(Music up) Jo Reed: That is Irish Step Dancer and 2014 National Heritage Fellow Kevin Doyle with the band Pendragon.  He's dancing a piece written especially for him, called "Kevin Doyle's Hornpipe." And this is Art Works, the weekly podcast produced by the National Endowment for the Arts.  I'm Josephine Reed. Kevin Doyle was born and raised in Rhode Island, with a tradition of step dancing that went back two generations on his mother's side.  She was a great Irish step dancer, and he was brought up in a house and a neighborhood filled with music and dance.  Kevin danced competitively from an early age, winning several competitions or feis throughout New England and the greater New York area.  He soon added tap dancing to his repertoire, performing in regional theatres and winning national competitions.  Like many traditional artists, he had to cut back on his dancing when he married and began having children.  But he always kept a hand, or a foot in it, and now he's back on the circuit, and he's never been busier, dancing with any number of groups and bands, playing percussive instruments with the band Pendragon, serving as a state and regional master artist, receiving a fellowship from the Rhode Island Council on the Arts, and now he's named a 2014 National Heritage Fellow.  We saw him dance last year, when 2013 Fellow Séamus Connelly invited Kevin to perform with him at the National Heritage Fellowship Concert. Seeing Kevin's performance made me realize that step dance is part of Irish music itself, often serving as percussion for the music.  When I spoke with Kevin Doyle a couple of weeks back, I shared that observation with him.  Kevin Doyle:  Yes, I totally agree with that because to me Irish music is dance music. And, you know, besides the beautiful songs and the airs that they play but any kind of the traditional jigs, reels, and hornpipes it’s dance music. It’s sort of like a natural reaction for people to hear the music and all of a sudden their foot starts tapping or their hands start clapping a little bit. And so when they see it danced out rhythmically with the feet as percussion it sort of completes the whole picture to them. It all totally makes sense then. Jo Reed:  Where did you learn to step dance? Kevin Doyle:  Well, I first started learning at the age of eight years old from my mother, who came from Castlerea, County Roscommon in Ireland in the 1930s. And she was a wonderful step dancer that she had learned from her mother and she brought her folk art to this country. So it was sort of like a natural thing for me after seeing my mom dance at so many occasions and parties, and it was something that I wanted to do as well as part of our community and part of our heritage. Jo Reed:  And you danced with your sister Maureen, correct? Kevin Doyle:  Yes, Maureen was six years old and she was my dance partner for 40 years and still performs with me. In fact, she’ll be coming down to Washington, D.C. with me as well to show some of the dances that we did earlier on in our career. Jo Reed:  What would happen? Would your mother teach you how to dance after school?  Was it, you know, you came home and you did dance at home? Kevin Doyle:  Yes. Yeah, we would have to do homework and then we would do a little bit of rehearsing of the steps that we had learned. And my mom would keep them fresh in our minds, so her way of doing that was every morning before we went off to school with St. Matthew’s school with our uniforms on, Maureen and I would be in front of the kitchen sink and my mom would be lilting “McLeod’s Reel” for us. Lilting was a form of mouth music that they used often times in Ireland when there was no instruments in the house or no musicians. And she would lilt “McLeod’s Reel” which is something like <lilting> and we would do the beginning steps of the reels, the sevens and the threes. And then off we’d go, she’d send us off to school. And often times she’d give me a shot of this Geritol stuff to think that maybe I would have a growth spurt on the way but the dancing worked out a lot better than that. <laughs> Jo Reed:  Was dancing something you took to immediately? And I don’t mean just in terms of talent, but I mean in terms of love. Did you love it right away? Kevin Doyle:  I did. I really loved it right away. I think it was my sense of rhythm that I just felt a natural draw to that, to the music. And I could fit my steps to the timing. A lot of dancers sometimes struggle with the timing with the musicians, and the different music that’s played. And I always had a gift of being able to accent the rhythms with my feet, so often times it was said to me that "You really dance right to the music." So I had a rhythm in me that just seemed to fit with my feet, and whatever I was listening to I could just impersonate that percussion with my feet. Jo Reed:  Now, when did you begin more formal lessons outside the home? Kevin Doyle:  Oh, that was probably at the age of nine after my mom had taught us quite a few of her steps. She wanted us to get into a more disciplined setting of dancing. And we went out to Mrs. McCorry’s School of Dance in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. She had a very nice battering form of dancing, which is a style of dancing that’s very rhythmic, close to the ground. And she had some wonderful steps that we were attracted to. We had seen her dances performing out around St. Patrick’s Day. And we went out there and that led us into the competition scene. Jo Reed:  The competitions were really important in that time, wasn’t it? I mean that was a time when you really could go out there and perform, especially as a kid. Kevin Doyle:  Yes. It was a little different from today. Today, the world, the nationals, there’s an awful of pressure and an awful lot of preparation, not that there wasn’t a lot of preparation for us, but it was something to see if you could go to these feis’ that were up and down the northeast to Boston and Brookline and the Bronx, Yonkers, all up and down New York. It was to see how well you could do. You would compete, it would be an all-day event. And, of course, you’d have an Irish dance uniform on that they sent over from Castlerea that was made of the finest wool of Ireland and be about 90-some degrees all day long in the feis. So you’d be over there, sweating all day waiting to compete. And it was something to be able to go do that, if you were victorious in the feis it was quite an honor to have that. Jo Reed:  I know that you did an old style form of step dancing, but I want you to explain what those different styles are. There are reels, there are jigs, there are hornpipes, and enormous