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| This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen Magazine #97 (December 2001/January 2002). The magazine is available on newsstands and by subscription. |
The first generation of Irish revival bands brought the excitement of rediscovery of the traditional music that had been largely overlooked even in its homeland. The second generation brought new levels of technical skill to performances while expanding the repertoire with new songs and tunes written in traditional styles. Now, in the third generation of the revival, cutting-edge bands are pushing the music ever farther, blending influences from other musical styles with the ancestral sounds to further revitalize a truly living tradition.
The much-traveled and much-heralded transatlantic quintet called Solas is a prime example of the best of the latest generation of Irish bands. Its members, all highly skilled and confident musicians and arrangers, have been immersed in Irish music since childhood but also touched by everything else that makes up the world's sonic mix in the 21st century. They're not afraid to add rock 'n' roll backbeats, a hint of African rhythms, or classical flourishes to the complex, multi-layered mix of their high-powered jig and reel sets, and they are equally at home with breathtakingly delicate slow airs that showcase the deftness of virtuoso instrumentalists. A hallmark of their sound is the way they work snatches of other tunes, glistening progressions, and quick, clever ornamentation into their seamless arrangements. Their songs are powerful too, music both old and new with an emotional edge and captivating stories sung by an engaging vocalist. And a Solas concert is not marked only by technical perfection — this is a band whose enthusiasm and intense stage presence is as irresistible as its music.
Solas is made up of multi-instrumentalist Séamus Egan (flutes, whistles, mandolin, tenor banjo, guitar, bodhrán), fiddler Winifred Horan, accordionist Mick McAuley, vocalist Deirdre Scanlon, and guitarist Dónal Clancy. They talked about their music last July between sets at the Lowell Folk Festival in Massachusetts, where the embryonic band had debuted seven years earlier.
The story of Solas starts with instrumental wizard, composer, and arranger Egan. A quietly intense man with a shock of prematurely gray hair, he was born in suburban Philadelphia and raised in County Mayo, Ireland, where he and his sisters Siobhan (later a member of Cherish the Ladies) and Rory began playing traditional music as small children. "My family moved back to Ireland when I was young and our parents wanted us to learn a little music," he began, "so they sent us once a week down to the town hall, and we took music classes once a week from a button accordion player named Martin Donaghue. That's really how it started. My grandmother played a bit of melodeon, and my father had made some reel-to-reel recordings of her before she passed away. So I suppose my parents really liked Irish music. It was always on in the house around us. I was 6 or 7 when I started."
Egan showed a marked aptitude for playing traditional music and was soon exploring multiple instruments and entering competitions. A few years later, when he was 12, the family moved back to Philadelphia, where he took further inspiration from Irish music catalyst Mick Moloney. By the time he was 14, Egan had won All-Ireland championships in whistle, flute, tenor banjo, and mandolin. His early professional work included stints with Moloney's ensemble Green Fields of America and an early version of the band Chanting House with Susan McKeown, solo recording projects, and duo work with fiddler Eileen Ivers. By the mid-1990s he was well established as one of the best instrumentalists in Irish music on either side of the Atlantic and as a film score composer, as well.
The band that would become Solas came together around an invitation to play the 1994 Lowell Folk Festival. "The early rumblings of Solas started here," Egan recalls. "I had gotten a call from Joe Wilson at the National Council for the Traditional Arts to just put something together and come up and play. At that point there was no thought of forming a group or anything like that. That lineup was Win, myself, John Williams on button accordion, and John Doyle on guitar. So the four of us came up, and that was the beginning. We were all playing with other people at the time, doing different things. But we enjoyed playing together and there was a good reaction to the show that we did. So we started thinking."
This is an excerpt from an article in Dirty Linen #97 (Dec. '01/Jan. '02). Read the full text in the magazine, available via subscription or on newsstands and in bookstores.
