Finbar Furey is one of those very rare individuals Ireland has produced .A gifted poet, a highly skilled piper , a story teller and comic , and one of the finest singer songwriters to emerge out of the Folk Scene .
I was delighted to meet him and fortunately was able to interview this extraordinarily talented man from the Furey family from Ballyfermott .
I first met Finbar Furey in a theatre in Sydney about 1996 and we sat and talked for a while about music, poetry and songwriting .
Here is part of the interview that I did with this extremely talented man .
I hope you enjoy the talk as much as I did .
"Hello Finbar . Its great to have you back in Australia "
"Its nice to be here. "
"Thanks for taking time out for a wee chat"
"No problem. The pleasures mine."
"Finn you're from the famous Furey family and your parents Ted and Nora where to very talented musicians .
"That's right , yeah ."
"You where the second eldest of four boys from Dublin and you would have eaten fast worked hard and rested last .
"That's true. "
"There must have been some quare craic around the breakfast table "
"Oh there was I'll tell ya . The first to get the spoon got fed first ".
"I remember as a child we used to say a prayer that went something like this , In the namer of the Father,Son and Holy Ghost who ever is quickest gets the most. "
"That's was us as well. "
"The first up in the morning was the best dressed ."'
"At a very early age you became the all Ireland champion on the pipes "
"That's right . I was sixteen "
"They must have been a great companion to you over the years travelling all round the world "
"Ah the Uillean pipes are a great instrument ."
"Listening to some of your early work on songs like Four Green Fields I was comparing that with your new material . You have grown a lot in confidence and work has matured no ends "
"Well I suppose its from when we did all those old albums you know we used to be in those small little folk clubs and things like that and then when you get into the bigger audience I suppose when you get older . I mean my voice is getting very strong you know and I'm hitting a lot of keys now that I didn't get in them days you know like I'm singing a lot mellower too and you know there's nothing I won't tackle in a song where in them days it was strictly just if it was a folk song I'd tackle it but .I'd gone through things like "Love Letters"
and that you know and "Something In The Way She Moves" and then back to singing folk stuff again, you know my job is a singer you know what I mean,
so I had to get myself well equipped for it before went on stage and the music has progressed just as the world has progressed . Time flies by and music comes along , new ideas ,new things . Its great ."
" You've just finished a tour in Scotland before you arrived in Australia "
"Yea I did a piping concert just strictly pipes only in the Glasgow Town Hall at the Celtic Connections . The place was full of pipers both Scottish and Irish pipers ..I had a standing ovation at the end of the night and a great write up next morning in the papers which said "He's still the prince " which was nice
after all these years because I haven't done a concert like that for over twenty years and it was a fearful thing I'll tell you now because being dubbed the Prince Of Pipers you know . I had people there like Davy Spillane , Paddy Keenan weighed in Ronan Brown and all these wonderful Irish pipers where there and the place was full of some of the highest and great Scottish pipers and we had a great night."
"One thing that I've noticed with your playing of the pipes compared to people like Liam O"Flynn and even Davy Spillane is that you have a very earthy feel to the sound . It comes from down in the guts you know , there is something very personal about what you are trying to say on the pipes ."
"Well for instance Davy Spillane is a beautiful piper and Liam is a nice piper .
I taught Davy his music anyway . Davy was a pupil of mine you know . I grew up with Liam we battled in competitions against each other when we where kids . I have a very wild style of playing the pipes .Irish music is a wild spirit anyway you know . You take it as it comes . Where Liam for instance would be very safe in what he plays . He knows exactly what he is going to play .
before he plays it . Where in my case once I take the pipes up and I let fly,
I don't know where I'm going and if I make it, I make it and if I don't, I don't.
But I have a great time getting there I can tell you .I learned my music by sitting beside my Father and my uncles and great pipers like Felix Doran and all the great ones like Willie Clancy and things like that who slept in the house when we where kids . I grew up beside these people and slept in the same beds as them when I was only a kid so the music comes from them and my Father and from the likes of the Dorans. Great and wonderful musicians .