variations within each of those categories, but just generally, what are the differences among those three? Kevin Doyle:  Well, what’s different about each piece is the timing. The jigs are always in the six-eighth rhythm. Reels would be four-four times, which is a pretty fast four-four time. And hornpipes would be four-four but they’d be very, very-- the steps would be choreographed very much to the music. So you would hear the hornpipe stepped right along with the music and it would almost dictate what you would be dancing. Jigs being very quick and lively. And reels, of course, they were done with soft shoes and hard shoes. They’re all unique in their own way. But what my old style is about is a very old, traditional, close to the ground rhythms, where you do a lot of work very close to the ground. As with the dance masters of the old days, it wasn’t common to show the sole of your feet. You would actually get marked off in competitions for that back in Ireland. (Music up) Jo Reed:  Interesting, I think, for many people, when we think of Irish dancing, of course, we think about Riverdance and the kind of show dancing that’s done there. But as you say, what you do is quite different from that. Kevin Doyle:  Yes, it is. Michael Flatley, who I give all the credit in the world to for bringing the spotlight back on Irish step dancing and putting in on the world stage, he has really moved that dancing and the evolution of dance that incorporated Spanish dancing, flamenco dancing, tap dancing, just a loose form and a very exciting form of step dance. And he still sticks to some of the traditional roots of it but he’s taken it much more further than that.  Jo Reed:  Now, in traditional Irish step dancing, the right foot and the left foot kind of have a mirrored relationship in terms of the way they do steps, is that true? Kevin Doyle:  Yes, in the step dancing, the traditional step dancing, it was always done with the right foot and usually repeated with the left. And it’s actually a choreographed form of dance, versus the Sean-nós style of dance which was a very early form of dance Ireland, where you would never repeat the same step twice. It was pretty much what you felt to the music, what you were listening to. You’d jump up and you would just do something that fit rhythmically to the tune. And next time you got up, you'd never do the same thing twice, where step dance it was choreographed. Jo Reed:  Now, the Sean-nós style is one of the oldest forms of Irish dancing, isn’t it? Kevin Doyle:  Yes, that’s Sean-nós and it’s a very old style of dance, very popular in the Connemara area of Ireland, and actually is enjoying quite a renewal throughout Ireland and throughout the country in the world right now. It’s getting to be very popular again. That was very much part of the kitchen hooleys and the parlor rackets. And it would always be said in the old days over there and as in this country, as well, when your musicians were playing someone would say, “Come on, don’t let that good music go to waste, someone get up and do a step to it." So somebody would jump up and as long as it fit into the structure of the tune, whatever you did was fine. Jo Reed:  So it’s like jazz for Irish dancing? Kevin Doyle:  Yes, very much so. Jo Reed:  Kevin, you also are a tap dancer. How did you get involved with tap? Kevin Doyle:  Well, tap dancing became an instant desire of mine after I seen the movie “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” (Music up) which was the story of George M. Cohan. James Cagney portrayed George M. Cohan. And I saw that movie and I was so infatuated with the dancing of James Cagney and the storyline that I ran out into the kitchen and I said, "Mom," I said, "I want to learn how to do that dancing as well." And I continued with my Irish step dancing, of course, but my mom took me out to Theresa Landry’s School of Dance in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. And I started there at the age of 10 years old and continued to see her and work with her today, and she’s going to be 93 years old. And she’ll be in Washington with me as well in September. Jo Reed:  There is a relationship between tap and step dancing, isn’t there? Kevin Doyle:  Oh, absolutely. It was part of the evolution of dance. When a lot of the Irish step dancers came over to America to diversify their talent, they started in Vaudeville, all the different shows that were going to be on Broadway. Everybody had to sort of like diversify and they all became hoofers and brought tap into their repertoire. Jo Reed:  Did you find that your step dancing affected the way you tapped? And when you were tapping, did that affect the way you then subsequently step danced?  Kevin Doyle:  No, that transition was very easy for me. The transition from the rigid form of step dance into the really bent knees, loose body form, expressive form of tap dance was easy for me. And I never really had a problem going back and forth, although, I will say with some of my jig steps or some of my hard shoe reel steps I will incorporate into some tap routines that I’ve choreographed. So it’s very easy to mesh the two styles together but I didn’t have a problem keeping that line there, to keep it traditional and then keep with tap. Jo Reed:  Correct me if I’m wrong but I think with step dancing, often, if you were dancing publicly it was in a competition, whereas, with tap you were performing more than competing, is that fair? Kevin Doyle:  Yes. For the most part, I would say that with Irish step dancing there was a lot of competing.  However, there was a lot of performance as well, but the difference was with the Irish step dancing they only wanted to really see you around St. Patrick’s Day. So all of the Irish clubs, five, six, seven places a night we would go around to the different organizations and my sister and I would do the step dances, and they’d say, “Thank you very much. That was wonderful. We’ll see you next year.” So I did a lot of my entertaining with tap dance and a lot of my competitions became tap dance as well with different shows like community auditions and one of the shows in New York City was the Ted Mack “Amateur Hour” which was like an early form of “America’s Got Talent.” So I was actually very successful with that, winning two times on that show. And that was voted by America, people voted it and sent in cards and the American public chose the winners. So there was some competition to that, but you’re right, most of that was all part of school shows, performances on the Steel Pier in Atlantic City. It was pretty much a lot of performance but there was some element of competition in