Tommy Makem

August 15-21, 2007 / Page 14
EchoOpinion
I was in Boston in late July, and of
course any excursion to that city requires a
personal inspection of the Irish bar-music
scene. I can’t say I carried out this assignment
with the enthusiasm of former years
(age, kids, aversion to headaches - you
know the drill), but I certainly observed
enough to go home happy. Well, happy
and nostalgic. On the trip home — via the
T, you’ll be happy to know - I found
myself thinking about my favorite such
place in New York, and how much I
missed it. And I tried to remember how
long it has been since Tommy Makem’s
Irish Pavillion closed its doors.
The next morning, I read in the Boston
Globe - on Page 1 - that Tommy was dead.
Many of you have your own memories
of Tommy, and most of you no doubt have
read the recollections of others who knew
him in last week’s issue of this newspaper.
You know by now that Tommy Makem
and the Clancy Brothers revolutionized
the Irish and Irish-American music scene;
that they had dreams of being actors long
before they sang together; and that their
influence over Irish and Irish-American
culture continues to be profound, even
with three of the four gone.
My own memories are of Tommy during
his solo years, after he and Liam Clancy
broke up their act in 1988. I came late to the
Makem and Clancys show - late by about,
oh, two decades. While I had heard of
them while growing up in the 1960s, I can’t
say I actually heard them, and even if I did,
I’m not sure they would have made much
of an impression. The 1960s, as we now
know, were not exactly a heyday for Irish
America. Interest in Irish culture, especially
among the young, assimilated Irish-
Americans of the suburbs, was probably at
its lowest level ever. It was a time when
Daniel Patrick Moynihan noted, in
“Beyond the Melting Pot,” that Irish-
American organizations seemed like relics
of another era.
So there were no Clancy Brothers and
Tommy Makem LPs in my collection. It
wasn’t until the 1980s, after their reunion
in Carnegie Hall, that I actually listened to
them.
It was, of course, a revelation. A little
late, I admit, but a revelation all the same.
These men were not simply singers, not
simply musicians - they were storytellers,
and they were telling stories about love
and war and debauchery and drinking
and politics and even gluttony. In other
words, they were telling stories I could
relate to.
At around the same time, in the mid-
1980s, I discovered Tommy’s place on East
57th and Lexington Avenue. I had just
moved to Manhattan from the wilds of
Staten Island, a journey not dissimilar to
the one that brought Tommy and the Clancys
from Ireland to the Ed Sullivan show.
Tommy Makem’s Irish Pavilion immediately
became a home away from home,
and when I got a job within walking distance
of the Pavilion (a coincidence,
believe it or not), it sometimes felt like
home itself.
Tommy played there about once a
month, and while I saw him at festivals
and in other venues during the late 80’s
and into the 1990s, I decided there was no
better place to see him than on East 57th
Street. The small stage and intimate setting
seemed to bring out the details of the
songs and stories that I missed in larger
concerts. And, of course, there was nothing
quite like seeing and hearing him sing
“Four Green Fields” when you were seated
15 feet away.
When, in the late 1980s, I wished to
reacquaint myself with a young lady I had
met a few years earlier but was far too
awkward to actually ask out, I brought her
to Tommy Makem’s. When we became
engaged about a year later, I brought her
back, introduced her to Tommy during a
break in his show, and he led off the next
segment with a song for her, “Eileen
Aroon.” Unaccompanied, his great baritone
sang words I wished I could have
said at that moment, on that occasion:
Who in the song so sweet,
Eileen aroon!
Who in the dance so sweet,
Eileen aroon!
Dear were her charms to me,
Dearer her laughter free,
Dearest her constancy,
Eileen aroon!
I had never heard him sing that lovely
song on stage, and I’ve never forgotten
the generosity and humanity of that gesture.
We became fixtures at Tommy’s annual
Christmas shows, which ran long into
the night and which left you believing
that hope and charity and good will just
might have a shot after all. My kids made
it to Tommy’s place before it closed, but
they never saw the Christmas show. Their
loss, and mine.
I’m in no position to pass judgment on
Tommy’s place in American music,
although it has to be high. I’m not qualified
to tell you what made his music so
important. I don’t know much about
what innovations he and the Clancys
brought to folk music in general and Irish
music in particular.
But I do know, based on a few wonderful
conversations with Tommy, that he was a
generous and noble soul, a great storyteller,
a wonderful host and an ambassador
of good will.
I also suspect he’d be embarrassed by
all the attention his death has received.
But that was part of his charm, too.
I had just moved to Manhattan from the wilds of Staten Island, a
journey not dissimilar to the one that brought Tommy and the
Clancys from Ireland to the Ed Sullivan show. Tommy Makem’s Irish
Pavilion immediately became a home away from home and when I got
a job within walking distance of the Pavilion (a coincidence, believe it
or not), it sometimes felt like home itself.
EchoPerspectives