Wild wild men and wild wild music. "
"That's where it comes from . It comes from the heart doesn't it . That's the difference with a lot of Irish musicians I think Finn . They play not as it is written but as they feel it . Like you can bend one note into three on a whistle or even on a box accordion . It could never read that way , it just how that
piece of music feels ."
" You can't trap Irish music on paper. "
"How are things in Ireland at the moment Finn?"
"Its in great shape at the moment . Ireland is great the music scene in Ireland is absolutely massive ."
"On your solo album "The Wind And The Rain" there is a song you play on the pipes called Anna Cuin which is a piece about the Irish Famine . Now I know that you're a great man for the poetry and its it true you have written some poetry around that particular piece ."
"Well I actually do that on stage . I was down in Galway one night with De Dannan with Frankie Gavin and Alex Finn and I stayed overnight with Alex in Oranmore and I met this auld fella and the famine came into the discussion in the pub the next morning over breakfast and he told me this incredible story about the famine and I tried to put it into a little poem which I actually do on stage before Anna Cuin "
" Would you ever do it for us now ?"
"Ok . She sleeps beside my Galway Bay . My smiling girl so dear to me . I dug her grave with my bare hands and let my tears fall with the land . There was no pride left in dying young with hope's sweet life and future gone , so I made my way to the leaving Quay and said farewell to my Galway Bay . Ashamed the day my heart and pain I'd have died for sure should I remain . This blight had taken many lives and would kill us all man woman and child . So little we had ,so much to loose . No time for prayer no one to choose but in my heart you will always stay my smiling girl, Galway Bay . I left the Bay and I felt the still where my Maggie sleeps beneath the hill and above goodbyes a seagull cried while the tears of going they filled my eyes . May your heart and me forever shine from where you sleep on my Erin's Isle and when I'm dreaming far away I'll dream with you Maggie and my Galway Bay. "
"That's beautiful and you wrote that yourself Finn"
"Yea"
"Being on the road so much do you get much time to write poetry?"
"I do it all the time . I do it when I'm travelling . If I'm on an aeroplane or if I'm getting from A to B , or in a van or the back of a bus I don't bother . I read up the news of what's happening and I'll sit down and write a bit of poetry and if nothing comes, nothing comes, I'll never force it, it just comes when its ready".
"What would be one of your main sources of inspiration ?"
"Just what I'm looking at you know, just ideas like. I just finished a new song at the moment back home called "The Man In Tears" It's a peace song about the North of Ireland . Everybody's happy again . It's lovely to be able to walk the streets . "
"On your latest album "The Wind And The Rain I feel there is a new direction to your music that only as a solo artist you could have ever been able to do. "
"Well one of the reasons I quit the brothers to go out on my own was to give the next ten years of my life to what I want to do myself . My son Martin and daughter Enya who have the band Bohinta said nearly time Dad . You should have done it ten years ago and I said I wasn't ready . So I think I picked the right time to do it . I'm more mature now and I'm oozing with confidence in what I'm doing with the pipes and the flutes . I have it fairly much together now what I want to do ."
"The Irish artists songwriters of today have really come through with some great new songs . Are there any of these songwriters you like to personally work with ?"
"Jimmy McCarthy is a grand songwriter and has written all these hits for Christy Moore and Mary Black . Jimmy is probably one of the most unknown
great artists that ever came out of Ireland ."
"Christy Moore has recorded "Ride On" which is one of Jimmy McCarthy songs."
"I think one of the finest versions I heard of "Ride On", was Mary Coglan with Davy Spillane on pipes. I think it was brilliant . I worked with Jimmy a few years ago on the road with "Four For The Road," which was Jimmy McCarthy, Mick Hanley, Don Baker and myself. We had a great band. One of the finest bands that ever came out of Ireland . Four good songwriters working together.
