Pushing All the Right Buttons

Episode 16-Pushing All the Right Buttons
Cuppa Tea with the Baltimore McComiskeys
This Irish Music Stories episode aired May 8, 2018
https://shannonheatonmusic.com/episode-16-pushing-all-the-right-buttons/

____________

– Full transcript coming soon –

Episode 16-Pushing All the Right Buttons
Cuppa Tea with the Baltimore McComiskeys
This Irish Music Stories episode aired May 8, 2018
https://shannonheatonmusic.com/episode-16-pushing-all-the-right-buttons/

– transcript edited by John Ploch –

Speakers, in order of appearance:

>> Shannon Heaton: flute player and host of Irish Music Stories
>> Nigel Heaton: young announcer for Irish Music Stories
>> Billy McComiskey: Baltimore-based accordion player, composer, and National Heritage Fellow
>> Sean McComiskey: accordion player and teacher, and Physical Therapy specialist specializing in injuries affecting musicians
>> Mikey McComiskey: accordion player of the famed Baltimore McComiskey Irish traditional music family dynasty
>> Maggie Holtzberg: fiddle player and official folklorist for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

____________

>> Shannon:  Before I start the show, I wanted to thank everybody for listening. And for sharing episodes with your friends. And a special thank you to this month’s donors, read by my son Nigel.

>> Nigel:  Thank you to Susan Walsh, Chris Stuart, Brian Benscoter, Randall Semagin, and Sebastian Winterflood.

>> Shannon:  If you can kick in, please visit IrishMusicStories.org. Your support helps me pull together different voices and views of the world—all through an Irish music and dance lens. So, thank you!

And… I’m Shannon Heaton. And This is Irish Music Stories. The show about traditional music, and the much bigger stories behind it …

[ Music:  “Free the Heel,” from Kitchen Session

Artists/Composers:  Matt & Shannon Heaton ]

…Like how an accordion player (or three) can help us be our best selves, even when it rains.

>> Billy:  They couldn’t afford us because of the cuts and I just started calling around and asking these people, “Would they want to do this?” and everybody said the same thing, “YES!”

And then, the festival itself was actually, ah, canceled that day because of the rain. But there was so much momentum going on for this one set on this one stage that they kept it open. It was just really great thing to happen.

>> Shannon: That’s National Heritage Fellow Billy McComiskey. He was talking about the 2017 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. That’s the annual celebration that brings ethnic communities together. Its mission? Encourage cultural exchange and understanding.

And 2017 was the 50th anniversary of The Folklife Festival. 

[ Music:  “St. Patrick’s Day,” from Cover the Buckle
Artists: Seán Clohessy, Sean McComiskey, and Kieran Jordan ]

But as organizers worked to secure programming for the Fest. their neighbors on Capitol Hill were proposing record budget cuts to the arts and humanities. Of course, this makes it harder to bring people together… which, well, keeps people apart.

>> Billy:  That’s right how you keep people confused. You don’t want people understanding each other, from this political perspective.

[ Music:  “St. Patrick’s Day,” from Cover the Buckle

Artists:  Seán Clohessy, Sean McComiskey, and Kieran Jordan

>> Shannon:  Instead of passing on The Folklife Festival, Billy got out the accordion and he made something great happen anyway, together with ten other musicians and four official dancers. A few performers came in from out of town: Mick Moloney joined from New York. But for the most part, it was the Baltimore gang. And here’s where our accordion story takes place: Baltimore, Maryland.

Because when you ask Billy McComiskey what he’s been up to, the talk always turns to Baltimore. His compass points toward the local heroes. Whether it’s his musical sons; Pat, Sean, and Mikey. Or his community-building wife Annie. Or his local arts council. Or his friends and students. Billy sees masters in all the people who have invested with him in the Baltimore scene. 

And that’s what was on stage at the 50^th Annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

I’ll take you back to that festival. We’ll peek in on late nights of music in the Catskills too. And we’ll also get Maggie Holtzberg’s folklorist view of the world.

