Opening the Celtic Curtain

Surely our calendars have gone haywire, and it’s St. Patrick, not St. Nick, whose holiday is just around the corner.

What else could explain the flood of Irish music and dance pouring through the area this month?

Last Friday alone, the legendary Clancy Brothers played the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts; Frank Patterson, one of the great Irish tenors of the century, sang in Downey; and several acts from the Emerald Isle participated in “Irish Fire,” a music and dance concert in Aliso Viejo.

And that was just the beginning.

In the days ahead, Irish songbird Mary Black and singer-songwriter Susan McKeown will appear separately in San Juan Capistrano, Muldoon’s Pub in Newport Beach will host a Celtic fiddle contest, O.C.-based Irish groups The Tinker’s Own, Blackthorn and Common Thread will play in Irvine and Fullerton, the Boys of the Lough band plays a Celtic Christmas concert at Saddleback College, and the Saw Doctors bring their Irish folk-meets-punk music to the Troubadour in West Hollywood.

“Irish music has become a flagship for world music,” singer Liam Clancy said during a recent phone interview before the Clancys’ Cerritos show. “I think it echoes the tradition and values of all ethnic-based music. It reminds people of what they love and miss from their own old country.”

Even if that “old country” for millions is Southern California of the late 20th century?

“Let’s face it--pop culture just doesn’t offer what some of us really need,” said Cait Reed, a fiddler in an Irish music duo called Gold Ring and chairwoman of the Celtic Regional Arts Institute of California, in Redondo Beach. “People are looking to fill a void in their lives.

“I mean, they look at MTV and say, ