Martin Hayes | |
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 Hayes in 2008 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 4 July 1962 |
| Origin | County Clare, Ireland |
| Genres | Traditional Irish |
| Instrument(s) | Fiddle |
| Years active | 1980s–present |
| Labels | Green Linnet, Real World |
| Website | www.martinhayes.com |
| Parents |
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Martin Hayes (born 4 July 1962) is an Irish fiddler from County Clare. He is a member of the Irish-American supergroup The Gloaming.
Hayes was born into a musical family in Maghera, a townland in the parish of Killanena in East County Clare, Ireland. His father, P.J. Hayes, was a noted fiddle player and his grandmother played the concertina. [1] His father and his uncle Paddy Canny, also an influential fiddler, were among the founders of the Tulla Céilí Band in 1946. P.J. Hayes led the band from 1952 until shortly before his death in 2001. [2]
Martin Hayes started playing the fiddle at the age of seven, taught by his father. At 13 he won his first of six All-Ireland Fiddle Competitions. [3] He is one of only three fiddlers ever to be named All-Ireland Fiddle Champion in the senior division in two consecutive years (1981 and 1982). [2] He joined the Tulla Céilí Band as a teenager and played in the band for seven years. [4]
Hayes moved to Chicago in 1985 and became active in the Irish traditional music scene there. He was a regular performer at weekly jam sessions along with Chicago fiddler Liz Carroll, who later described him as belonging to "that very narrow set of performers from any musical genre – not just Irish – whose every note is perfect". [2] To make a living he worked in bars playing in a variety of genres including "rebel music, and songs and stage Irish humor in clubs, and all kinds of things". [5] In the late 1980s he led a band called the "Celtic Aires". [6] In 1989 he and the Chicago guitarist Dennis Cahill formed "Midnight Court", which combined traditional Irish and rock music. The band was active until 1992. In 1993 Hayes moved to Seattle, where he lived until 2005. [2]
His solo recording career began in 1993, with an eponymous debut album recorded with Randal Bays on guitar. On his second recording, Under the Moon (1995), he was accompanied by Bays on guitar and fiddle and guitarist Steve Cooney, as well as his father P.J. Hayes on fiddle and John Williams on concertina and accordion. [7]
In 1996 Hayes formed an acoustic duo with Dennis Cahill, developing an "unrushed, lyrical, highly expressive interpretation" of traditional Irish music. [2] In 1999 a New York Times reviewer described Hayes and Cahill's approach as "stripping old reels and jigs to their essence, leaving space between the notes for harmonics and whispered blue notes," resulting in "a Celtic complement to Steve Reich's quartets or Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain. " [8] Hayes and Cahill have released three recordings on the Green Linnet label: The Lonesome Touch (1997), Live in Seattle (1999), and Welcome Here Again (2008). [7]
Hayes and Cahill, along with singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, fiddler Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and pianist Doveman, were the members of The Gloaming, an Irish-American supergroup whose first album was released in 2014, winning the Meteor Choice Music Prize for Irish album of the year. [9] [10]
Hayes performs and records with Peadar Ó Riada and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh as the group "Tríur" and has toured with Kevin Crawford and guitarist, John Doyle, as The Teetotalers. [11] [12]
Hayes was a member of the Martin Hayes Quartet, with Dennis Cahill, Liz Knowles, and Doug Wieselman.
He has also appeared on a number of recordings with other musicians from east Clare including Christy McNamara's CD The House I was Reared In, Mary MacNamara's CD Traditional Music from East Clare and the Compilation CD Reeling Through the Years celebrating 20 years of music from the Feakle Festival.
Hayes plays regularly with The Tulla Céilí Band, of which his late father was a founding member. Since 2003 Hayes has been the musical director of the Masters of Tradition festival, held in Bantry House (Bantry, County Cork) every summer. [11]
Since 2019 he has performed with the Common Ground Ensemble, a specially formed group including Cormac McCarthy on piano, Kate Ellis (of Crash Ensemble) on cello, Kyle Sanna (of Brooklyn Rider) on guitar, and Brian Donnellan (of The Tulla Céilí Band) on bouzouki, harmonium and concertina. [13] In 2023 they released the album, Peggy's Dream. [14]
Hayes won the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2000 award for Instrumentalist of the Year. [3] In 2008 he was awarded the TG4 Gradam Ceoil (Traditional musician of the year award). [7] In November 2019 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by National University of Ireland Galway. [15]
With P. J. Hayes
Martin Hayes albums
Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill albums
Martin Hayes Quartet
Martin Hayes & The Common Ground Ensemble
As a member of the Tulla Céilí Band
With The Gloaming
Other
Green Linnet Records was an American independent record label that specialized in Celtic music. Founded by Lisa Null and Patrick Sky as Innisfree Records in 1973, the label was initially based in Null's house in New Canaan, Connecticut. In 1975 the label became Innisfree/Green Linnet and Wendy Newton joined Null and Sky as operating officer. In 1976 Newton took over control of the now Green Linnet label and moved it to Danbury, Connecticut in 1985. Newton became sole owner in 1978. Newton's love of Irish music had been sparked during a visit to Ireland where she heard traditional music for the first time in a small pub in County Clare.