Four different kinds of music . Don with the blues , Mick with the country stuff Jimmy with the Mystic Lipstick as I call it and myself with the folkie stuff . We had a great time working together and we got a bit of experience together and became great pals . I just finished a single with Don Baker at home before I left . Its Dons new single and its called "Little Angels" I played pipes on it and it's a sort of Motowns stuff . I have a very free mind with music I listen to everybody you know . It wouldn't bother me who is ever who you know ."
"Don Baker plays a bit of Blues Harp on the title song of your latest album "The Wind And The Rain" which I think it is one of those classic blues songs".
"I wrote that about a couple of friends of mine who sort of are in the middle off splitting up . Again its things that are happening around me . There's another song on the album called "You Went To My Soul" which is about being worried about something and there must be a way out of this ."
"There is a great mixture of emotions on the album with tracks like "Mrs A"
"Ha! Ha! Yea ." Mrs A" I wrote that on a plane on the way back after doing a six week tour with the brothers . I had got into one of these modes where you go into automatic pilot on stage and the only thing that kept me going was a couple of glasses of wine on stage . I was like absolutely wiped out, so on the aeroplane coming back, the boys said we are going to have a drink and I said No, no more booze for me . No more alcohol for me on this trip I'm finished I'm going home . I remember pushing away the glass of beer . I said to your man givvus a glass of water and I said no more Mrs A for me and I wrote it down and started writing it and I finished the song on the plane . All the musicians that are on the track are all Folkies , they've never played Rock music in their life . The closest one would be Don Baker . So I got them in with their electrical instruments on the last track and I said I want to hear the best Rock band this country has ever produced and we did . We cooked it "
"Was there any reason it was the last track of the album?"
'Well I wanted it after Carrickfergus, which is a song about an alcoholic who wanted to return home, he wanted to die at home you know and I said , ok lets finish this with Mrs A ".
" Over the years you have written many songs about the ocean . What is the connection there ?"
"Well life . I remember my Father telling me now the ocean is the greatest living thing on this planet . It is older than the earth , its older than any other form of life . It's the creator of life on this planet . We all crawled out of there and one day he says we're all going to crawl back in there . We look after the moon better than we look after the ocean . I like the sea . I wrote the lonesome Boatman . Aran Girl and The Ocean . It's also in my roots with my Father's people being from Galway and my Mother's people coming from Clare, well you couldn't get much closer to the ocean than that . So I suppose it comes back to a kid from Ballyfermott . Where the only time you get to see the sea was on a bus . Like the stuff I've written about the sea well it has to come from somewhere deep inside. "
"Out on the ocean there's a presence that you can't find on land and a great sense of being close to God. "
"Of course you feel so very small out there . Like a pebble in this huge cosmos that we live on . You know, the grandeur of it ."
"Well its very humbling you know . "
"Back in 1988 when you were in Adelaide on a tour you had a phone call in the foyer before you went on stage . It must have been hard for you to receive the news that your Mother Nora had just passed away "
"That's right . We were doing a concert at night and it was about fifteen minutes before we went on stage and I didn't say anything to the brothers .
I just kept it away until after the concert was over and then we caught the first flight home."
"That must have been hard ."
"Yea it was. Anyway we went home and buried me Ma . It was a sad affair but one thing I will remember when we did get home the house wasn't empty . The Dubliners were in the house . The Chieftains had cancelled a tour in America and came home . Christy Moore was there . The Wolfetones was there . We had the Dublin City Ramblers there We had every known band . Jim McCann , Paddy Reilly, you know. Everybody was in the house waiting .
So we didn't come home to an empty house . She had one of the biggest funerals Ireland ever saw ."
"That night in Adelaide when you got that phone call you must have looked around and noticed many faces and thought of different situations where people maybe would have to get home or even other situations where people couldn't get home for whatever the reason either financially or physically :"
"Sure I met all these old guys and women too who have been away from Ireland for so long that they've nothing to go back home to away and this is the excuse they use, ah sure there's nothing back there for me now you know and they're only dying to get home . The great truth is a lot of them never went back because they never really made it you know. They would have loved to have gone back but their pride kept them away and I love that pride . That's a wonderful pride that we have".
