Beautiful Affair as Stockton’s Wing play anniversary show for Festival
It’s difficult to imagine now, the impact of the Australian didgeridoo as its unique sound resonated through a West of Ireland concert venue in 1982, part of a traditional Irish music gig. We’d never heard the likes!
But this was no ordinary trad band playing in Co Clare’s Merriman Tavern – this was Stockton’s Wing, a trailblazing outfit that fused traditional music with pop and rock. And the didgeridoo player was none other than Australian Steve Cooney, then relatively unknown in Ireland, but whose contribution to this country’s musical life has been enormous.
Stockton’s Wing was founded in Ennis in 1977 with the original line-up of Paul Roche, Kieran Hanrahan, Tommy Hayes and Tony Callinan.
The group will mark its 40th anniversary this October, and is on an Irish tour to mark the event. That will include a visit Monroe’s Tavern on July 20 as part of Galway International Arts Festival – which also turns 40 this year.
In its heyday, Scockton’s Wine released 12 albums of top-class music and memorable songs, including Beautiful Affair, Walk Away and New Clare Revival, all written by Mike Hanrahan.
Mike, who joined the band 1979 when the original singer Tony Callinan departed, describes Stockton’s Wing as being “a band of brothers” in its early days.
“We slept in tents and the van and we looked after each other. We were just out there playing music.”
Those years between 1977 and ‘83 were when the band was at its most creative, he feels.
“We were young and had no musical barriers.”
Looking back, he feels that the original members, which included his brother Kieran, now of RTÉ’s Céilí House, “were brave to take me on as a singer. I’d been gigging with Maura O’Connell, doing country and contemporary songs – I never sang traditional songs”.
It was a reflection of their “progressive and dynamic” approach to playing. That became even more true when they moved to Dublin, where Paul, Maurice and Mike shared a house, and the band started welcoming other musicians onstage. Recording with fellow Clare-man PJ Curtis, they developed their own unique sound.
Drummer Fran Breen who replaced Tommy Hayes, was a factor in that, according to Mike. “He was incredible. He’d take a traditional tune apart and learn it again as a drummer. That was unusual in Irish music at the time.”
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.