[music]

Kousha Navadar This is All Of It. I'm Kousha Navadar in for Alison Stewart. Thanks for spending part of your day with us. I'm grateful you're here and I'm grateful that I can share with you an update about Alison. She wanted us to tell you that she is on medical leave. She had a brain abscess and is recovering following a successful surgery. We can't wait to have her back.

Coming up on today's show, I'll speak with actor, Tobias Menzies about his new play The Hunt and his new TV series Manhunt. Manhunt is based on a book by author James Swanson and he joins us as well. Plus, we'll learn about the chemistry of flavor from food scientist Arielle Johnson. That's the plan. Let's get this started with some traditional Irish music from the band Dervish.

[MUSIC - Dervish: Midsummer's Night]

That is Midsummer's Night from Dervish, the popular Irish folk band that is currently on its 30th annual tour around the US. Since 1989, Dervish has been preserving and reimagining the folk musical traditions of Ireland, specifically County Sligo in the Northwest. Their efforts have earned them a BBC Lifetime Achievement Award. This Sunday is St. Patrick's Day, always a big deal in New York, with the annual parade taking place this Saturday. It so happens that Dervish's music and the history of Sligo-style folk has a strong New York connection, which we'll get to later.

Dervish plays tonight in Fairfield, Connecticut, as well as on Long Island in Riverhead on St. Patrick's Day, March 19th in Old Saybrook, and Red Bank, New Jersey on March 20th. With me now to talk about their music and anniversary tour are two members of the band, founding member and accordion player Shane Mitchell and longtime lead vocalist Cathy Jordan. Hi, Shane and Cathy. Welcome.

Cathy Jordan: Hi. How are you doing?

Shane Mitchell: Hi, Kousha.

Kousha Navadar Good. Big anniversary. 30 years of tours in the US, we were saying, coming up on 33 of the band being together. I hope you're keeping track of all those frequent flyer miles.

Shane Mitchell: Well, unfortunately, yes, that falls by the wayside sometimes depending on the airline but we do love to come here every year. It's the mainstay of the year. It's what everything else hangs around. Our March tour is the very fulcrum of the band's year and has been of the band's lifetime so far. It's such an easy place to tour.

There's long-term troubadours and wandering minstrels haven't paved the way over the years for us. People like the Chieftains and all the greats of Irish music. There is a circuit there and there's a huge diaspora, of course, of Irish people but it's not just the diaspora. It's not just Irish people we play to. We always love to find new audiences and play to people that have never heard the music before, such as yourself, I believe.

Kousha Navadar Absolutely. It's been a pleasure listening just over the past few days.

Cathy Jordan: Yes, thank you.

Kousha Navadar Absolutely. Shane, as you're thinking about 30 years of touring in America, as you're touring this year, what do you find yourself reflecting on in this 30th year?

Shane Mitchell: I think how so much has changed, really. When we started touring out in America in the early days, I remember us collecting quarters to phone our agent from a coin box at the side of the road to see what the next update was. There's none of that anymore. Everything comes in over the phone. You'd buy a map and you'd be planning the day before where you were going next. Today, you have Google Maps and different things. It's completely changed but the audiences for Irish music have changed as well. When we came out here first, it was mainly Irish-American people. It still is a lot but it's very multicultural now. It's really grown and expanded a lot out. Yes, everything has changed.

Kousha Navadar Is that increase in diversity a gradual change or something that really picked up more recently?

Cathy Jordan: I think it's a gradual change. I often think Irish music, it's like a volcano. It's there all the time under the surface, and sometimes it bubbles up and gets a resurgence and gets a new audience. They might stay with it or go away, but there'll be another surge down the line again. I think the more it gets exposed in different movies and the more Ireland's programs get watched over the world, Irish music is always there. It's always something that finds a new audience no matter where it goes.

Kousha Navadar What did you think about your first exposure the first time that you came to America? What do you remember about that first tour? Where did you go?