there. Jo Reed:  I also would imagine as you got older and had a family and a fulltime job that you kind of had to step away from step dancing and tap dancing. Kevin Doyle:  I did have to back away a little bit from that because I really couldn’t take the opportunities that were coming my way because I did have three children and a wife and a mortgage. Like many folk artists, you have to supplement your income. So it was something that I always kept my passion alive for and I would keep performing. And I would constantly be choreographing and creating steps and working with other artists. But it was tough to try to keep that balance, sometimes, when you had a fulltime job. It’s just been wonderful for me now. I’ve been retired a year, a year ago June and opportunities have been coming my way, and I actually have the time to actually explore what I’d like to do with my passion for dance. It’s been great now. Jo Reed:  Well, you also had something that was actually kind of devastating turn into an enormous opportunity. What was devastating was that the grocery store that you managed closed but you got another job that oddly enough gave you much more time to be able to dance. Kevin Doyle:  Yes, and I didn’t realize that until about ten years after I had the job. What happened was in ’95 I lost my job after 28 years with a supermarket chain, and I had done very well with them and at 45 years old I was out of work with three children and a mortgage and needed coverage. So I started driving for the Rhode Island public transit as a bus driver in the city of Providence and I did that for 17 years.  The markets, they never would allow you time off because I was responsible for perishable inventories. I had to be there for the ordering. So it was very, very difficult for me to get some time to explore festivals or to take off and do a weeklong camp anywhere. However, with RIPTA they had a situation there where I could have other drivers actually work a day for me and I could string days together and put a week worth of days together or longer if I needed to. And so I was allowed to explore a lot more opportunities, and that happened in June of ’96 which was simultaneously when Riverdance was hitting the world stage and there was a rejuvenation in Irish step dance. So I’m a very firm believer in when one door closes, another door opens. And little did I know at the time after feeling devastated that that was actually going to enable me to groom a career so when I retired I could still continue to follow my passion. Jo Reed:  I think sometimes it’s difficult to remember since it’s almost 20 years the impact that Riverdance had on Irish dancing. Kevin Doyle:  Oh, it’s been incredible and still is incredible as far as how it’s crossed over into so many different backgrounds. I’ve worked with some great dancers and some of the best have been Asian dancers. And last year in County Clare in Ireland, there was eight Japanese dancers in my class and one was a lawyer and one was a doctor and they’re just infatuated with the form of dance. And that goes right across the board with all of these sorts of nationalities how it’s rejuvenated so much interest in the dance. And at that time, I’ve got to say that Pendragon, the band who I’ve been with for 18, 19 years actually now, I had known them earlier on in my life and they said, “Everybody wants to see the step dance and would you like to come out and try step dancing with us, again?” So I did. And I’ve been with them since ’96 of June. And been dancing ever since with them. I also danced with Atwater-Donnelly band as well, a husband and wife duo. So, when people ask me "What do you think about Michael Flatley and Riverdance?" I really thank him so much for putting the spotlight back on dance and actually took me out of semiretirement. Jo Reed:  Well, let’s talk about Pendragon just for a moment. You do hard shoe dancing with them, with syncopated beats, fast music. Is that typically what you do when you’re dancing with them? Kevin Doyle:  Yes. I play percussion with them. I play hand percussion with African Djembes and Middle Eastern Doumbeks and Bodhrán, the Irish drum, then I step out in the front of the kit and I do the jigs, reels, and hornpipes, which, once again, completes the picture when you’re hearing these lively sets of jigs and reels. I step out and I let my feet do the percussion for the rest of the tune. Jo Reed:  Now, how did you become the percussionist, not with your feet but with your hands, for Pendragon? Kevin Doyle:  Well, I always played around with percussion all of my life. I loved percussion. It was sort of a natural thing. I had so much rhythm in my feet, my hands were full of it as well. And there was a drummer in Pendragon, Ron Smith, who was a wonderful drummer but had decided to move on and to go into a different direction. And Pendragon folks called me up and said, “Kevin, we think we have the right guy for the next drummer for Pendragon.” I said, "Oh, that’s great."  They said, “Yeah, he’s from Barrington, Rhode Island.” I said, "Oh, that’s coincidental, that’s where I’m from." “And his name is Kevin.” And I said, "Wait a minute," and they said, “Yeah. Yeah, buddy, you’re going to be the next percussionist.” So we looked around for a really warm sounding Djembe and some nice hand percussion drums and I just moved that rhythm from my feet up to my hands and it’s been fun ever since. (Music up) Jo Reed:  You also dance with the Atlantic Steps. Tell me about that ensemble. Kevin Doyle:  Well, that’s a group of six dancers, Brian Cunningham from Connemara, Ireland, had traveled in Ireland with his siblings, five siblings, the Cunningham family. And they had this wonderful show over there in Ireland and Brian moved to this country and he wanted to follow his dream and bring that show alive over here in the United States. And it’s like a 90-minute story of what happened to the Irish dance when it came across the Atlantic. I always think about that show as once the train leaves the station that show goes for 90 minutes and it’s nonstop dance and stories and voiceovers. It’s very exciting. Jo Reed:  Do you do any improvised dance with the Atlantic Steps?  