But first, I’m taking the liberty of inviting you along to the McComiskey’s kitchen. (Cooking sounds) Sean just made some vegan chili—there’s even cilantro, avocado, and green onion for garnish. This is gonna be one nourishing episode.

>> Shannon:  So, when you got into Irish music it was really accordion, it was through the accordion?

>> Billy:  I didn’t get into Irish music. I was in…I fell out. And it was there. (All laughing) 

It was right there. It was always right there.

>> Shannon: The accordion is how Billy McComiskey and his sons Sean and Mikey have found their tunes. His eldest son Pat plays the whistle, and his wife Annie brings everybody together.

>> Billy:  She dances, and she knows every old tune. She’s very similar in her thinking about music and her approach to it as my own mother. People will sit up, they sat up straight when Mae was there playing. 

[ Music:  “Hometown Lullaby,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories

Artist/Composer:  Matt Heaton ]

Annie is like that at the same time, but very inclusive, nurturing. But when the sessions get going, it’s, it’s business. When the sober session goes on, it’s business. But the drunk session goes on… (Laughter)…the whole partying aspect at 4:00 in the morning—Annie’s very good at that, too.

>> Shannon:  Hahaha

>> Shannon:  So, Billy’s mom instilled in him a love of music. And his grandpa played the fiddle and his dad, who emigrated to Brooklyn from Armagh just after WWII—well, he also played.

>> Billy:  He actually could play a couple of tunes on the accordion—on of couple songs, more. So my father played, my uncle Matt played…..

>> Shannon:  And by the time Billy was in the First Grade, he was playing the accordion, too. There was music in Brooklyn. And then it really started to come together for Billy in the Catskills. That was where his parents had met in the first place at—you guessed it—an accordion concert. A few years later, back in the Catskills where they heard Joe Derrane play, his mom and dad found a little place out in the woods.

>> Billy:  Two or three miles into the woods, they came out on another road. And they were able to buy that for, I think $1000. So that was, that was pretty good. So that was five acres of land, and a hand pump and an outhouse. 

>> Shannon:  So, the family would head up to the Catskills place from Brooklyn. They went up there most weekends after Memorial Day and they’d spend summer vacations up there.

>> Billy:  The thing that went on in the Catskills was pretty much magic, ‘cause my mother’s brother had a boarding house. 

[ Music:  “Pound the Floor ,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories

Artist/Composer:  Matt Heaton ]

So, if you could sing or dance, if you were a little bit of fun, you could just stay there. At that point we were staying there, too. I might have been about eight. So, the parties in that house were spectacular. They’d, whatever there was an excuse to have a party, they would have a party. People would go from Albany, or Boston, or New York. My uncle Matt would play the accordion, and he didn’t like playing alone any more than I do. He’d, he’d hand me a couple of spoons and say go ahead. I just would just tap along. And that was what the music was:  a little accordion music—a lot of accordion music, and a couple of spoons. 

[ Music:  “The Blackthorn” from Joe Cooley

Artist:  Joe Cooley ]

>> Billy:  Right around the time that Paddy O’Brien and Joe Cooley had gotten, become known, people started playing Paolo Soprani, the modern kind of boxes. These young guys were like, ah, haircuts (you know that was rare for an Irish immigrant). Kind of short sleeve, you know, coming out, kind of looking like they should be, you know, in a modern teen movie. Young guys in their 20’s with these brand-new Paolo Soprani accordions.

>> Shannon:  This is all going on in the Catskills, the province surrounded by the Appalachian Mountain range of Southeast New York. Woodstock happened here. Dirty Dancing was set here. Writers, comedians, and musicians have all found their groove in the Catskills, at these little houses and bars scattered all over the region.

>> Billy:  My godfather bought a bar and he didn’t even bother naming it—he didn’t put a sign up. He had a bunch of kids and he was, he was from Clare. And it turns out he was great friends with Joe Cooley and next thing you know, the word got out that Joe Cooley was gonna be there. And that did it. I was eleven years old and there was Joe Cooley. I thought he was and older man. Turns out he was about 44/45. There was a phone booth, a regular wooden phone booth, in the bar. 

