The Clancy Brothers
The Clancy Brothers were an influential Irish folk music group that developed initially as a part of the American folk music revival. Most popular during the 1960s, they were famed for their Aran jumpers and are widely credited with popularising Irish traditional music in the United States and revitalising it in Ireland. This contributed to an Irish folk boom with groups like the Dubliners and the Wolfe Tones.
The Clancy Brothers – Paddy, Tom and Liam – are known best for their work with Tommy Makem, recording almost two dozen albums together as The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. Makem left in 1969, the first of many changes in the group's membership. The most notable subsequent member to join was the fourth Clancy brother, Bobby. The group continued in various formations until Paddy Clancy's death in 1998.
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem significantly influenced the young Bob Dylan and other artists, including Christy Moore and Paul Brady. The group was famous for its often lively arrangements of old Irish ballads, rebel and drinking songs, sea shanties and other traditional music.
History
Original group with Tommy Makem
Early years
The oldest member of the group, Paddy Clancy, was born on 7 March 1922 in Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary, Ireland. Tom followed on 29 October 1924, Bobby on 14 May 1927, and youngest brother Liam Clancy on 2 September 1935. Tommy Makem was born 4 November 1932 in Keady, County Armagh, Northern Ireland.After serving in World War II in the Royal Air Force, Paddy and Tom emigrated from England to Toronto in 1947 on the S.S. Marine Flasher, accompanying 400 war brides. The only men on board were Paddy, Tom, their friend Pa Casey and the ship's sailors. Once in Toronto, Paddy and Tom worked various odd jobs before coming to the United States two years later, through the sponsorship of two aunts. Residing for a time in Cleveland, Ohio, the two brothers began to dabble in acting. They decided to move to Hollywood, but their car broke down soon after the trip began. They relocated to the New York City area instead.
Arriving in Greenwich Village in Manhattan in 1951, Tom and Paddy established themselves as successful Broadway and Off-Broadway actors. They also made several television appearances. The two brothers created their own production company, Trio Productions, which led to the start of their professional singing careers. To help raise money for the company, Paddy and Tom organised late-night concerts of folk songs called the 'Swapping Song Fair' every Saturday night at the Cherry Lane Theatre, which they were renting at the time to produce Irish plays. Here they would sing some of the old Irish songs that they knew from their childhood. Some well-known folk singers, including Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and Jean Ritchie, also participated in these concerts. At this time, younger brother Bobby Clancy briefly emigrated to New York City, joining his brothers in Greenwich Village. This was the little-known, first 'unofficial' line-up of singing Clancy brothers.
In 1955, Bobby returned home to Carrick-on-Suir to take over father Robert J. Clancy's insurance business, freeing youngest brother Liam Clancy to emigrate to New York City to pursue his dream of acting. Liam arrived in New York in January 1956.
A month earlier, Tommy Makem emigrated to the United States from his hometown of Keady. Tommy had met Liam Clancy shortly before they both emigrated. Diane Hamilton, a friend of Paddy Clancy in New York, followed in the footsteps of her mentor, Jean Ritchie, and came to Ireland in search of rare Irish songs. Her first stop was at the Clancy household, where she recorded several members of the family, including the Clancys' mother, sisters Peg and Joan, and nineteen-year-old Liam Clancy. Hamilton asked Liam and recently returned Bobby Clancy to join her on a trek through Ireland to locate and record source singers.
One of those source singers was Sarah Makem who had been recorded by Jean Ritchie in 1952 on a similar search for authentic Irish folk songs. Her son Tommy Makem, then twenty-two, and the young Liam Clancy instantly became friends. Said Liam, "Our interests were so similar: girls, theatre and music. He had told me he was going to America to try his luck at acting. We agreed to keep in touch." Tommy was recorded for the first time by Hamilton in that autumn of 1955. Among the songs he sang was "The Cobbler", which he continued to perform throughout his career.