Kevin Doyle:  Oh yeah. There’s a couple of sections in the show that’s called the “Step About” and each one of us step forward and we do 32 bars of music. You're listening to the music and you're impersonating the music with your feet, so everybody gets to change it up each time they do it and it’s never done the same. There’s no choreographing the Sean-nós steps. Even though there are routines in it, there are jigs, there’s reels, there’s hornpipes, and those are choreographed, but there’s an awful lot of improvised dancing. Jo Reed:  You also have students who you teach Irish dance to. When did you start teaching? Kevin Doyle:  I started teaching at the age of 19, maybe 20 years old. I started teaching using Theresa Landry’s studio and also using my basement as well. And I was teaching workshops and teaching different routines to people that would come to me and ask me when they see me out performing if I would give lessons. So I continue to teach in schools. Many schools today I do programs with Atwater and Donnelly. And the hunger for the Irish dance and the love of the music is just so evident when you expose these children to it that it’s one of the best parts about my passion is to share it and to share it with children. Jo Reed:  And you find that kids really respond to it. They’re not dragged there by their parents? Kevin Doyle:  Oh, no, no. It’s sort of like that dynamic style of dance that captured all the audiences in Riverdance. When you see a dance, really, right up close like that, I mean some of these children never get up close to see that, up close to see the instruments, up close to see the dance. And many times we’ll go back to school as resident artists and we’ll return the following Monday and the teachers will say, “These kids have not stopped dancing and hopping and skipping since you left last week.” And they’re really, really anxious and eager and focused to learn so we get a lot done in a day program at these schools and give them a good taste of the dance and the song and the music. And who knows, if only one person picks up a pair of dance shoes or an instrument, you know, it could maybe save their life some day. Jo Reed:  You also choreographed and you were the lead dancer in the annual A Christmas Celtic Sojourn. Now, tell me about that. How did that come about? Kevin Doyle:  Well, that was a great opportunity that Brian O’Donovan from WGBH. Brian called me up and gave me the opportunity, which I thoroughly enjoyed, putting all of the dance pieces together and working with these wonderful children from the Harney School of Dance in Walpole. It was just a great experience. And got to have a great run of all of these shows that we do. They do like 11 to 12 shows around Christmas time and it’s well attended and it’s just a fantastic experience. Jo Reed:  I read, and I find this really, really hard to believe, that you had four to five days to put this whole thing together? Kevin Doyle:  Well, that is most often the case I would say in all of the shows that I’ve been involved in. And I always refer to it as the "Christmas miracle," which Brian gets a kick out of that, but he knows what I’m saying, because we meet on a Monday morning and we meet in this wonderful rehearsal space and we meet with Seamus Egan of the band Solas, as the music director. And we meet all of these musicians from all over the world, very talented people. And we start choreographing the show on a Monday, maybe late Monday morning. And usually by Thursday, we’ve already got our costumes and we’re ready to do a run through, and we’re out there on Friday. And it’s just amazing how the process starts off very slow and everything comes together and it’s like, "I can’t believe it."  It’s like Wednesday morning you’re thinking,  "Is this ever going to happen?" But it happens. We bring in all of the dancers on Wednesday and we bring them back in Thursday morning and we choreograph all of the pieces into the music and the show goes off and it gets better with each show, but it gets done. It’s amazing. Jo Reed:  You know, it’s also really interesting because there are a lot of kids in the show and they’re probably used to the competition, so this must be so different for them just to be able to perform. Kevin Doyle:  Absolutely. That was something that was said to me when I first worked with them was, some of the parents said to me, “The hardest job you’re going to have with the children is to get them to smile because they’re so used to having judges sitting across from them at a table.” And it’s all about the competition with so many students that I had to just keep telling them that even though you can’t see the second and the third balcony in these theatres, it’s total darkness, you’re going to hear the applause and I want you to look up as you’re dancing off the stage and wave to the people up there because they really love what you do. They really love your folk art. They love your step dancing. And they really appreciate how much work you’ve put into it. So that was something, a unique experience for these children, that they really hadn’t had a taste of before. And, hopefully, I know they’ll never forget it. It’s an experience of a lifetime for any young dancer, to just feel the applause and the energy and the excitement that the audience gives right back to you. Jo Reed:  As you mentioned, you decided to retire early and devote yourself fulltime to dancing, which seems to be working out pretty well for you. Kevin Doyle:  Yes, I would highly recommend it. I was told by the woman at Social Security when I went down and sat with her and she said, “I sit here every day and I listen to people’s stories” and she said, “I’ve got to tell you, if the numbers work for you,” and they did because my wife Donna and I, we don’t really live extravagantly, but she said, “If there’s something you want to do that you have a passion for," she said, "Go for it.” She goes, “Because so many people wait too long." So she really encouraged me to say, "Go for it." And so I went for it and opportunities have knocked, and who knew I’d be going to Washington DC to get the NEA Fellow award. I’m just so amazed and it’s just a wonderful, wonderful feeling. I really think it’s going to be a while before it sinks into my head, you know? It’s just great. Jo Reed:  How did you find out? I’m assuming Barry Bergey called you. Kevin Doyle:  Yeah, that was pretty unique what happened with Barry Bergey. Barry Bergey called me one day when I was down in Point Judith, Rhode Island, South County, on the beautiful oceanfront down there with my 92-year-old dance teacher. And I looked at my phone and it said Washington DC.  