>> Shannon:  (Laughing) OK.

>> Billy:  They were all playing in the back room with this dancefloor of sorts. And right there in the front, there’s this wooden phone in the booth. And Johnny Cronin spent the whole Monday in the phonebooth…

>> Shannon:  (Laughing)

>> Billy:  …holding the phone like this, and he kept feeding the phone quarters, so that his landlord, his Irish landlord could listen to Joe Cooley!

>> Shannon:  Aww.

>> Billy:  Isn’t that cool?

[ Music:  “The Diamond,” from Out of the Box

Artist/Composer:  Billy McComiskey ]

>> Billy:  He went back to my uncle’s house, and he sat in my uncle’s kitchen playing until about 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning. And then he had to leave because he’d promised Bobby Gardiner that he’d meet him down at the pub down the road. So, it just, it just never stopped. It just kept going like that…

>> Shannon:  Yeah.

>> Billy:  …a very fever pitched kind of… We all know what that feels like. But that was for me, that was my first experience. In the Catskills.

>> Shannon:  Yeah.

>> Shannon:  Eventually, Billy learned from the East Galway master Sean McGlynn. And he went on to win All-Ireland competitions as a soloist and with fiddler Brendan Mulvihill. Eventually, Billy settled in Baltimore, but the Catskills got it going. And Billy’s son Sean has his own Catskills memories.

>> Sean:  The first memory I have of knowing that I wanted to play, before I ever played… I think at that point I was learning to playing piano. So, I had this keyboard that I was hauling around. We were in the Catskills at the, at the Blackthorne and everyone was just sitting around, like, playing tunes and I had this piano that needed to be plugged in, and I was like, this is not gonna work.

>> Shannon:  Yeah, so what’d you do?

>> Sean:  Uh, I started learning the fiddle (laughing). I tried fiddle, fumbled around with it a little bit and my cousin Noreen, again in the Catskills outside Mike Stack’s pub, she was taking John Redmond’s class. And I was like:  Oh, I’ll sit in with my cousin Noreen. And then from there it became very naturally.

>> Billy:  I remember the time at the Shamrock House, we were just sitting holding Mikey and you were sitting in the session. And they were all playing session tunes, and you happened to play your Paddy O’Brien tune and you just tore into it. And Annie started screaming. And the people were sitting…it, it, the pandemonium. 

>> Shannon:  Hahaha

>> Billy:  Havoc, you know, the havoc the accordion brings. And you were tearing the bejesus out of it. And nobody else knew the tune—it was really great.

It’s kind of a shame because it all got going when Pat was just a little bit older.

>> Shannon:  Your oldest son.

>> Billy:  Our oldest son. When he came to the Catskills he said, well, I think I’ll just bring a whistle with me. And I thought, that sounds really good. And we brought him to Mary Bergin’s class. And he’s a lovely whistle player, you know?

[ Music:  Hornpipe from Live at Millennium Stage

Artist:  Billy, Sean, Mikey, Pat McComiskey ]

>> Shannon:  Billy stepped out of the room for a minute, and I asked Mikey how he got into playing the accordion.

>>Mikey:  It was just always just kind of, there. So, it was never like:  play your accordion now, or like, you’ve got, did you practice. Like, um, it’s like, it was just kind of there. My dad was trying to get me to play fiddle, actually. You know, just trying to get me into it.

>> Shannon:  Yeah.

>>Mikey:  And, you know, I’d sit there and play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and then I’d be kind of sitting there thinking when’s it gonna be done. It just didn’t interest me. 

>> Shannon:  Yeah.

>>Mikey:  Then next thing you know I found myself just sitting in the basement, and there was a box there. 

[ Music:  “After Hours Theme,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories

Artist/Composer:  Matt Heaton ]

And I started figuring out whatever tune was floating in my head. I just picked it up. And all of a sudden there…he wasn’t even home. My mom, said like come up here. She was influencing a little bit. And then he walked in and it was like, I mean, you know I’ve been playing ever since. 

