YmaOHyd
Wife Guy
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2025
- Posts
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My favorite performance of "Finnegan's Wake," the street ballad that inspired James Joyce's novel. Paddy Clancy introduces the song, Tom Clancy recites a selection from the novel and Liam Clancy plays guitar.
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem were on the leading edge of the folk revival in Ireland, England and the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, and it's tough to imagine how big a deal they were now. They outsold Elvis in Ireland; in one year, a third of all records sold in Ireland were Clancy Brothers records. They performed on The Ed Sullivan Show and for President Kennedy. Tracked exports of the Aran sweaters they wore increased 700% (and it was more than that, as most were exported unofficially). The Clancy-organized record label Tradition started the career of Odetta, and they helped launch the Newport Folk Festival.
Their biggest influence was on Bob Dylan, who used their arrangements of Irish folk ballads as melodies in his own work. Dylan was a regular guest when the Clancies played in Greenwich Village, and Dylan would later say that Liam Clancy was the greatest ballad singer he'd ever heard. The Clancy Brothers performed at Dylan's 30th anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden, and at the afterparty Liam Clancy asked Dylan if, perhaps, the Clancies could record an album of some of Dylan's music, mostly songs like "Ramblin Gamblin Willie," which was derived from the Clancy Brothers version of "Brennan on the Moor." Dylan enthusiastically agreed, saying "Liam, you don't realize, do you, man? You're my fuckin' hero."