Cathy Jordan: Well, I remember I was shocked because we played at the Chicago Irish Festival and I just couldn't believe all the greenness because we don't have to dress in green at all at home. We have green fields, we're surrounded by it but over here, there's this green, it's like green Christmas, green T-shirts, green beads, green hats, green leprechaun outfits. That was a shock to the system. "Wow, this is how it's celebrated over here." I had never seen that before but it's just such fun, and I love the way that all these miles away from home that it's celebrated and loved by so many people that aren't Irish at all, have no affiliation with the country. Everyone becomes Irish on St. Patrick's Day and St. Patrick's Month which is the month of March.

Kousha Navadar You're performing all around the country now and in our area coming up. Tonight in Fairfield, Connecticut, Shane, you've toured for 30 years in America. Why do you think people here respond so well to it, like Cathy was mentioning?

Shane Mitchell: It's really difficult to say, but I suppose there's something very authentic about Irish music and something very deep, something very emotional, and has so many different sides that you don't always get in other genres. I think I think the character of the Irish people and the personality of the Irish people is in the music itself. I think that's something that people here respond to. It's not just people with Irish families visit Ireland from America. As I said before, it's very multicultural and it's very wide these days. I think it's the music itself.

Kousha Navadar What is that personality? How would you describe it?

Shane Mitchell: Well, I suppose there's a wildness there, there's a fun side to it, there's an emotional side to it, and there's the party element, of course, which really reflects Ireland.

Kousha Navadar It's funny you bring that up. You put out live records in the past, I'm just thinking about like a live party. Since you're playing so many shows live in our area, I thought we could listen to a sample. This is Hills of Greanmore from your 1997 album Live in Palma.

[MUSIC - Dervish: Hills of Greanmore]

Kousha Navadar Shane, you're talking about how this is a party as part of the personality of the music, and that was a live performance that we were just listening to. What makes the live aspect of folk music important? In other words, what would someone miss just listening to a record?

Shane Mitchell: Well, I suppose that the band are there and we talk to the audience and there's introductions. We talk about the music and its background and all that side of things but I suppose our music comes from pub sessions. We grew up playing jam sessions in pubs. That was always-- A session in Ireland is really good fun and it's kind of a party atmosphere. That comes true in the music, I think, as well.

Cathy Jordan: There's lots of energy and vitality. It's the same with any gig, I suppose. It's better live in a lot of cases, but particularly in Irish music. I think that the musicians respond to the excitement within the room, and that's all around. It's like a tennis match. There's a serve and return and the energy gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and it explodes sometimes. It's just a really powerful thing to be a part of. It really is.

Then the songs bring all that. It's like the yin and the yang bring all that another side to it. A more emotional, melancholy side, and

the songs store our past experiences and the memories from our ancestors. Like that particular song is of a time and it tells a story, got handed down through generations. We carry those with us and pass them on so they'll always be with us as living memories.

Kousha Navidar: It seems so rooted in the community and from where you're from. Is that fair to--

Cathy Jordan: Well, it is. A lot of the songs, if I sing them and I know my parents or neighbors or community have sang them, that really resonates with me as I sing them, and I tap into that emotion. They would've sang them tapping into the emotion of the people they heard them from and on it goes. It's like a river of all sorts of emotions, and it's a very powerful, unique thing.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. County Sligo is a fundamental part of the band where you're from and where that music comes from, right?

Cathy Jordan: Sure, yes. Shane is from Sligo and I [crosstalk].

Kousha Navidar: How would you describe Sligo to--

Shane Mitchell: Well, I suppose in music terms, Sligo has played a very important part in the development of Irish music. There's a particular connection with New York City, of course, as well. In the 1920s, a lot of fiddle players who immigrated to America, their music was captured on record by American record companies. The main person, who's called the Godfather of Irish music is Michael Coleman. I think he made something like 80 recordings on Deca and Columbia, and the different labels in the 1920s. Irish music was pretty much gone at that stage, only that those 78 albums came back to Ireland and people started playing Irish music again. Then they were playing them in the houses and then the whole social side of life developed, and the music went into pubs and bars, and then you had all sorts of different genres of music playing in bars. That journey from Sligo to America is a very important one. We owe a lot to America for somewhat saving our music in some ways if you look at it that way.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. Sorry, keep going. Yes.

Shane Mitchell: The record company A&R, if they were called that those days, were very sharp to capture the likes of Michael Coleman. Apparently, he used to play at all the highbrow events around New York City, and he was followed by jazz musicians and classical musicians. He's a very important figure in Irish music in general.