>> Shannon:  Yeah.

>>Mikey:  I was probably like 10 or 11 maybe?

>> Shannon:  Aww, that’s cool.

>> Billy:  What was that?

>>Mikey:  The first time I got into it. Started, like, playing a tune.

>> Billy:  You were in the basement?

>>Mikey:  I was in the basement playing one of the Saltarelles.

>> Billy:  Good.

>> Billy:  As I saw it, as the father, it was never a point of learning or practicing. The word was always playing, I think. And there were whistles, and accordions, and there’s the piano with broken keys where our, my, our eldest son drove his hot wheels cars over it and you make a noise. Birthday parties, everybody sings Happy Birthday, and somebody would play it, so it was a lot. The music is alive here. It’s really great.

>> Shannon:  Yeah

>> Shannon:  But it wasn’t always really great and really easy playing the box. Here’s Sean again. It felt different for him socially than his younger brother. Mikey’s ten years younger. And by the time he’d started, things had changed.

>> Sean:  I was always afraid to say that I played the accordion in high school. Meanwhile I was like playing at the White House. And one of my band teachers in high school said why didn’t you tell me you were doing this. I was like, I don’t know, I just kept it on the DL, because I didn’t want to be made fun of or whatever. But he [Mikey] were telling all of his buddies at school and they were coming out to see him play and all that kind of thing. 

[ Music:  “Triumph Theme,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories

Artist/Composer:  Matt Heaton ]

So, there’s this kind of revolution happening among the younger generation of people, not specific to any culture other than, you know, the millennial movement needing something genuine and real and rooted in some sort of tradition or some sort of history to feel important.

>> Shannon:  Here’s Mikey again.

>>Mikey:  Over the summer I toured with a group from Ireland called Skipper’s Alley and we played on a, a radio show. Um, I can’t think of the guy’s name, but he’s, he’s from, like um, Louisville, Kentucky and he sings and plays guitar. 

>>Unknown Speaker:  Looov Ville.

>>Mikey:  Louisville, and uh, he ends up asking me a question. He’s like, so what’s it like being a little kid growing up playing the accordion. You know, like, that must’ve been not so good with the ladies. After he asked the question, I just left some silence and I said, “What makes you say that?” Like, you know, the whole place busted out laughing.

>> Shannon:  Hahaha

>>Mikey:  And I, you know, sitting there, like …

>> Shannon:  Yeah. Nowadays, accordion players drink single-origin pour over coffee. They ride E-Cargo bikes. They wear too-small sweaters. It’s come a long way since the Lawrence Welk days.

>> Billy:  People just didn’t like the accordion, they associated it with Lawrence Welk… 

>> Shannon:  Hmm.

>> Billy:  …and that kind of thing. So here we are 40 years later. So, I’ve spent an awful lot of time trying to make the accordion fit fiddles, and pipes, and flutes. And, so here we are and now, it’s great at a session, people are not as likely to get up and storm off if an accordion player comes in. And ah, the standard has gotten really nice. I think it’s not about playing the accordion well, but about playing Irish music honestly, on the instrument. So that’s really good. And in Baltimore, Baltimore is a working town and they’re kind of embracing the idea. Yeah, the accordion has always been part of what’s been going on. And it’s an immigrant instrument. There’s box music all over, thanks again to the National Council for the Traditional Arts.

>> Shannon:  Yeah 

>> Shannon:  Thanks to folks who work for the arts councils. I talked to the folklorist in my back yard, Maggie Holtzberg (and her friendly and opinionated cat). I wanted to get her take on why Billy’s music matters and why the Smithsonian Folklife Festival would want a budget to present someone like him.

[ Music:  “Chimes,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories

Artist/Composer:  Matt Heaton ]

>> Shannon:  You’re the folklorist, THE folklorist…

>> Maggie:  For the State of Massachusetts and that’s ‘cause every state has one designated position that gets funding, ah, from the National Endowment for the Arts.

