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Liam Weldon | |
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| Born | 15 October 1933 |
| Origin | Dublin, Ireland |
| Died | 28 November 1995 (aged 62) |
| Genres | Irish folk |
Liam Weldon (15 October 1933 - 28 November 1995) was a singer and songwriter in the Irish folk tradition.
Born in Dublin, Ireland, Liam, like many people in inner city Dublin at that time, was moved out of the developing city to Ballyfermot, a suburb on the outskirts of the city.
Liam had a lifelong interest in the songs of the Irish Travellers and his own songs reflected a strong awareness of poverty, disadvantage and exploitation. His personal ballad style had features of other genres, but the precision of intent in his abrasive lyrics was unmistakable.
Six years working in England from the age of sixteen tempered his social awareness, but yet his lyrics often have deep lyric sensitivity. He sang first at the Central Bar in Aungier St., Dublin, and with his wife Nellie ran gigs and clubs through the 1970s. [1]
In Dublin, he organised the Pavees Club in Slatterys on Capel Street and sessions in the Tailor's Hall and the Brazen Head. In the early seventies, Weldon sang and played bodhrán in the group "1691". Named after the year of the signing of the Treaty of Limerick, other members of the group included Tommy Peoples, Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill, Peter Browne, and Matt Molloy, who later went on to form The Bothy Band. [2]
Liam is well known for his songs "Dark Horse on the Wind" and "The Blue Tar Road". "Blue Tar Road" is a criticism of Dublin Corporation in the eviction of Traveller families at Cherry Orchard, County Dublin. "Dark Horse on the Wind", written in 1966 on the 50th anniversary of the Rising, is a lament for the lost dreams of the 1916 Volunteers and a searing indictment of society in post-independence Ireland and, indeed, a prophetic warning of the political troubles which were at that point imminent on the island as a whole.
In the summer of 2019, film producer Lorraine Kennedy began production of a documentary film about Liam Weldon, recruiting musician and music documentary film-maker Myles O'Reilly (Musician) [3] to direct the project. Dark Horse on the Wind [4] a film about the life and songs of Liam Weldon was completed in January 2022 and opened on 5 March 2022 at the Dublin International Film Festival.
Sixteen Ninety-One Irish Folk Songs was reissued on CD by Arfolk in the 1990s under the title A Way For Ireland - Irish Traditional Pub Music (the CD also features a 1973 album, Irish Pub Music, from the Castle Ceili Band)
The Dubliners were an Irish folk band founded in Dublin in 1962 as The Ronnie Drew Ballad Group, named after its founding member; they subsequently renamed themselves The Dubliners. The line-up saw many changes in personnel over their fifty-year career, but the group's success was centred on lead singers Luke Kelly and Ronnie Drew. The band garnered international success with their lively Irish folk songs, traditional street ballads and instrumentals. The band were regulars on the folk scenes in both Dublin and London in the early 1960s, and were signed to the Major Minor label in 1965 after backing from Dominic Behan who was paid by Major-Minor to work with the Dubliners and help them to build a better act fit for larger concert hall venues. The Dubliners worked with Behan regularly between 1965 and 1966; Behan wrote numerous songs for this act including the song McAlpine's Fusiliers created specifically to showcase Ronnie Drew's gravel voice. They went on to receive extensive airplay on Radio Caroline which was part owned by Phil Solomon CEO of Major Minor, and eventually appeared on Top of the Pops in 1967 with hits "Seven Drunken Nights" and "The Black Velvet Band". Often performing political songs considered controversial at the time, they drew criticism from some folk purists and Ireland's national broadcaster RTÉ had placed an unofficial ban on their music from 1967 to 1971. During this time the band's popularity began to spread across mainland Europe and they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in the United States. The group's success remained steady right through the 1970s and a number of collaborations with The Pogues in 1987 saw them enter the UK Singles Chart on another two occasions.
Joseph Ronald Drew was an Irish singer, folk musician and actor who had a fifty-year career recording with The Dubliners.