I said, "Theresa I have to get this call." So I went outside and Barry was on the other end of the line and he said, “Hey, Kevin. How are you doing?” He goes, “How did you like your picture on that 2014 National Endowment Guide this year?” I said, "Oh my goodness," I said, "I’m so grateful that that happened." I said I'd gotten work out of it, a lot of emails, a lot of inquiries. And he said to me, he goes, “Well buddy," he goes, "This year you’re coming back to Washington but it’s all about you this year.” And I was dead silent on the other end of the phone. And he’s like “Hello. Hello.” I said, "Yes, I’m here, Barry." I said, "I just can’t believe what’s going on right now." I said, "I’m down in Point Judith with my 92-year-old dance teacher." I said, "It’s just her and I and I’m getting a phone call like this." And I went inside and I sat Theresa down. I said, "Theresa," I said, "Stay healthy," I said, "Please," I said, "You’re going to Washington in September." And I told her about the award and she started crying her eyes out and, of course, it was very emotional. Jo Reed:  What a moment that must have been. Kevin Doyle:  Yes, it was. Jo Reed:  Kevin, again, congratulations. I am looking forward to your performance in Washington. And this time, Séamus Connolly is accompanying you. Kevin Doyle:  Yes, Séamus is the first gentleman I called up to be part of my band to go down to Washington DC because he was so gracious to have me come down and have that experience last year. (Music up) I think we’re going to have a party in DC and looking very much forward to it. Jo Reed:  As am I. Kevin, congratulations, once again and I’ll see you soon. Thank you. Kevin Doyle:  Yeah, it’s coming right up. Yes, I’m excited. Thank you very much. Jo Reed: That is Irish Step Dancer and 2014 National Heritage Fellow Kevin Doyle. The National Heritage Fellowship Concert will be held at the Lisner Auditorium on September 19th at 8:00 p.m.  If you're in the DC area, come and join us. And even if you're not in DC, you can still join the celebration.  We're webcasting the concert live from the Lisner Auditorium. Just go to arts.gov for details.  You've been listening to Art Works produced at the National Endowment for the Arts.  Next week, dancer, and founder of Dance Place, Carla Perlo.  To find out how art works in communities across the country, keep checking the Art Works blog, or follow us @NEAARTS on Twitter. For the National Endowment for the Arts, I'm Josephine Reed. Thanks for listening. (Music Up) #### End of Kevin_Doyle_Interview_combined.mp3####

Josephine Reed:  You’re listening to fiddler Liz Carroll playing with accordionist Billy McComiskey. Welcome to a special St. Patrick’s Day edition of Art Works—the weekly podcast from the National Endowment for the Arts—I’m Josephine Reed. Today, we’re discussing and listening to Irish music with some its best practitioners in America: fiddlers Liz Carroll and Seamus Connolly, step-dancer Kevin Doyle, and accordionist Billy McComiskey. They’re acclaimed performers with extraordinary breadth and depth to their music popular in Ireland as well as America, and all four are recipients of our nation’s highest honor for folk and traditional arts: The National Heritage Fellowship. I had the good fortune to speak with all of them in past few years – and you might have heard the individual podcasts — well here are some excerpts from each interview – and it’s woven together, thematically. So let’s begin this tuneful exploration of Irish music by asking the question: “what makes Irish music, Irish music?” Here’s Liz Carroll. Liz Carroll: Well, that’s a good question. <laughs> It's a very simple music, I'll say that. Let's say for example, if you have a core note, amazingly, everything is almost like one note away or two notes away, and that's pretty rare in music. There's no gigantic hops. It is amazing how small the distances are between the notes. Now, with Scottish music, there's much bigger leaps, and you can really tell that that's just a different music. I also kind of say this, not to be going on, <laughs> but it can be very fast music, and a lot of times that's why a lot of people are out at the bar, and they're just kind of stomping their feet and throwing their beer about. <laughs> And when they're doing that-- but even with that very fast and happy music, if you slow it down, not only is it those small, little intervals between notes, but I would say that it also has the effect, when you slow the pieces down, of the very sad tunes, which are built to be slow. Does that make sense, Jo? Jo Reed: I think it does, but, you know what? Why don't you give us an example? Liz Carroll: Well, let's see what I can do here. Well, if I play a little bit of a, like a kind of a classic Irish eire, there's an eire that's called The Coolin', and it goes like this. <Liz plays fiddle slowly> Liz Carroll: So almost everything that was going on there, you can hear that the little jumps are like little thirds, the way people into music will know thirds. But if you think about it in terms of "do re mi," "do mi so" <laughs> would be like a little triad, so those are like little jumps of two notes apart. And, now, that's kind of what's going on there. If I play you a happy tune now, <laughs> let's see if I'm going to find a good one. Let's see. <Liz plays faster tune in minor key> Liz Carroll: All these notes are very close together again. <laughs> but I'm playing faster, and you could stomp your feet to that. But if I slow that piece down... <Liz plays same piece slower> Jo Reed: Seeing Kevin Doyle perform made me realize that step dancing is woven into Irish music itself, often serving as percussion for the music. Kevin Doyle: Yes, I totally agree with that because, to me, Irish music is dance music. And, you know, besides the beautiful songs and the eires that they play but any kind of the traditional jigs, reels, and hornpipes it’s dance music. It’s sort of like a natural reaction for people to hear the music and all of a sudden their foot starts tapping or their hands start clapping a little bit. And so when they see it danced out rhythmically with the feet as percussion it sort of, like, completes the whole picture to them. It all totally makes sense then. Kevin Doyle: I really loved it right away. I think it was my sense of rhythm that I just felt a natural draw to that, to the music. And I could fit my steps to the timing. A lot of dancers sometimes struggle with the timing with the musicians, and the different music that’s played. And I always had a gift of being able to accent the rhythms with my feet, so it was, often times it was said to me that, "You really dance right to the music." And so I had a rhythm in me that just seemed to fit with my feet, and whatever I was listening to I could just impersonate that percussion with my feet. Jo Reed: One thing these musicians have in common — they all had parents who played or danced —they grew up with the music. Billy McComiskey – winner of the coveted All-Ireland Championship for the button accordion was born and raised in New York City and what he remembers