>> Shannon:  So, what do you do?

>> Maggie:  I basically am there to support traditional culture in Massachusetts. And we do field research, so, I do interviewing like you’re doing with me. And we’ve established an archive of audio recorded, um, interviews and visual documentation. Uh, I run a grant program. So, we fund, um, artist fellowships and also apprenticeships which support the passing on of a tradition—um, one on one between two individuals in any number of art forms. Um, and then programming, you know, presenting. I work with the Folk Festival and that kind of thing.

>> Shannon:  So, who exactly do you study? And why?

>> Maggie:  I’m seeking out, um traditions, cultural traditions in music, dance, craft, that um, are often passed down within families or ethnic communities. 

[ Music: Triumph theme reprise ]

Or even geographical things, like you know, maritime traditions that you find on the coast, say in Essex like ship building.

>> Shannon:  OK, but why study old stuff? Aren’t we moving on? These are living traditions, right?

>> Maggie:  I think all roots music traditions are changing recently. Um, you know, and essentially from globalization. And the fact that you can hear anything.

>> Shannon:  Technology does make the tradition much more accessible. (Cat meows) I think the cat understands!

>> Maggie:  Emily understands. (Both laughing) I mean, change is good, as Seamus said, you know, you can’t—it is a living tradition. But this does, it still concerns me because I care so much about a cultural context, in which something was formed and held on to and passed on, person to person. 

>> Shannon:  Maggie mentioned Seamus there—we’d talked about him before I began recording. She’s talking about fiddle player Seamus Connolly who talked with me for the “Handed Down” episode. He’s got an online collection of music—the Seamus Connolly collection and it includes clips of music that he recorded before battery cassettes were an option. He’s lived history and he’s embraced modern platforms all along the way.

[ Music:  Silver Spear, from Kitchen Session

Artist:  Sean McComiskey, Cleek Schrey ]

Of course, Maggie is a 21st century folklorist, and she’s interested in accessible, digital archives too. But at the same time, the word ‘traditional’—and the process of passing on tradition.  Maggie takes it very seriously.

>> Maggie:  I feel partial to the word ‘Traditional’! It’s just the language analogy. You want to learn it well enough to speak like a native speaker. ‘Cause otherwise the style gets diluted. So, and then you look at the Skype thing, that’s—I’m being romantic. I’m being judgmental. I mean, why, that’s just another form of communication. But it’s one on one, verses a community of people. You’re not in a social situation.

>> Shannon:  So, why is it important to have the social context?

>> Maggie:  You’re… you’re paying tribute to that stream, um, and I do believe it’s very important to name, name that lineage, because you’re paying respect to something that’s traditional! 

>> Shannon:  And because you’re also then aware of where it comes from, and you’re in the company of people who share that awareness.

>> Maggie:  Yes.

>> Shannon:  So, it’s a shared work ethic as well?

>> Maggie:  Right, that’s good.

>> Shannon:  Maybe the shared work ethic?

>> Maggie:  I think that’s right. That’s the social aspect of it. That other people know who you learned it from, who learned it from this person. Like, you know um, it’s respecting a tradition. That performer—it’s not about you. It’s about the song, or it’s about the tune. 

>> Shannon:  Hmm.

>> Maggie:  It’s bigger than any one individual, You’re, you’re jumping into a stream, you’re swimming for a while. And then the stream is going to go on without you. 

>> Shannon:  And then folklorists like Maggie are gonna help us keep track of the different currents. And players like Billy who was inspired by his own father, an immigrant from Armagh—he’s gonna keep it going, along with the Baltimore gang. Even many of those players don’t have direct ties to Ireland.

>> Billy:  There’s kind of a mix that goes on here. And again, in Ireland maybe they would think that what’s going on there is more pure. It’s just, it’s a nice idea, but it’s not, not how humanity works. So, I think wherever you are you’re gonna be in influenced by whoever those musicians are that are in that area. And it’s great. I think what’s really cool is watching these cultural centers. That like, ah, there’s an awful lot of goodness there.

