making I know I do. I marvel at the collective instruments has always been to just voice that has grown in the band and have time slow down in order to focus The Bloom of Youth feels like the most on the work. Wood is unforgiving, you mature expression of that voice. I know have to be in tune with it or you make for me personally, much of what has a mistake. So in many ways instrument driven my commitment to amplifying that making was a sanctuary for me, a communal voice has been the maturing quiet place that I could take pleasure of my own voice. It is hard to convey what in working. I felt the same pleasure THE LAST WALTZ it is like to start off life in five different in making this album with everyone The last waltz is always the last tune period that followed, this one 2nd grader foster homes but I have come to realize in the band. I know you appreciate, played, to bring an end to a glorious asked me: where does the music go that creating Childsplay helped me find as I do, the level of commitment and evening of music and dance so since this after you finish playing? I have always a way to express the inexpressible. The creativity that each band member will be Childsplay’s last album it seems loved that question and it has remained dream I once shared where I picked brings to their work. Could there be like a suitable title for my last musing. with me for all these years. Looking up a violin with the image of a small anything better than making an album Before we get to the end, however, lets back on the 30 years that Childsplay boy crying inlaid into the back of the with people that you love, with music start at the beginning. Many years ago I has been performing, the best way I instrument gave me the awareness of that you love and then to share it with played the fiddle at an elementary school could answer that (after admiring that a why I pursued violinmaking. So to have people you love. Thank you all, for all and in the inevitable question and answer 2nd grader could ask such a wonderful that voice amplified through all these your years of support! ~ B o b C h i l d s WELL THAT WAS A TREAT What I feel when I tour and sing with the arrangements. I have never seen this Childsplay is well, what a treat. I arrived in action before as I watched quietly at over in Boston wondering what it was all the start, anyways. More like a visiting going to be like. While I had met many anthropologist, taking it all in. Amazed of the members before I was a little again and again by the respect people intimidated and jet-lagged, yawn, when show each other, by the time given to I stepped into the old Concord Scout arrangements and the deliberations House at 74 Walden Street. It was like given to their music. stepping back in time onto an impressively Music takes time folks, that is something polished teak floor with huge windows people rarely appreciate partly because allowing that American blue light that in the days of productivity we like to I miss so much to fall onto the wooden think of music just appearing out of the beams. The room is hollow, the stage ether from the mouths and hands of the tiny, the trees were waving in from the talented, but that isn’t the way it works at outside and the snow lay on the snowy all. We play, we sing, we dance by experience. ground, perfect. We bring what we have and what we know Childsplay is very different. There are a to the table and work with that. And it lot of them and they are an experiment is work, it takes time and patience and the band will catch it, well I do anyway! be a better place. This is exactly what in democracy and love. No one person practice, and trust and diligence and most If I sacrifice tuning for emotion, people Childsplay does, they make the world a leads, even though inevitably people do of all love. We hand over and surrender will know what I mean. If Kevin and better place. I am mad about them and come to the fore. Different members to one another. We believe that if we add Kieran turn in some way for a moment can’t wait to see them again when we are arrange and then lead the band through in an extra beat here and there, and make us all sigh the world will back on tour! ~ K a r a n C a s e y WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO DANCE WITH CHILDSPLAY?

I started dancing with Childsplay in 1999, steps on that recording. But can you couldn’t hear my own feet. I danced with at a single concert in Lexington, Mass. imagine what it feels like to dance on my heart and internal rhythm, trusting I had met Bob Childs at an Irish festival stage with Childsplay? that I would land each step on time. prior to that — chatting out in a field There is something majestic about being Over the years, we’ve worked on sound among a circle of musicians, fiddle cases surrounded by that full-band sound. and monitors and wireless foot mikes slung over their backs. At the time, Bob It feels like being lifted up by an ocean for the dancers, so what I hear now and I were both living in the Cambridge/ wave, which makes the dancing light, includes my steps! But that same trust, Somerville area. We frequented gigs expanded, and effortless, in a way. I’ve and heart-expanding swell is there, together at the Burren and Johnny D’s always found it amazing, how, with so anchored by Mark-Ralph-Keith — the and bonded over a shared love of many instruments on stage, it can feel best rhythm section ever. traditional Irish music. When I joined up like one big unified sound around me. with Childsplay, I had a few other friends And while I love dancing in intimate The rhythm pulses and the harmony in the band already. But within a day, groups too, with just one or two rises, and then, here comes that I felt like I was being welcomed and musicians, there is nothing quite like the glorious swell … the dance! embraced into a complete extended feeling of being swept-off-your-feet by family. Nurturing aunties, crazy uncles, When you’re swimming in the ocean, you this orchestra. I hop and stamp and leap wise elders, and mischievous kids were have to surrender to the rise, and trust and sway, and when I spin and all represented in this group! that you will come down again. It’s a bit look around — there they are, my like that too, in Childsplay. Sometimes in family. And all those fiddles, Bob recorded Childsplay Live in 2001 the early years, the sound was so big, I embracing me. ~ K i e r a n J o r d a n and you can hear the sound of my solo RECORDED Futura Studios Boston Massachusetts

RECORDING ENGINEER Bill Winn

ASSISTANT RECORDING ENGINEER John Weston

ADDITIONAL SOUND ENGINEERING ON THE WOODEN WHALE: James Bridges/Q division Somerville Massachusetts

MIXED Lane Gibson Studio Charlotte Vermont

MIX ENGINEERS Bill Winn and Lane Gibson

TAPE TRANSFER TO ¼ INCH TAPE Jeremy Mendicino

MASTERED Gateway Mastering Studio Portland Maine

MASTERING ENGINEER Bob Ludwig

GRAPHIC DESIGN Rick Couto, Orange Dot Design

COVER ART Vincent Crotty www.vincentcrotty.com

PHOTOGRAPHY Jason Jong 1 CUCKANANDY-CHRIS CHILDS...... 5:20 2 THE NOODLE VENDOR-SWEETEST BLOOMS-AVERY'S MAZURKA...... 4:21 3 BUDDY'S STRATHSPEY-THE WOODEN WHALE-THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER...4:46 4 WHERE ARE YOU TONIGHT I WONDER...... 5:34 5 LARA'S JIG-THE BURNING SNOWBALL-FAREWELL TO LONDON...... 4:21 6 SAILING OFF TO YANKEELAND...... 5:53 7 THE BLOOM OF YOUTH-TEMPLE HOUSE-SAILING IN...... 2:52 8 TURKA...... 4:51 9 THE FIDDLE AND THE DRUM...... 4:55 FIDDLERS, FIDDLES AND FIDDLEMAKER 10 ACADIA MARCH-ESSEX WEDDING REEL...... 4:38 11 MAIDS OF GALWAY-JENNY PICKING COCKLES-EPIC REEL...... 4:34 12 LOVELY ANNIE...... 4:57 13 ONE TO ONE WALTZ...... 3:36