End of an era: Liam Clancy, 1935-2009

This afternoon, as I was driving home from work, I was listening to NPR’s “All Things Considered,” as per usual. They’d just finished up a story about Afghanistan or some such thing, when, out of the blue, host Melissa Block stated, as the lead-in to a new story: “Bob Dylan once called Liam Clancy ‘the best ballad singer I’ve ever heard.'” NPR then proceeded to play a 25-second clip of Liam singing “The Patriot Game.”

I immediately thought to myself: oh shit. I knew that Liam — the last remaining member of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, the Irish folk group that facilitated my parents’ early romance and, years later, provided the soundtrack of my youth — had been in declining health. And there’s pretty much only one possible reason for NPR to be talking about the once-prominent, now relatively obscure (in mainstream, NPR-ish circles) Irish singer. At the end of that haunting “Patriot Game” clip, the sound of which gave me goose bumps as I anticipated what was coming next, Block confirmed my fears: “Clancy died Friday at a hospital in County Cork, Ireland. He was 74.”

And so ends an era, with the passing of another legend. Longtime readers will remember my extensive blogging about the death of Liam’s former bandmate, Tommy Makem, in August 2007, including a lengthy post titled “Tommy Makem, 1932-2007 … and what he means to me.” Well, Liam Clancy was no less meaningful. Tommy and Liam were the anchors of the old group, its two most talented singers (and its best showmen and story-tellers, to boot). And, as it happened, they lived the longest. Tom Clancy died in 1990, Paddy Clancy in 1998, but Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy lived on well into the new millennium, continuing to entertain audiences right to the end. I went with my parents to see Liam in concert, in Rhode Island I believe, in summer 2001, and I went twice to Makem concerts at Notre Dame, once by myself and once with Becky, who declared Makem “an utterly enchanting performer.”

It’s remarkable how influential the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem have been in my life — I say the “soundtrack of my youth,” but quite obviously, that has bled over into my adulthood in a very substantial way — considering they broke up in 1969, a dozen years before I was born! Even the reunited Makem & Clancy (that’s just Tommy and Liam) lasted only from 1975 to 1988, and I never saw them in concert together. (My parents’ first date, though, was to a Makem & Clancy concert in 1976.)

But I guess music is, or can be, like that: timeless. I’ve spent countless hours listening to decades-old recordings of these delightful old micks singing rebel anthems and love ballads and drinking songs, and much more. That their career peaked when my parents were teenagers is sort of beside the point. Their music has been a constant presence in my parents’ lives, and my life, and now my daughters’ lives, as I regularly sing them “Will Ye Go Lassie Go” and “The Irish Rover” and many more. And who knows: maybe someday, Loyette or Loyacita will choose, of their own volition, to listen to “Brennan on the Moor” or the “Ballad of St. Anne’s Reel.” Okay, probably not. 🙂 But certainly, the influence of Tommy & Liam and the rest of ’em has already stretched out to a whole extra generation. And that’s pretty cool.

Anyway, I’m not going to devote as many words to eulogizing Liam as I did to eulogizing Tommy — partly because I don’t want to repeat myself too badly, but mostly because I just don’t have the time — and besides, nothing I could say would be as effective as just posting some YouTube clips of him singing a few of my favorites. And so, without further ado:

“The Band Played Waltzing Matilda”

“The Irish Rover”

“A Place in the Choir”

“The Nightingale” and “Johnson’s Motor Car” on the Ed Sullivan Show

“The Dutchman”

“Rambles of Spring”

I led off this post with the obvious song choice, “The Parting Glass,” but maybe the best musical send-off is actually that last one:

There’s a piercing wintry breeze
Blowing through the budding trees
And I’ve buttoned up my coat to keep me warm
But the days are on the mend
And I’m on the road again
With my fiddle snuggled close beneath my arm

I’m as happy as a king
When I catch a breath of spring
And the grass is turning green as winter ends
And the geese are on the wing
And the thrushes start to sing
And I’m headed down the road to see my friends

Headed down the road to see my friends? Indeed. All I can say is, there’s gotta be one heckuva Irish folk concert going on up in Heaven right now. First on the set list: “Isn’t It Grand Boys,” obviously!

Rest in Peace, Liam Clancy.