is the music. Billy McComiskey: It was all about music, but it wasn’t just about music – it was about Irish music. My grandmother, Nora Sweeney, was a step dancer, and all her brothers played a little something. Maybe they all had flutes and fiddles, and if they didn’t do that they’d sing, and they’d enjoy a bit of a “jar”, as they would say. And my grandfather though, he was like a pretty quiet fellow, and he loved to dance. He was a step dancer, and he loved to play the fiddle and was very, very good. My mother, she was Mae McComiskey, she was an Irish step dancer and her two brothers, Matt played the accordion, and Andy was a flute player, and they all had – everybody had – regular jobs, that kind of thing, and managed just living there in Brooklyn. And my father came out, – oh, I guess it would be 1948 – right around the time this accordion was built. The first time I remember doing a gig was at my uncle’s house up in the Catskills, and he’d have these house parties in his boardinghouse. He didn’t charge anybody to stay there, but if you could sing or dance or you’re a bit of fun then you enjoyed it. He’d just give you a room, and then everybody would go, and there would be a bit of a party and so he was planned. I was five or six, and he said, “Do you want to help me with this?” I said, “Sure, sure.” So he handed me two spoons, and I just rattled away behind him on the table with the two spoons, and I just absolutely loved it. <music> Jo Reed:  By his mid-twenties, Seamus Connolly had won the Irish National Fiddle Championship ten times, a feat that's still unequalled. He grew up in a home where music was central. Seamus Connolly:  Both my parents played. My mother played. She used to scrape a few tunes on the fiddle but she played piano and played the accordion. My father played the flute and whistle and he was a sean-nos style dancer. Different in that he made his own steps up. Just tapped out his own dancing. He was a great dancer, you know? So we had music in our home pretty much all the nights of the winter anyway, when our homework was done, another brother who played piano and a younger brother, he plays the accordion. He won the national championship a few times too on the accordion and now he makes accordions. Yeah, so we had music in our home all the time. Jo Reed: Now how did you become a fiddle player? Why the fiddle? Seamus Connolly: My uncle played the fiddle and in 1954 there was a big series of immigration again, to America this time and my uncle left for America, he and his family for New York. They had at that time what they called an “American wake”, a going away party. Strange kind of a title, an “American wake”. But it was the notion at the time that people who left for America that they'd never been seen again. It was almost like a death in the family. So they had this big party. There was all the local musicians, my uncle was playing the fiddle and then during the evening he put the fiddle on the chair and was down talking to people. I went up and sat in the chair and picked up the fiddle and pretended to play and, in fact, some people thought I was playing. That will tell you what they thought about music or know about music, you know. But I went home and I said to my parents "I'd love to get a fiddle to try it out." So my father found me a fiddle, and so somebody put strings on it and they didn't know how to tune it up or anything so I tuned it up as what I thought it should be tuned. I tuned it in fourths, do, me, so, do. And that would be different from tuning in fifths. So I was playing away for about maybe six months and I'd play and getting all the sounds out of it the tune, but I didn't use my little finger. I'd slide my third finger up, which was strange. So anyway I was playing for six months and the tunes were coming out and so my uncle was the local barber. And he was cutting a man's hair one day and he didn't know who the person was so my uncle asked him, "Where do you live?" And he said, "I just moved to the town," he said "I play the fiddle." "Oh, my nephew plays the fiddle." And the guy said "I'd love to hear him." So I went to meet him and I played for the man and he's looking at me fascinated and then he said, "Well give me the fiddle." And he went to go play and he couldn't play. So he tuned it into, I suppose you would call it international standard tuning. And then he played away. He was a great player. And then he gave it back to me and I couldn't play it anymore. So I went home. My mother was in bed. I went up to say goodnight to her. She says, "How did you make out with the man?" I said, "I was doing it wrong. I have to start all over again." She said, "Don't listen to him." She says, "You're doing fine." <laughs> Jo Reed:  There's a mother for you. Seamus Connolly: Yeah, yeah. "Don't listen to him," she says, you know. (music) Jo Reed:  Liz Carroll has been recognized as one of the great Irish fiddle players since she won the All-Ireland Senior Championship at the age of 18. She grew up in Chicago — where Irish music ran deep on both sides of her family. Liz Carroll: My father was an accordion player. My mom's father was a fiddle player. We heard not a lot of music outside of Irish music, but I really was attracted to it, and I always really liked it. I just have my brother Tom and myself. We just have the two of us in our family, and he avoided that Irish music like the plague. <laughs> It was not particularly his thing at all, so he was the guy that would be buying all the rock records and following that. He's come around since. But I wasn't particularly attracted to the – any to the rock or any of the things that were going on. I really liked <laughs> hanging out with these mostly older people, playing their flutes and tin whistles and pipes and fiddles. Who knows how you come to like that? I just feel like it was just born in me to enjoy it and to like it. Jo Reed:  Kevin Doyle was dancing from an early age, winning several competitions throughout New England. He was born and raised with a tradition of step dancing that went back two generations on his mother's side Kevin Doyle: Well, I first started learning at the age of eight years old from my mother, who came from Castlerea, County Roscommon in Ireland in the 1930s. And she was a wonderful step dancer that she had learned from her mother and she brought her folk art to this country. So it was sort of like a natural thing for me after seeing my mom dance at so many occasions and parties, and it was something that I wanted to do as well as part of our community and part of our heritage. Jo Reed: And you danced with your sister Maureen, correct? Kevin Doyle: