5 comments

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  M.A. Peel

  1 year ago

  Brendan, somehow I missed this sad news. I was raised on the "Hearty and Hellish" album, and "The Boys Won't Leave the Girls Alone." What great part-sing The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem were. Genuine musicians, all of them. Must go put on a DVD now.
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  Brendan Tween

  1 year ago

  Sad news indeed. Luckily, there's plenty of Tommy and the boys on youtube!
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  Dan Leo

  1 year ago

  Growing up Catholic in Philly the only thing I knew about Irish music was Ruby Murray and "If You're Irish Step into the Parlour". My friends and I, and by some trick of ethnography we were all of mostly Irish blood, somehow discovered the Clancys and Tommy Makem in our college days, and we played those albums to shreds.
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  Kathleen Maher

  1 year ago

  Thanks for writing about Tommy Makem. He's not familiar to me, so your tribute is for me an introduction: his music survives.
  There's lots of Irish in my family but my parents didn't appreciate the music. Perhaps because their parents sang old Irish songs often.
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  Jim Tourtelott

  1 year ago

  There is an immense amount of Tommy Makem, with and without the Clancys, available on YouTube, Most notable of the solo clips are a photo montage of Tommy set to his singing of Four Green Fields, a piece that includes an interview with Tommy about singing Four Green Fields on the Bogside in July of 1969, and a version of Roddy McCorley. The best stuff with the Clancys are a series of clips all apparently from the reunion concert at Lincoln Center in the 80s, including The Irish Rover, The Wild Rover, and a terrific Brennan on the Moor, at the end of which there's a wonderful expression on Tommy's face as if he can't quite believe what he's just done himself. (The rest of us were never surprised at what you could do, Tommy, after the first time we heard you. Rest well.)
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