The songs are about heartache and sadness, but the huge audiences just want fun, dancing and to bag one of the Willoughby Brothers. PATRICK FREYNEsteps out at Mayo's Craic at the Track to see what the fuss is about
‘THERE’S A LOT of heartbreak out on the dance floor,” says a man in a red cowboy hat as the sound of a pedal steel guitar echoes across the racecourse.
But there isn’t a huge amount of heartache visible at the Craic at the Track fun day, at Ballinrobe, in Co Mayo, organised by Midwest radio and featuring a host of country ’n’ Irish luminaries.
A long-time fan of country music, I've never been a huge devotee of the Irish variety. As a hangover from the showband era, its stars include Brendan Shine, Big Tom, Susan McCann, Mick Flavin, Declan Nerney and an increasing number of younger performers, such as the Louisiana expat Robert Mizzel, The Willoughby Brothers, Patrick Feeney and Mike Denver (who recently featured on RTÉ's Stars Go Racing). Typically it's American country music delivered with the same lilt and twang, the same themes of heartache, home, family and life gone awry, but with a more insistent drumbeat, a dollop of accordion, and some traditional Irish melodies and place names thrown in for good measure (the amount of Irish in country 'n' Irish varies from artist to artist).
Patrick Feeney and his band play to more than 200 people five nights a week. The scene is bigger than ever, Feeney says, with more and more young people going to the gigs and even “social dancing” classes springing up around the country. A solo artist as well as a member of The Three Amigos (with Robert Mizzel and Jimmy Buckley), Feeney will this winter take part in al country ’n’ Irish Caribbean cruise alongside Daniel O’Donnell. If an up-and-coming indie band managed such popular success, they’d be the darlings of the national press. But this genre flourishes away from the cities where the national media are based, which may be why it gets brushed under the carpet.
And it’s all about the dancing, Feeney says, at the Lucan Spa Hotel, before a two-and-a-half-hour set where the dance floor never empties and his voice never falters.
Would he ever record in Nashville? He shakes his head. “They’ve some brilliant musicians over there, but they’re too laid back. They wouldn’t be able to keep up. The Irish crowds are pretty demanding, and we have to give them what they want. It’s all about the dance, so if you slow down the beat or play a song unaccompanied on an acoustic guitar, they’re out the door.”
Later I explain to a friend that country ’n’ Irish is basically a type of dance music. “So judging it the way you’ve been judging it is like trying to understand techno without having been to a rave,” he says.
The following Sunday I find myself at the racecourse in Ballinrobe. The weather is good. It’s lunchtime, so the families who aren’t at the chip van are laying out blankets for picnics. There are thousands of people and lots of deck chairs. A Midwest Radio mobile studio is present. There’s face painting and a puppet show. A man wearing Jedward hair is selling seaweed from a stall. There is a smattering of cowboy hats (“There were more at Michael Bublé,” says a fellow festivalgoer with disappointment), and, on a truck facing the stand, the Midwest Radio house band are warming up.
“Who’s from Ulster?” says the compere to a cheer. “Who’s from Munster?” (a smaller cheer). “Who’s from Leinster?” (a smaller cheer again). “Who’s from Connacht?” (a huge cheer).
The first act is Lisa McHugh, the Scottish finalist of TG4's country 'n' Irish talent show, Glór Tíre, another programme that has helped boost the popularity of country in Ireland. (Later, Robert Mizzel introduces another upcoming star from that programme, a large man called, incongruously, The Slim Attraction.) Because everyone is using the same band, the changeovers between the sets are short. The band includes fiddle, brass and pedal steel, played by skilled musicians who are clearly in some demand. Later the compere explains that there'll be a slightly longer changeover because "some of the lads here have to do a wedding in Cavan".
McHugh is followed by the veteran star Mick Flavin, Gerry Guthrie (introduced as "the Man from Ballina"; almost everyone here introduces themselves by name and geographical origin) and Louise Morrissey (who sings, among other things, a great song called Feeling Single and Seeing Double).
The bulk of the audience is crowded at the front of the stage, some are back in the stands, while around the fringes a hard core quickstep and jive expertly to all of the acts.
The hit of the afternoon are The Willoughby Brothers, six hunks of besuited manhood who line up like Westlife, harmonise on old Irish standards and do a line in teasing banter.
“The wives and girlfriends said we have to introduce ourselves by relationship status,” says a Willoughby Brother, feigning sadness, before each of them does just that. “I’m Jerome and I’m free and single!” says the one who’s free and single. At the end he says: “Would you like to take us home? All six of us? Would you like to take us home . . . in the form of our new CD?”
By now the racecourse is filled with people of all ages. “Oh, the country music scene is definitely getting bigger again,” says Paula from Westport, a woman in her 30s, line-dancing to Feeney’s set. “We go dancing every week.”