" Like in the song "Tara Hill"
"That's a great song . Yea that was recorded way back in 1986 and like a lot of the songs that we have recorded they are all going to be there for a long time you know. "
" Roy and Ronnie better known as "The Corries" were great friends of yours
How much influence did they have on the music that you played ?"
"The first time I met them was after they had come to see us playing and I had a bit of an argument about politics . Anyway when I got to know him Roy became one the best friends I ever had . Roy was a credit to Scotland . It was a shame that it took a year after he died to be recognised for what he was.
The Corries were equivalent to the Clancy Brothers in Ireland but far superior musicians than them . The Clancy Brothers were singers of songs, were as the Corries wrote music . So the Corries left a lot of music behind were the Clancy's picked up on a lot of Folk songs and made hits out of them, which is nice too . When we met the Corries they were in their late thirties and we were in our late teens you know sp we grew up with all these heavyweights minding us and like The Corries just became great pals and Roy was brilliant as a musician . Unbelievable talent "
" They had a rebel spirit about them."
"Oh yea and not afraid to say so either . I remember they used to stand up there on stage in the middle of London and sing their stuff . They had a lot of songs about the land clearance in Scotland which was a terrible time for them when sheep were more important than people you know. "
"Horses were used a lot in Ireland before the motor car .Have you memories about a particular horse in the family "
"Yea when my mother was a young one she used to be picked up and dropped off at school by the grandfather on his way to the creamery."
" Did the pony have a name ?"
"Ponies in them days were just used for work . They didn't have names . It was just get the horse and that's it . They only became pets in the sixties you know ."
"You love the horses too don't you "?
"Oh I do ."
" You were here in Australia when Vintage Crop won the Melbourne Cup .
Did you have a few bob on it that day ?"
"By Jassus . I told everybody in Australia a week before that horse won to put their house on it but nobody would listen to me . We were talking to Micky Kinnane and the boys and they all told us to keep our mouths shut as they were over here to make a few shillings . That day they took them for a ride .
I was the happiest man in Melbourne that day . We went in with a Tarago and came out in an armoured car full of money ".
" Another great love of yours is of course the Irish Pipes . Many people have wondered about their origin . Have you any idea about that ?. "
'Well the history of the pipes is supposed to have come with St Patrick to Ireland . But in fact they came from Greece . People say St Patrick came from Wales but how did he come from Wales when we brought it all over there to them you know . The history is that they came with St Patrick from Greece to Ireland and they were only just a chanter and half a sheaf under there.
We took them from their and developed them into what's now known as the Scottish Man Of Wars Pipes or the Scottish Highland Pipes and we put two drones on them and they are still played as a traditional instrument in Ireland with two drones and then the Scots took them and put an extra drone on them an became the Scottish Pipes . Before then there was a thing called the Lowland Pipes which was another wonderful instrument and they're also played with a bellows and a bigger chanter . They're a lovely instrument to listen to but I'd say for pound for penny for pipers I never heard anything like I heard the pipers in the Isle Of Skye . Some of them up there like the McClouds, my God . This young fella Alan McCloud is some piper .To hear these fellas with the notes like cracks of whips coming out from under their fingers is absolutely fantastic . The music they have and the heritage they have is as equal as all ."
"I have heard you play Carrickfergus on a full set of pipes and I would have to say I've never heard anything like that before "
"I can tell you here and now quite honestly now you never will hear it being played again on a full set of pipes because it is one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do and it was a promise to my old man because I used to play it for him and he used to say to me, you'll have to play that on a full set of pipes and let people hear what this instrument can really do with that piece of music and I was up in Belfast where I did it at the Arts theatre and Mark Mulholland the famous actor walked right up on stage and recited it as I played it and it tore the house down . Its probably one of the best pieces of piping I've ever done in my life ."
"I'd like to thank you Finbar for all the time we have shared and I'd like to wish you all the very best . God bless and Slante ."
"Slante "
By Doctor Write
Originally Posted On Site: 2008-08-02 08:25:17
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