From a hard station to 'Hooba Dooba' days
Singer-songwriter Paul Brady will showcase his new album in a concert at the Millennium Forum in Derry shortly. He spoke to MARTIN MCGINLEY about music, Strabane, St Columb's and the meaning of life.
"Listen Paul, don't know when you're on at the Forum, haven't had a chance to listen to your new album (because it didn't arrive in the post) and haven't even had the time to go on the net to find out what you've been at this last few months."
Not exactly the best preparation for an interview with Paul Brady, known to be rather prickly on occasion. But 3pm has arrived so . .
As it turns out, the call to his studio in Dublin, where he does much of his media work, finds the Strabane man the very font of geniality. Forum date is on 3rd April, hasn't been there for a few years, will have his band with him, will do a mix from the new album and older stuff.
In fact, this legend of Irish music is in great conversational form and good fun. Even tells a joke about the Derry man who went to Strabane (although in Derry it's probably about the Strabane man who went to Derry).
Perhaps it's all down to this new album, 'Hooba Dooba'. The 'Urban Dictionary' online gives a definition - "Something really good. A hot chick walks by, you say 'hooba dooba'. When you eat something really tasty, you might say 'hooba dooba' to describe the goodness." That appears to be where Paul's at with this album and, at 62, with this stage of his life.
"I'm loving it, really enjoying it, I feel liberated. In a sense I don't care what happens to the record. I don't go out with any high expectations. I wouldn't have said this even a year ago. I'm really very happy with this recording and I think if I was knocked down on the road I wouldn't be at all ashamed at bowing out with this one. I'm getting more and more content with that I've achieved in my life, less driven, less pushy in terms of achieving more."
Strange times. What became of the Angry Young Man?
It probably helps that he's achieved so much. It seems like he had seven albums done with the Johnstons while still in nappies (well, at least by the mid-seventies). Then came Planxty, then the classic pairing with Andy Irvine, the solo traditional album 'Welcome Here Kind Stranger', the Dylanesque move to the rock world with another classic 'Hard Station'. All done and dusted by 1981. And so much that's happened since then - more albums, songs covered by everyone from Tina Turner to Cliff Richard, that remarkable run of gigs at Vicar Street, the RTE television series . .
That's without mentioning his work as a trad guitar backer way back then - the groundbreaking album with fiddler Tommy Peoples in 1976, and other recordings with the likes of Matt Molloy, Andy McGann and Paddy Reynolds.
Okay, perhaps the really big breakthrough didn't happen for him in terms of the mainstream in the US or even in the UK, but it's been quite the music career. In terms of Irish music, his legacy is assured.
Hardly much wonder, then, that we like to claim him as a talented son of the North-West. He's a Strabane man, after all, and he was a boarder at St Columb's in Derry. But wait. Some Strabane people might tell you Paul Brady's not inclined to wax lyrical about the town. No better time to ask him . .
“It’s where I was brought up but because I didn’t go to school in the town - I went to Sion Mills, where my mother was teaching - I didn’t get to know the kids in Strabane the way I would have done. I suppose I always felt a bit of a blow-in. My parents were teaching on both sides of the border, so we lived in a border town. My father was from County Sligo and he taught in the national school in Murlog near Lifford, and my mother, who was from Irvinestown, was in Sion Mills.”
“She dreams of pencil gowns/ An orchard in the spring/ A house in its own grounds/ The joys that love should bring/ Three miles to school each day/ A teacher to her trade . . /Rules to be obeyed” [Mother and Son]
His connection with Strabane has been weakened by the loss in recent times of both parents, Sean and Mollie. ‘Mother and Son’ is a moving song on the new album -
‘His world a melody/ On every street in town/ No game, no boyish chant/ Can match his secret sound/ Each time that she draws near/ He reaches for her glance/ Partners in the family dance.”
He says his father was well-known in teaching circles, very personable, interested in drama, singing and entertaining.
“When we were on holiday in Bundoran he’d be called to do a turn, and so when I was a child I was used to seeing him holding a room in the palm of his hand. It was a good education in terms of learning about performing.”
Piano-playing stints in Bundoran are reckoned as Paul Brady’s starting point as a performer. He had been given a guitar as a birthday present at eleven, but St Columb’s wouldn’t allow him to bring it as a boarder - “I think I still knew about three chords on it when I was seventeen.”
Brady featured with John Hume, Seamus Heaney, Eamonn McCann and other remarkable figures in the documentary ‘The Boys of St Columb’s’, shown on BBC 1 last Wednesday night. His views on St Columb’s seem to echo a remark by McCann that the school’s role in the formation of such a talented bunch was more a reflection of the tension they felt in the place.
Polarised St Columb’s
Paul says, “How you experienced St Columb’s fundamentally differed depending on whether you were a boarder or a day boy. I was a boarder for six years. It also depended on what you experienced prior to going there. It was all male, all one religion, all one cultural background. And I had no experience of that. In Sion Mills we had mixed religion, mixed sex. For my first years of schooling I was among Protestants and Catholics, girls and boys. As an 11 year-old I didn’t think Protestants had two heads on them. So I was totally unprepared for the polarisation of everything I found in St Columb’s. I just didn’t get it. It made my first years there difficult. I also wasn’t part of the macho element - the football, sport. My natural proclivities weren’t really encouraged there.”
Paul still does a lot of travelling and performing around the world, but he can be spotted in the North West from time to time. His brother Barry’s a solicitor in Strabane and he and wife Gearoidin and family have a holiday place outside Ramelton. Paul calls in sometimes for a drink to the Bridge Bar. He also had a 60th birthday party in McDaid’s wine bar in Ramelton a couple of years ago, with a jam session featuring everyone from Brian Kennedy to Arty McGlynn to Altan’s Ciaran Tourish from Buncrana.
Paul was also at the big Donegal knees-up in Dublin in recent days when Altan’s Mairead Mooney became ‘Donegal Person of the Year’. He sang his version of ‘The Homes of Donegal’, another trademark song to set alongside ‘Arthur McBride’, ‘The Lakes of Ponchertrain’, his own ‘The Island’, ‘Hard Station’ and all the other great songs down the years.
Fine album
So are there any ‘big’ songs on ‘Hooba Dooba’? He says, “Don’t write anything until you’ve heard the album.” But of course you have to live with any album worth its salt, to go a mile in its shoes, before coming to any sort of judgement. Paul says there’s a big variety of influences here - “in my career I’ve soaked up a lot of different styles”. Vocally it finds him in fine form. He’s also contributed a lot of the backing, as well as being helped by some very solid musicians like Rod McVey on keyboards, Liam Genocky on drums, Jennifer Maidman on bass and even the legendary Jerry Douglas guesting on lap steel guitar, with strings under the direction of Fiachra Trench. Nearly all the songs are his own, with some collaborations - including ‘The Price of Fame’ with Ronan Keating - and a fine version of the Beatles’ song ‘You Won’t See Me’. It feels like it will certainly repay listening time.
There’s some idle chatter about what he does during downtime - play informal sessions, go to the theatre, scuba diving, eating and drinking. He enjoys ‘The Wire’, dipped into ‘Mad Men’, wouldn’t go for ‘Lost’. He’s surprised at how song ‘The Island’ seems to have taken on a life of its own - “it proves to me that there’s much more to a song than what the lyrics mean literally”.
It’s all very relaxed.
As he approaches that landmark age of 65 - so many heroes of Irish music seem to be in that bracket - he’s still enjoying what he does.
“It’s not like it’s a job,” he says. “It’s something I really feel good about.”
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Friday 25 May 2012
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