Kousha Navidar: He's buried in St. Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx, interestingly.

Shane Mitchell: He is. Actually, we're going to visit his grave for the first time. This Monday coming we're doing another piece about this as well. Yes, he's buried here in New York. You could walk down the street in New York in the evening and go into a pub that has Irish music and it'll be Sligo style of music, of tunes you'll be hearing.

Kousha Navidar: How did Dervish first form, what's the story behind that?

Cathy Jordan: Well, the lads were working in London were approached by a local entrepreneur, a music shop owner, God rest him. His name is Eden Manion. He died only recently. He invested in making a recording of Sligo music following on from the likes of Coleman, I suppose, all those years previously. That record was made and it got launched at an All-Ireland Fleadh. This is a competition that starts regionally and all the counties then goes to the provinces and then goes to all of Ireland. It picks a town, and was in Sligo Town for three years.

That record grew legs if you like, and got more popular. When it was brought out, it was called The Voice of Sligo. From the popularity of it, they felt they needed a singer to have another element, another string to the bow, so to speak. I had known the lads from visiting Sligo, visiting my sister who was in college there, and always finding sessions and traditional music around. They got to know me and my singing, and I got to know them. When they needed a singer, I was the one they called.

I was working in a different county, so I put all my things in a bag and hitchhiked down to Sligo to join the circus. Here I am talking to you now, all these years later. Only last year, I met the man in Seattle who gave me that lift that day when I went off to join the circus. I have a picture on my phone of me and him. He was so excited for me and followed my career since because I was so excited and I was telling him what I was going to do and where I was going to go. He thought, "She will." Anyway, I met him in Seattle last year, and he had traveled as well.

Kousha Navidar: What a wonderful story. Shane, what do you remember about that and what was it about Cathy that made you go, "Okay, that's the voice."

Shane Mitchell: Well, we were all hanging around together. Liam and Michael and myself played in another band. We used to play up around Roscommon and Longford where Cathy was and we knew Cathy at that time. We were working in the real world as such those days. The recording came out and we were getting inquiries from all over the world, and we were away most weekends playing someplace. After a while, over a period of time, the jobs got jacked in and we gradually became professional musicians. Yes, it was a very exciting time. We never really planned this in some ways, it just happened really. We all grew up together. It was kind of like a family band in some ways.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. Cathy, I love listening to you talk about your voice and what it is for you to sing these songs. When someone listens to your record, you can hear the storytelling. I'd love to listen to an example of that singing. This is Red-haired Mary.

[MUSIC - Red-haired Mary: Dervish]

Kousha Navidar: Cathy, how did you develop your own musical voice?

Cathy Jordan: Well, my mother's told me I was singing before I was talking, and it's something I always gravitated towards was music and singing. In my house, my parents sang, and brothers and sisters, I was the youngest of seven, so there was lots of singing going on, and we were always encouraged to have a repertoire. I had my first songs at three and four. While everyone else would wait their turn to sing, I wanted to be singing all night. I always loved it. I suppose my first teachers were my family and uncles, aunts, parents, brothers, sisters, neighbors.

I just loved when my father, in particular, or my brothers would close their eyes to sing. Everything else would disappear and you're left with that voice, and the story, and how that resonated with me then, and how it still does. Even more so now because my father is no longer with us so it's more meaningful to me now. I guess I sing with them in my heart all the time, I suppose. Yes.

Kousha Navidar: If you're just joining us, this is All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar, and we are talking to two members of the band Dervish, who are this year on their 30th annual tour around the United States. There've been many places in the United States, 30 times around the sun. They're playing a concert tonight in Fairfield, Connecticut at 7:30 PM and they'll also be playing on Long Island in Riverhead on Sunday, which is St. Patrick's Day. In March 19th in Old Saybrook, at Red Bank, New Jersey on March 20th.

Shane, I'd love to get into the fundamental, I guess, anatomy of the folk music that we're listening to. Thinking about the history of Sligo folk-style music, are there any rules, things that are just at the underbed of what makes Sligo-style folk music itself?