Yes, Maureen was six years old and we would have to do homework and then we would do a little bit of rehearsing of the steps that we had learned. And my mom would keep them fresh in our minds. So her way of doing that was every morning before we went off to school with – St. Matthew’s school – with our uniforms on, Maureen and I would be in front of the kitchen sink and my mom would be lilting “McLeod’s Reel” for us. Lilting was a form of mouth music that they used often times in Ireland when there was no instruments in the house or no musicians. And she would lilt “McLeod’s Reel” which is something like <lilting> and we would do the beginning steps of the reels, the sevens and the threes. And then off we’d go, she’d send us off to school. And often times she’d give me a shot of this Geritol stuff to think that maybe I would have a growth spurt on the way but the dancing worked out a lot better than that. <music plays> Jo Reed:  While we generally refer to Irish music, it’s important to remember that it’s not one sound. It contains many, many different styles of playing. Billy McComiskey, for example, — he goes for the East Galway style. First, here’s Billy giving us its history, and then a demonstration. Billy McComiskey: As it turns out, as I look back on it now, it’s being – it’s regarded in this broader perspective now, so it’s kind of now called the Slieve Aughty style. So there was two guys. There was Joe Cooley, from Galway, and this other guy, Paddy O’Brien from Tipperary, and they both played in this incredibly good band at different times – the Tulla Ceili Band. It was Joe Cooley that brought Irish traditional music to the public’s eye here in America. The amazing thing that happened around 1950 is these guys figured out how to play this old music from the 1600s, 1700s – it really goes back. Turlough O’Carolan, the harper – the great harper and composer – people started writing his music down in the early 1700s. Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales, they refer to it, it was just raging with music. It’s what the Celts did. It’s what they love to do; it’s how they express themselves socially. East Galway music in general is kind of long and it has – <plays music> – if that makes any sense. There’d be maybe flat sevens mixed in with regular sevens. A triplet would become a roll, instead of three notes it would be five – <plays music> – and how does this all fit? How can you take this little instrument and make it sound compatible with these instruments from 200 years ago? <music plays> Jo Reed:  Here’s Kevin Doyle explaining the musical differences between reels, jigs, and hornpipes.   Kevin Doyle: What’s different about each piece is the timing. The jigs are always in the six-eighth rhythm. Reels would be four-four times, which is a pretty fast four-four time. And hornpipes would be four-four but they’d be very, very – the steps would be choreographed very much to the music. So you would hear the hornpipe stepped right along with the music and it would almost dictate what you would be dancing. Jigs being very quick and lively. And reels, of course, they were done with soft shoes and hard shoes. They’re all unique in their own way. But what my old style is about is a very old, traditional, close to the ground rhythms, where you do a lot of work very close to the ground. And, as with the dance masters of the old days, it wasn’t common to show the sole of your feet. You would actually get mocked off in competitions for that back in Ireland. <music plays> Jo Reed:  Liz Carroll finds her inspiration from County Kerry Liz Carroll: I think if there's a particular thing, if I can say, in my playing -- well, there's a kind of music that's called – well, it's Kerry music. It's from County Kerry, and they play a lot of polkas there, and one move that they kind of do with their playing is this. Let's say if I was going to these four notes, <plays four notes on violin> okay? So, say, that's a melody. If it was a polka, it might be going, <plays same four notes twice>, but they might put a little bit more of an emphasis into the second note by kind of dipping your bow onto the strings. In other words, you're pressing harder, and you're moving, so that you start to get a sound that goes like this. <plays again, putting emphasis on the second note> Does that make sense? Jo Reed: Yes. Liz Carroll: Because it's Kerry music, funny enough, these polkas, a lot of the bowing will go from the beat to the off-beat, like if you're going to do two notes on a bow. And, funny enough, American music also kind of goes from the beat to the off-beat, so that you're kind of going, you're tying these two notes together. <plays two groups of two notes> But in regular reel playing, you wouldn't really tie those first two and the third and fourth note together. Instead, you would've tied the second and the third note together, and then that sounds like this. <plays four notes with second and third notes slurred together> So that's a different animal. So you don't have to do those stresses, but I've really started really kind of pushing those stresses, so I think that's part of my style, if you want to hear a little bit of that in a tune. Jo Reed:  And actually I would love to hear some of that in a tune right now. Liz Carroll: Fantastic. <laughs> Okay. Well, maybe I'll play it the first part that I don't do it, and then I'll play the first part again, and then I will do it, and then you can see what you think of that. <Carroll plays violin> Liz Carroll: And then, Jo, I can mix them up. So then they can play off of each other. So would you like to hear the whole tune? Jo Reed: Oh, yeah, please. Liz Carroll: Okay. <Carroll plays violin> Jo Reed:  Brava! That’s beautiful. Liz Carroll:  It’s just a great old trad tune. Jo Reed:  These days, it’s difficult to talk about Irish music without talking about sessions —think of them as Irish musicians, coming together, to jam. Billy McComiskey. Billy McComiskey: So a session would be – these people were like enormously talented, and it’s an oral tradition so they didn’t know how to read music, they didn’t know much about music theory, and they’re, “Jesus…Paddy no – how do you have to – how do you turn the second part of that tune?” “Turn” would be, “How does the second part of the tune go?” and a fiddle player and a flute player would sit and they’d be negotiating a little tune. And I remember like it was yesterday sitting with Sean McGlynn, and we were trying to figure out how to play this Martin Wynne fiddle tune, and in the course of two bars it covered two and a half octaves. It really took a long range on it, and we were trying to