One of the beauties of the traditional singing world is the way songs are passed on within families and communities and then into the big wide world beyond.
But then again, some singers spring from families without a musical tradition and one of those is Macdara Yeates, who has just produced Traditional Songs from Dublin, a sublime album of songs both well-known and rare.
A lot of people might think that traditional music started in Dublin in the 1960s but of course songs were being sung, composed and collected long before that, as Macdara explains.
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“Something that is often touted is that Dublin, being for a long time the second city of the Empire, wouldn’t have been the first place for something like traditional music, but music and song have a bizarre way of hanging on even in the face of great adversity,” he says.
“In Dublin, traditional songs are very much the music of households, the music of certain neighbourhoods, street singing going back to the days of Zozimus (the Blind Bard of the Liberties) in the late 18th century, all of which were massive parts of Dublin’s social and cultural life.
“So while it mightn’t be something we associate as closely with the urban environment, once you peel back the layers a small bit, you realise it was always there,” he says.
As Macdara points out, Dublin was also a melting pot; people from all over the country and from elsewhere found their way into the city, brought a lot of music with them and reared their families.
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“Not just that, but you have to imagine the sea shanties that came off ships and would have found their way into the local repertoire as well, so Dublin, being a port town and a capital city, produced its own sort of native traditional material as well as music from all angles,” he says.
Amongst the singers who had a big influence on Macdara was Liam Weldon. Why so?
“Well, I suppose one of the first things you’re told when you begin traditional singing is to start at home, to dig the ground beneath your feet, find the songs and the sentiment that I suppose echoes most with your home experience,” explains Macdara.
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“And there’s a nice amount of stuff for a Dubliner to dig into - the likes of Ronnie Drew, Luke Kelly, the stuff I was reared on and stuff I really admire and enjoy.
“Liam though, I suppose, led me a little bit closer to understanding what traditional – with a capital T – singing was in Dublin and what that could mean.
“He spoke a lot the influence, say, that the Travelling community had on his singing and his songs, but you wouldn’t think the Travelling community is a very urban thing.”
That certainly wasn’t Weldon’s experience. “Liam’s grandmother, who had a very large back garden, opened up her property to Travellers to camp in the wintertime so Liam from a very early age was exposed to Traveller singing and songs,” says Macdara. “And it’s another example of the kind of multifaceted picture you can get in an urban environment.
“Liam’s songs spoke to the inner city Dublin that I came from and I suppose spoke to the variety and the diversity of what it can mean to be a Dublin traditional singer.”
This, Macdara says, is “a bit of an inheritance for any young person or person of any age in Dublin”. “We do have these fabulous singing clubs that go on all over the city but I suppose we have a couple of strongholds in the centre of the city as well,” he continues.
“I’d have gone to An Góilín Traditional Singers Club as a very shy 20-year-old and within a very short space of time found myself with the arms of various older men slung around me, encouraging me.”
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Later, Macdara began to meet other young people like himself who were clinging to the edges of these sessions and with the help of Ian Lynch, now a member of Lankum, Ruth Clinton, Sinead Lynch and Lily Power from Landless, they began to formulate a concept of a singing session that would be youth-led but not youth-specific.
“Everyone was welcome,” says Macdara, “but we wanted a space that we could run ourselves and for ourselves and in our own way.
“And in September of 2012, The Night Before Larry Got Stretched was born.
“Within a very short space of time, it caught on. But we didn’t create a sort of renaissance of singing among young people in the city, we just facilitated one.
“As soon as the mast went up, young singers who’d been hiding away, came out of the woodwork and came to this focal point to sing.”
This is a traditional singing record and it’s one that I suppose I wanted to put together in the mould of Liam Weldon’s first album or Dick Gaughan’s first album
— Macdara Yeates
This grew into “a really special thing”, he says. “Not just because there was a ream of younger singers taking interest,” Macdara explains, “but also because it was a ream of older singers who would meet us in the middle and there was this shared intergenerational wealth and one could learn from the other.
“It’s been going for 12 years now and no sign of stopping.”
That variety and diversity can be heard on Traditional Singing from Dublin, 10 songs which highlight the emotional depth of Macdara’s singing, helped by a stripped back production which lets the songs breathe.
“I guess I might be sort of considered to be going back in the wrong direction. This is a traditional singing record and it’s one that I suppose I wanted to put together in the mould of Liam Weldon’s first album or Dick Gaughan’s first album,” he says.
Weldon and Gaughan were, Macdara explains, “singers who had contemporary interests but had a sort of a stall to set out from day dot”. They wanted to “create an album stripped back to the bones, an expression of the traditional song culture that they come from, if you like”.
“I am no purist, bands like Planxty and Lankum fill me with a great joy and inspiration, but I knew that the first step for me had to be a stripped-back traditional singing record,” continues Macdara.
“That’s not to say that the record is completely the pure drop - there’s little bits of venturings into the abyss here and there - but by and large it’s a straight back record, it’s something that would sit comfortably, I hope, among the unaccompanied traditional singing scene in the folk club, grassroots environment.”