Group's formation and Tradition Records
In March 1956, Tommy Makem was unemployed. He had recently moved to Dover, New Hampshire, where many of his family members had emigrated to work in the local cotton mills. He had found a job there making printing presses but had an accident when a two-ton steel press that he was guiding with his hand broke from its chain. The falling press tore the tendons from the bone in three of the fingers of his left hand. His hand in a sling, and knowing the Clancy brothers in New York, he decided that he would like to make a record with them. He told this to Paddy Clancy, who with the sponsorship of Diane Hamilton and the assistance of his brother Liam founded a record company, Tradition Records, in 1956. Paddy agreed and together he, Tom, Liam, and Tommy Makem recorded an album of Irish rebel songs, The Rising of the Moon, one of the new label's first releases. Paddy's harmonica provided the only musical accompaniment for the first version of this debut album. It was re-recorded in 1959 with the addition of supporting musicians.Little thought was given to continuing as a singing group. They all were busy establishing theatrical careers for themselves, in addition to their work at Tradition Records. But the album was a local success and requests were often demanded for the brothers and Tommy Makem to sing some of their songs at parties and informal pub settings. Slowly, the singing gigs began to outweigh the acting gigs and by 1959, serious thought was given to a new album. Liam had developed some guitar skills, Tommy's hand had healed enough that he was again able to play tin whistle and Uilleann pipes, and the times spent singing together had improved their style. No longer were they the rough, mostly unaccompanied group of actors singing for an album to jumpstart a record label; they were becoming a professional singing group.
The release of their second album, this one of Irish drinking songs called Come Fill Your Glass with Us, solidified their new careers as singers. The album was a success, and they made many appearances on the pub circuit in New York, Chicago, and Boston. It was at their first official gig after Come Fill Your Glass With Us that the group finally found a name for themselves. The nightclub owner asked for a name to put on the marquee, but they had not decided on one yet. Unable to agree on a name the owner decided for them, simply billing them as "The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem". The name stuck. They decided to try singing full-time for six months. If their singing was successful, they would continue with it; if not, then they would return to acting. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem proved successful as a singing group and in early 1961, they attracted the attention of scouts from The Ed Sullivan Show.
Famous sweaters and initial success
The Clancy Brothers' mother read news of the terrible ice and snow storms in New York City and sent Aran jumpers for her sons and Tommy Makem to keep them warm. They wore the sweaters for the first time at the Blue Angel nightclub in Manhattan, simply as part of their regular winter clothes. When the group's manager Marty Erlichman, who had been searching for a special "look" for the group, saw the sweaters, he exclaimed, "That's it! That's it! That's what you're going to wear." Ehrlichman requested that the group wear the sweaters on their upcoming television appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. After they did, the sales of Aran sweaters rose by 700% according to Liam Clancy, and they soon became the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem's trademark costume.Vawn Corrigan has stated that this was not an idle boast and that the number was probably even higher as much of the export sales of Arans happened unofficially and were not therefore properly accounted.
On 12 March 1961, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem performed for around fifteen minutes in front of a television audience of forty million people for the first time on The Ed Sullivan Show. A previously scheduled artist did not appear that night, and the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem were given the newly available time slot on the show, in addition to the two songs they had initially planned to do. The televised performance and the success of the Clancys' and Makem's nightclub performances attracted the attention of John Hammond of Columbia Records. The group was offered a five-year contract with an advance of $100,000, a huge sum in 1961. For their first album with Columbia, A Spontaneous Performance Recording, they enlisted Pete Seeger, one of the leaders of the American Folk Revival, as backup banjo player. The record included songs that would soon become classics for the group, such as "Brennan on the Moor", "Jug of Punch", "Reilly's Daughter", "Finnegan's Wake", "Haul Away Joe", "Roddy McCorley", "Portlairge" and "The Moonshiner". The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording in 1962.
Around the same time that they recorded A Spontaneous Performance, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem cut their final, eponymous album with Tradition Records. By the end of 1962, they released a second album with Columbia, Hearty and Hellish! A Live Nightclub Performance, and they played an acclaimed concert at Carnegie Hall. Additionally, they were making appearances on major radio and television talk shows in America.