>> Shannon:  Yeah.

>> Shannon:  Yeah. There was a lot of goodness on that Folklife Festival stage. I’ve got the video link up at IrishMusicStories.org, and you can see the seriousness and the dedication from each and every player and dancer up there. The shared love of the music, and of playing it together. And of dancing. It’s a Baltimore version of the Green Fields of America, a group that musician and folklorist Mick Moloney first assembled in 1978. And then when the National Council invited Billy and Mick to perform for the 50th annual festival, here’s how it went down.

>> Billy:  The Green Fields of America actually got its start with the National Council for the Traditional Arts. Last year, the funding, ah was, came into question. And ah, they wanted to have The Green Fields, but they couldn’t afford to have The Green Fields. So, what we ended up doing after we talked it over with the, uh, Smithsonian Folk Life people, we just had this little, tiny little budget. I just started calling around and asking people: Would they want to do this and everybody said the same thing. “YES.” But then to flesh out The Green Fields Of America, we used Mick and Liz Hanley came down.

>> Sean:  Brendan Callahan

>> Billy:  Brendan Callahan. But the players still kind of chipped in so we could bring down Kevin Doyle. Who else then? You two guys, Sean and Mikey.

>> Sean:  Josh

>> Billy:  Josh Dukes—the only other person to win an All-Ireland Championship title. Uh, besides myself. My son was telling me about him for two years, and after two years I found out he was African American. And I just thought isn’t that great. That’s what we have going on in the MidAtlantic Area. Shannon Dunne, ah, got a bunch of dancers together for it and it just kind of kept blossoming. 

>> Shannon:  Were you able to keep track?  All right, you got Billy on accordion, along with Sean and Mikey. Mick Moloney sang and played banjo and bouzouki. Pat McComiskey played whistle. Laura Byrne played flute. Brendan Callahan and Liz Hanley played fiddle. Donna Long played piano, Josh Dukes played guitar, and Myron Bretholz played bodhrán and bones. Kevin Doyle, Kate Spanos, Samantha Suplee, and Shannon Dunne danced, along with a bunch of Shannon’s students. 

You may, or you might not know everybody. But Billy does. And he recognizes them. Always. It’s what makes the music great and fun for him.

>> Billy:  The music was just hilarious. The noise and commotion going on backstage area—rain pouring down—was a muddy, sloppy mess. And everybody was just completely clowning around in the backstage. And we were trying to get this show together. Having Kevin there, National Heritage Fellow, uh, it didn’t hurt at all. He was able to pull the dancers together. Laura was able to figure out the flow.

>> Shannon:  Billy was talking about flute player Laura Byrne. She helped weave together the set, which included a mix of Green Fields favorites, and featured all the performers beautifully.

>> Billy:  And we have sets of tunes that we really enjoy, that would be almost ceili band ah, oriented kind of influence that way. I guess the idea, would be to have—with the tunes is to make them really interesting. And if you mix that with really well-delivered, well-thought-out songs that have actual meaning, you know. Whether it’s about immigration or how families are torn apart. As far as the stage presentation, Mick Moloney is probably the preeminent, ah, he would be THE guiding force for just about everybody, you know. He’s a fierce presence and ah, he’s just a great front man. But the crux of it is this great body of these traditional tunes. Kind of rough and ready, we like ‘em rough and ready… to a point. There’s no slackers, there’s no scrapers, everybody’s very, um, focused. It’s just, everybody wants it to be so good. 

[ Music:  “After Hours Theme,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories

Artist/Composer:  Matt Heaton ]

>> Shannon:  Yea. Everybody wants it to be so good. Everybody. No headliners. Just, everybody. Including the older gentleman who started dancing steps in front of the stage. At one point, Kevin leapt down to join him. Talk about sharing the tradition.

>> Billy:  I’m very proud in Baltimore here, that when people come in, people come in and visit and they say this is so great here. Everybody’s so nice. The music is so good. What happened? And that’s what happens if you have a whole community taking part in it. And if it has a value, you know?