figure out how to finger this tune – it’s kind of like how a pianist would do – myself and Sean McGlynn. And when we finally got it Sean says to me, he says, “There’s the difference right now,” and he says, “They’re all down in the bar singing and dancing and having a great time, and here we are, sitting in the kitchen worried about one note.” <laughs> The way they would discuss the music, and, or, “I – Well, no, you have that all wrong.” So you’d meet these guys, and the next thing, “Well, we should try, we’ll have a session,” “I think he’s – that usually,” <mumbles> “We’re going to have –,“ and you’d have to sit down and try to find out what you have in common because it’s just very, very important. And to keep yourself calm you’d have a little something to drink and then there would – the next thing would be the next day. That’s what a session is. Jo Reed:  Liz Carroll Liz Carroll: It's where you just sit down with other musicians, and there's no show, there's no particular audience. You're just with other musicians, and you're sitting down, and you're playing from a repertoire of all kinds of tunes that you found interesting both growing up, and along the way something that attracted you off of whatever-- the latest album of this person. It's a great spot to just kind of see what's going on. It probably doesn't even look that inviting <laughs> if you walk into a pub, let's say, and there is a session that night, and it can be a lot of people playing instruments, but basically they turn to each other in a circle, and if you're not playing, you're not really in that circle, you're kind of outside of it, so you might be sitting at another table and not in the thick of that meeting. Yet, for people that really love the music, they say this is the bee's knees. This is the best thing. Jo Reed:  But Seamus Connolly remembers that in the Ireland of his youth — musicians didn’t meet to play sessions at the pubs. Seamus: Sessions weren't the thing. The only sessions that would be would be at the féile ceoil. “Féile” being festival, “ceoil” being music. So that was the only time that we would kind of get to play. Music was mostly in the homes at the time. It wasn't until the last 30 or 35 years that you had sessions in pubs and everything. I didn't go to a pub to play growing up. I went to people's homes and the sessions were different then. Sometimes musicians would come to your house. They wouldn't even take out the instruments. We'd sit and talk maybe all night and talk about ways of doing things or someone would say "What's that tune?" And they might take out his accordion or fiddle and then somebody would say "I have a different version of that. I heard that." So that's how we played our music. It wasn't going out to the pubs. It was people coming to their homes. <music plays> Jo Reed: Seamus Connolly immigrated to the United States in the 1970s — but he returns to Ireland and Billy, Kevin, and Liz make regular trips there.  Liz Carroll:  I love going to Ireland. It's still the place to be inspired. You go there, and it's in everybody's blood, really, and you sit in there among them, playing, and it's a workout. <laughs> It keeps you honest. You learn a lot. It's a really high level, and I think that all of us American-born would really give kudos to Ireland to be the place that we just absolutely love to go, and it refreshes us, and it tells us why we're doing it. Jo Reed: And all four are committed to is keeping the tradition of Irish music alive and vibrant. Accordionist and 2016 National Heritage Fellow Billy McComiskey: Billy McComiskey: Irish music, it’s been around a really long time and people, and it’s a labor of love that people have been trying to keep – they’ve been trying to keep this art intact for many centuries, and it’s an awful lot of fun doing that. It’s just a tremendous amount of fun. Down in Washington, there are all these young players. The funny thing about down here, and I guess it’s because of all this interest in folklore and this whole scholarly way of approaching Irish music. It’s the more progressive music scene in this area. What goes on in the mid-Atlantic area here is kind of Irish music at a very high standard. A lovely social thing.      Jo Reed: Irish Step Dancer and 2014 National Heritage Fellow Kevin Doyle: Kevin Doyle: It’s been incredible, everybody wants to see the step dance, as far as how it’s crossed over into so many different backgrounds. I’ve worked with some great dancers and some of the best have been Asian dancers. And last year in County Clare in Ireland, there was eight Japanese dancers in my class and one was a lawyer and one was a doctor and they’re just infatuated with the form of dance. And that goes right across the board with all of these sorts of nationalities how it’s rejuvenated so much interest in the dance. Jo Reed: Fiddler and 2013 National Heritage Fellow Seamus Connolly: Seamus Connolly   I am very pleased with listening to some of the young musicians now playing and recording. We had a concert here a few weeks ago. Two young Irish musicians and it was some of the nicest music I've ever heard. They were technically great, played in a great style, just a joy to hear them. So I'm very hopeful that the tradition carries on in such a way. Jo Reed: Fiddler and 1994 National Heritage Fellow Liz Carroll: Liz Carroll You can like the Irish music on many different levels. You can really like the ballads of people like the Clancy Brothers. You can shun the Clancy Brothers and really only want to hear old-style sean-nos, which is the Irish word for "old-time" or "old-sound" singers that are unaccompanied, kind of with their eyes closed, sitting in a corner. You can have people that really want to have The Irish Washerwoman, belted out <laughs> on a fiddle, kind of like single bows for the whole thing, and there'll be a whole other gang of people who love Irish music, that would say they love Irish music, and yet that wouldn't be the Irish music that they love. It's a small world, but this is a big world, this Irish music." Jo Reed: You’ve been listening to Art Works produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. This has been a special St. Patrick’s Day show: talking about traditional Irish music in America with four remarkable Musicians who are also National Heritage Fellows; Liz Carroll, Seamus Connolly, Kevin Doyle, and Billy McComiskey. If you want to hear the full interviews, go to arts.gov and click on podcasts. We’d love it if you subscribed to Art Works at iTunes U; just click on the iTunes link on our podcast page. For the National Endowment for the Arts, I'm Josephine Reed. Thanks for listening.