Music or Ear

I get CDs sent to me and then I play them over and over until it goes in. I try not to make notes any more because you can forget the piece of paper. As I get older, I find this easier. There will come a day, however, when I will need to refer to sheets of paper again but while that particular muscle is working - it's a damn luxury. At least one part of my body is fit!

I had three days to learn five albums of Beth Nielsen Chapman before we opened for James Taylor in Kilkenny in July. I'm very quick!

Earlier, I was referring to August 2001, when I played with 17 different bands. Often, I was sitting in the car ten minutes before the gig listening to the bl***y tape.

At Cambridge Festival round about 1991, I was booked to play with Tony Makem. He sent me some tapes with a note that said that the songs we would be playing probably weren't on the tapes. He said, "I'll see you at the hotel. Give me a ring when you get in." I was under the impression that it was a full band but it turned out that I was the only accompanist. So I called him and went up to his room and I learned 10 songs in a hour and a half, most of which I had never heard before. That evening we played those ten songs in between Wolfstone and some other Celtic full on rock band - this old man from Northern Ireland and me. I thought, "This is going to die the death," but in minutes he had everybody in Mainstage 1 eating out of the palm of his hand. I knew I was in the presence of someone really special. The next day I learned another ten songs. The next day - I couldn't remember any of the twenty songs we had played but then Irish music is like that. I've been in many a session in Ireland, where I have learned and forgotten more tunes than I ever knew previously. That's the craic I suppose.

Maart