The great thing about Baltimore is that, ah, people aren’t trying to compete here, to play better than each other. We don’t have any Old-World organizations or any Old-World dogma. We kind of, we have each other, and we have books, and we have recordings, and the really great thing is we have, ah, Maryland traditions, which is part of the Maryland Arts Council. So, we don’t have adjudicators in Baltimore, we have folklorists. People come to Washington, looking to work, maybe, at the Smithsonian. If they don’t get a job in Washington right away, they’ll come up and take a job with Maryland Traditions. And Maryland is this melting pot, and as far as the traditional people are concerned, these are the immigrants of today. That’s where that is what is what making our cultural fabric great. It’s really great.

>> Shannon:  Yeah.

[ Music:  Ratholdran Castle, from Trian II

Composer:  Billy McComiskey

Artist:  Trian ]

>> Shannon:  Arts councils who support traditional culture—and artists who carry on living traditions: they get us all listening to each other, and maybe understanding each other just a little bit. They give us the chance to surprise and learn from each other. You never know:  the guy cooking your huarache might play the accordion. Your dentist might be a Carnatic dancer.

>> Billy:  You don’t know who you’re going to be meeting. You don’t know. It’s this interesting thing that goes on. You can kinda look at people as humans.

>> Shannon:  Yeah, and as bearers of rich cultural traditions.

>> Billy:  And then to bring Irish music into that, you know. We’re the luckiest immigrants in the country. We’re white, speak English, you know, we’ve already went through all that stuff a hundred years ago, you know. And we still get to play immigrant music! It survived. It’s really good.

[ Music: After Hours Reprise ]

Guitar music

I guess the great thing about traditional music, in general, is there’s this common language, there’s this common thread. Traditional music kind of transcends ethnicity, it’s a great thing that happens. And once you accept it as music, and accept it as this broader thing, this beautiful art form that dates—it’s not even an art form, it’s a human form of expression, that’s a really basic human part of being, you know, being a sapien, being a human being. And then there’s all these lovely little bits to it. And you can celebrate it. It’s timeless. It’s a, it’s a thing that’s alive, thank goodness. And ah, here, this is what a house, this is what a music house is like in America. This is it.

[ Music:  “When the Cock Crows it is Morn” from Live at Millennium Stage

Artist:  Sean McComiskey, Josh Dukes ]

It was great to visit this big-hearted music house. And to visit Maggie Holtzberg in her beautiful home, surrounded by her own fiddle and piano. 

And of course, there are incredible music and dance and craft houses all around America. As Maggie wrote in her book, “Keepers of Tradition” (I’m paraphrasing): 

“Folk traditions deserve to be acknowledged and honored. They are important because they represent cultural expressions that are actively practiced and treasured by communities and by individuals who care enough to sustain, to enshrine, and to pass on.”

My thanks to the McComiskey family and to Maggie Holtzberg for caring enough. And for passing it on.

And thank YOU, dear listeners, for tuning in! This episode of Irish Music Stories was produced by me, Shannon Heaton. Thank you to Matt for script editing and underscore. Thank you, Nigel, for naming this month’s supporters. And thanks again to Susan Walsh, Chris Stuart, Brian Benscoter Randall Semagin, and Sebastian Winterflood for underwriting this episode.

If you can kick in with a show of support, it helps me pull Irish music stories together, to share with everybody. Just visit IrishMusicStories.org and click the donate button. You can also help by rating the show in iTunes, or by sharing this episode with a friend.

And, hey, check out your own state and local arts council. See what’s going on right around you! And if you value your local cultural council, do contact your representatives and let them know why it’s important to you.

Next month’s show will feature Cathy Jordan, Robbie O’Connell, Laura Cortese, Sam Amidon, and Karan Casey talking about old ballads in a modern world. I hope you’ll tune in.

Thanks again for listening, everybody!

OUTTAKE:

(Laughter)

>> Billy:  How many old people does it take to change a lightbulb?
>> Shannon:  How many?
>> Billy:  What??

(Laughter)

>> Billy:  I made that one up.