Iarla Ó Lionáird is an Irish singer and record producer. He sings in the traditional sean-nós style. He was a member of the Afro Celt Sound System and is a member of the Irish-American supergroup The Gloaming. He has recorded several solo albums for Real World Records. He appeared in the 2015 film Brooklyn singing an a cappella version of the Irish song "Casadh an tSúgáin".
Chieftains 2 is the second album released by the Irish musical group The Chieftains in 1969. It was Peadar Mercier's album debut on bodhran and Seán Keane's on fiddle.
Kevin Burke is an Irish master fiddler considered one of the finest living Irish fiddlers. For nearly five decades he has been at the forefront of Irish traditional music and Celtic music, performing and recording with the groups The Bothy Band, Patrick Street, and the Celtic Fiddle Festival. He is a 2002 recipient of a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Peadar O'Loughlin was an Irish fluter, fiddler, and piper from Kilmaley County Clare, Ireland who had been a fixture in Irish music since the late 1940s and was best known for having played on the highly influential 1959 LP "All-Ireland Champions - Violin", which was one of the first LPs of Irish traditional music. He performed in the Tulla Céilí Band and Kilfenora Céilí Band and recorded duet albums with piper Ronan Browne and fiddler Maeve Donnelly.
Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh is a fiddler, born in Dublin, Ireland, who attended Trinity College Dublin, becoming a scholar in Theoretical Physics (1999) and earning a first-class BA degree in 2001. He is known for developing a drone-based fiddle style heavily influenced by the uilleann pipes and the music of Sliabh Luachra.
Paddy Canny was an Irish fiddle player. In a career that spanned over six decades, Canny was instrumental in popularizing Irish traditional music, both in Ireland and internationally. He gained initial fame in the late 1940s as a founding member of The Tulla Céilí Band, which made its first appearance on RTÉ Radio in 1948 and had positioned itself as the top céilí band in Ireland by the late 1950s.
Thomas Bartlett, also known as Doveman, is an American pianist, producer, and singer. He has released four solo albums as Doveman, four albums as a member of The Gloaming, duo albums with the composer Nico Muhly and the hardanger d’amore player Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, and "Shelter," an album of solo piano compositions.
James Keane is an Irish traditional musician and accordion player. The Italian Castagnari company issued and continues a line of signature instruments called keanebox in his honor.
Randal Bays is an American fiddler, guitarist and composer. This Irish-style fiddle and guitar player first gained international recognition through his recordings and performances with Co. Clare fiddler Martin Hayes in the early 1990s.
The Tulla Céilí Band is an Irish céilí band.
The Gloaming is a contemporary Irish/American music supergroup. Its members are fiddle player Martin Hayes, sean-nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, hardanger fiddle player Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, and pianist Thomas Bartlett. Guitarist Dennis Cahill was a member until his death in June 2022.
Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin is an Irish ethnomusicologist, author, musician and historian specialising in Irish music, diaspora, cultural and memory studies.
Mícheál Ó Raghallaigh is an Irish concertina player and recording artist residing in County Meath, Ireland.
Dennis Cahill was an American guitarist who specialized in Irish traditional music. He was born in Chicago of parents from County Kerry, Ireland. He began playing guitar at the age of nine and studied the instrument at the Chicago Musical College. He was active in the Irish traditional music scene in Chicago in the 1980s and 1990s.
Oisín Mac Diarmada is an Irish fiddler.
The Gloaming 2 is the second studio album by the contemporary Irish/American music group The Gloaming. It was released on February 26, 2016 on Real World Records, and on Brassland Records in America, Justin Time Records in Canada, and Planet Records in Australia.
Live at the NCH is a live album by the contemporary Irish/American music group The Gloaming. It was released on March 2, 2018 on Real World Records.
The Gloaming 3 is the third studio album by the contemporary Irish/American music group The Gloaming. It was released on February 22, 2019.
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