Liam Clancy was an Irish folk singer from Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary. He was the youngest member of the influential folk group the Clancy Brothers, regarded as Ireland's first pop stars. They achieved global sales of millions and appeared in sold-out concerts at such prominent venues as Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall.
Andrew Kennedy Irvine is an Irish folk musician, singer-songwriter, and a founding member of Sweeney's Men, Planxty, Patrick Street, Mozaik, LAPD and Usher's Island. He also featured in duos, with Dónal Lunny, Paul Brady, Mick Hanly, Dick Gaughan, Rens van der Zalm, and Luke Plumb. Irvine plays the mandolin, mandola, bouzouki, harmonica, and hurdy-gurdy.
Glen Hansard is an Irish singer-songwriter, musician and actor. Since 1990, he has been the frontman of the Irish rock band The Frames, with whom he has released six studio albums, four of which have charted in the top ten of the Irish Album Charts. In the 2000s, he was one half of folk rock duo The Swell Season before releasing his debut solo album, Rhythm and Repose, in 2012. His 2015 second album Didn't He Ramble was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album.
Thomas Makem was an Irish folk musician, artist, poet and storyteller. He was best known as a member of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. He played the long-necked 5-string banjo, tin whistle, low whistle, guitar, bodhrán and bagpipes, and sang in a distinctive baritone. He was sometimes known as "The Bard of Armagh" and "The Godfather of Irish Music".
Frank Harte was a traditional Irish singer, song collector, architect and lecturer. He was born in Chapelizod, County Dublin, and raised in Dublin. His father, Peter Harte, who had moved from a farming background in Sligo, owned 'The Tap' pub in Chapelizod.
Jimmy MacBeath (1894–1972) was a Scottish Traveller and Traditional singer of the Bothy Ballads from the north east of Scotland. He was both a mentor and source for fellow singers during the mid 20th century British folk revival. He had a huge repertoire of songs, which were recorded by Alan Lomax and Hamish Henderson.
"The Maid and the Palmer" is an English language medieval murder ballad with supernatural/religious overtones. Because of its dark and sinister lyrics, the song was often avoided by folk singers. Child's main text in English comes from the seventeenth century ballad collection compiled by Thomas Percy, supplemented by a nineteenth century fragment recalled by Sir Walter Scott, although both Child and later scholars agree that the English language version(s) of the ballad derive from an earlier Continental original or "Magdalene ballad" that is based upon a medieval legend associated with Mary Magdalene, in which her story has become conflated with that of the Samaritan woman at the well in the Gospel of John. The ballad was present in oral tradition in Scotland in the early years of the nineteenth century but was subsequently lost there, however versions have since been recovered in Ireland, in particular among the Irish Traveller community, with an intervening gap of some 150 years. A small fragment of the ballad has also been claimed to have been recovered in the U.S.A., but the veracity of this record is disputed. The "palmer" of Child's title, as included the Percy MS version, refers to a pilgrim, normally from Western Europe, who had visited the holy places in Palestine and who, as a token of his visits to the Holy Land, brought back a palm leaf or a palm leaf folded into a cross. In the ballad the palmer, as a holy man, has the ability to see the Magdalene character/protagonist's past in which she has borne and buried numerous children and to prescribe what fate awaits her in the hereafter, in the form of a set of seven year penances following which she will be absolved from her sins; in Continental versions, and in one variant collected in Ireland, the palmer is in fact Jesus.
Mícheál Ó Domhnaill was an Irish singer, guitarist, composer, and producer who was a major influence on Irish traditional music in the second half of the twentieth century. He is remembered for his innovative work with Skara Brae, the first group to record vocal harmonization in Irish language songs, and The Bothy Band, one of the most influential groups in Irish traditional music. His reputation was enhanced by a successful collaboration with master fiddler Kevin Burke, and his work with the Celtic groups Relativity and Nightnoise, which achieved significant commercial and critical acclaim.
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Moore, Christy (2000). One Voice. London: Hodder and Stoughton. pp. 18, 125. ISBN 0-340-76839-8.
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