Michael Black

Dirty Linen

This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen #135 (April/May 2008).
The full article is in the magazine, available on newsstands, by subscription, and at the Dirty Linen webstore.

Michael Black

All in the Family

by Kerry Dexter

Michael Black grew up in a family filled with music. His mother, Patty, would lead her coworkers at a Dublin confectioner in singalongs to popular theatrical songs as they wrapped candies by hand, and she kept singing when she got home. His dad, Kevin, was a singer and played the fiddle and other instruments. "On Saturday nights my dad would have some friends over, and Mum would make sandwiches, and there'd be some Guinness, and they'd have a singalong, or a 'hooley,' as we all called it in Dublin," Michael Black said. "We'd all be marched out from wherever we were to sing songs and join in. So singing in front of other people was not unusual at all."

It turned out to be a career skill, too. Older brother Shay and younger brother Martin have often teamed up with Michael to tour as the Black Brothers. Younger sister Mary is a music star in Ireland and internationally, and younger sister Frances has also created a top international career as a singer of pop and folk music. All five have joined together on the occasional tour and for three recordings as the Black Family.

From those days of the Saturday night hooleys over Black's Grocers in Dublin, all five siblings took both an ear for harmony and a taste for mixing traditional and contemporary music. "We none of us had any formal training," Michael said. "It's just organic. We're all chorus singers, really." When the five sing together, "Sometimes we think we hear a sixth voice. None of us sang that note! And it's coming from the harmonies," Mary said.

[cover #135]