Shane Mitchell: Well, in Ireland, we have different regional styles of music, and they all have different kind of a description. In Sligo, the music has been always rhythmic and very lively and very much dance music. It was mainly based around the fiddle and the flute. Then a man called Joe Burke brought the accordion in, and a man called Alfie Joe Dineen who actually taught myself and Liam how to play, brought the accordion into the tradition very much so.

It's upbeat and lively, but lots of ornamentation

and our heroes growing up were people like Fred Finn and Peter Horn and Seamus Tansy and the great Matt Molloy who was the flute player with the Chieftains and people like that, but the area that we actually come from, they used to say years back in the old days that most houses had a fiddle, and if you stood outside the church on Sunday most people could play a tune as such. But to answer your question, it's ornamentation, kind of--

Cathy Jordan: Wild.

Shane Mitchell: Wild, definitely

Kousha Navidar: You played the accordion?

Shane Mitchell: I played the accordion, yes.

Kousha Navidar: Cathy said that she was singing before she was talking. Were you playing the accordion before you were talking?

Shane Mitchell: Well, both my parents were involved in music, my mother was an Irish dancing teacher, the old style of dancing my father played the fiddle and they had a pub in Sligo in the '60s which was probably one of the first music pubs in the area. My father was one of the few people who had a car at the time and he used to drive around picking up musicians to play a session in the pub.

My earliest memories of music was, I was being minded by my grandmother and I came down the stairs one night by accident and I walked into the pub. It was full of people dancing and playing and that was my first introduction to music. My parents sold the pub then and we moved out of the country, but I suppose I couldn't miss it really because my father used to play for country house dances with my uncle John.

That was the social scene in those days. They used to cycle around on their two bikes and go to a different house every weekend. Sometimes I do think about that. Sometimes when we're on tour and I'm looking out the window of the bus I do think of my father and my uncle. Things never really change, do they?

Kousha Navidar: No, and something that stands out from both of those stories is the community that's involved in the creation of music and musicians. In 2019, skip a few years later, you released your latest album which is called The Great Irish Songbook and it features performances from a wide array of guest vocalists, playing to that community theme. The US famously has a great American songbook of its own standards so either of you, how would you describe the music of The Great Irish Songbook? Are there any themes that connect all those tunes?

Cathy Jordan: Well, what connects them is Ireland and I suppose the sing-song that we all grew up with like the soundtrack to Ireland in a lot of ways. We burst into song given any opportunity, at any occasion. We just love to do it and it's a tradition that has been there for generations and is still there very strongly in the youth of Ireland. These songs are a representation of some of the ones you would hear on a regular basis in a sing-song situation or a session situation or a house party. Songs like the Parting Glass, songs like the Galway Shawl, like The Rambling Irishman, the list goes on there.

What was really touching for us is that when we did ask people of international standards such as Vince Gill and David Gray it's amazing how many of them jumped at the chance to sing an Irish song and who had an Irish song in their hearts and in their minds that might not necessarily fit with their own records that they're making but they're dying to get their teeth-- be a part of that community and to sing those songs.

Kousha Navidar: As you're looking ahead, you're expected to release a new album this year, Great Irish Songbook Chapter 2. Shane, what can you tell listeners about what to expect from that album and maybe when it will be released?

Shane Mitchell: Well, it's in development at the moment and we're hoping to release it actually next year so we hope to have it ready this year. We're looking at newer songs in the last 70 years. There's so many of them out there and it's a bookend to the first one so this is Chapter 2.

Kousha Navidar: Chapter 2, next year.

Shane Mitchell: Next year, yes.

Kousha Navidar: Wonderful. I've been speaking with Shane Mitchell and Cathy Jordan of the Irish folk band Dervish as they continue their 30th annual tour of the US. They'll be playing in our area tonight in Fairfield at 7.30 and on Sunday on Long Island in Riverhead, March 19th in Old Saybrook, and on March 20th in Red Bank, New Jersey. A lot of great performances coming up. Thanks for coming into the studio.

Cathy Jordan: Thank you so much.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely and happy St. Patrick's Day everyone.

Cathy Jordan: Yes.

Kousha Navidar: Let's go out on a song from Dervish's latest album, The Great Irish Songbook.

[MUSIC - Dervish: The Rambling Irishman]