“We started going over in England,” says her friend Majella, who says she taught herself the dances in front of a mirror.
Eoin, a young man wearing a sort of Panama hat and gazing up at Brendan Shine, laments that “they don’t play this music at discos”.
Marie and Bill, who are jiving expertly to the left of the stage, say that they like all kinds of music: Bruce Springsteen, The Saw Doctors, Mike Denver. They enjoy the opportunity to get out of the house for a dance at events like this. “We don’t get to go dancing often,” says Marie, laughing and gesturing by way of explanation at the four children in face paint staring up at us. “We usually have to jive around the kitchen table.”
"Country music is definitely getting bigger in Ireland," says Bill. "The one song he'd know and sing for you," says Marie, pointing at a young child painted to look like a tiger, "is The Gambler, by Kenny Rogers."
“With pop music you lose them after a couple of years,” Feeney had said the previous week. “With country music, if you get them young you have them for life.” It does seem to be a cradle-to-grave experience. Despite the presence of younger people in the audience, most of them aren’t dancing. The people dancing are mostly older, people for whom songs about homesickness, hardship and heartbreak presumably make most sense.
“This would be our thing for the past 20 years,” says Tom, from Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo, who has just been dancing with precision and passion with his dance partner, Adele, from Castlerea. “But since we’ve been semiretired we’ve left the outside lane and now we’re motoring up the inside. We go dancing four nights a week. We’ll travel 100 miles if there’s a good dance.”
Could he always dance? “I couldn’t,” he says. “Luckily I met a girl from Ballinasloe and she taught me how to jive and how to quickstep. God love her, she died two years ago, but I’m in debt to her every time I hit the dance floor.”
Later he thumps his chest and says: “This music is in the heart. They’re stories that everyone can relate to. They feel real.”
Tom’s friend Tommy, a man in his 50s, is wearing a red cowboy hat and is a bit more sceptical about the musical worth of country ’n’ Irish. A fan of American stars like Emmylou Harris, Merle Haggard and George Jones, he’s a true aficionado and says the Irish have a natural affinity for country because the genre was moulded by Scots-Irish immigrants in the Appalachian Mountains. “The twang in country is an Irish twang,” he says. But he dislikes how some Irish artists crowbar in the Irishness in a tokenistic manner. “Some would say there’s a bit of a yahoo mentality to country ’n’ Irish. But it’s very hard to dismiss it when you see two people dancing like that,” he says, pointing to Tom and Adele.”
At this point we’re interrupted by three middle-aged women: Maureen, Anne and another Anne, all in cowboy hats, all having a great time. “I’m trying to find myself a Willoughby Brother!” says Maureen. One of the Annes corners me to convince me of the merits of an up-and-coming country crooner named Conor Duffy.
The atmosphere is generally lovely. By the time Dominic Kirwan takes the stage and sings easy-listening hits like Sweet Caroline, the multigenerational audience are swaying, singing and holding hands in the sun.
Later, Tommy finds me again. “Look, it’s very easy to be dismissive of this music,” he says. “I came back to the dancing circuit after 20-odd years and it really can be a dancing circus sometimes. There’s a lot of heartbreak out on that dance floor.”
He pauses and shakes his head.
“But you find some very nice people and some fabulous dancers. And look at this” – he waves his hand across the crowd – “people enjoying themself in the sun, sitting around, singing, dancing and listening to live country music. In all the depression and recession, it’s a very positive thing.”
He’s right. As I’m leaving I’m stopped by Denise Murray from Turloughmore, who initially mistakes me for a country ’n’ Irish singer I’ve never heard of. She recalls Big Tom playing her family pub and says this music always returns in recession. She, like many of the people I talk to, is planning to head straight to another dance afterwards. Country music is “a great bit of fun”, she says. “It lifts your heart.”
But a lot of the words are sad in this melancholy genre designed for bar stools and solitary truck journeys: why is it so much fun?
She laughs. “Ah, but you dance off the sadness,” she says, and as the slide guitar mingles with a quickstep beat, and Mike Denver croons about being “sentimental Irish”, I believe her.
Keep it country
Robert MizzelLouisiana-born country crooner (right) with a Cajun twist. He organises musical cruises and performs in The Three Amigos with Patrick Feeney and Jimmy Buckley.
Patrick FeeneyA clean-cut, suit-wearing crowd-pleaser. He learned his trade playing in a duo with his father and now plays straight-up country with a tight band.
Lisa McHugh"Ireland's sweetheart of country music" is actually a glamorous honky-tonk starlet from Scotland who was a finalist in TG4's Glór Tíre.
The Willoughby BrothersA well-tailored, six-man wall of easy-listening Irish balladry.
Mike DenverRecent reality-TV star who wears a Stetson and a white suit and sings Irish-referencing new country in an American twang.
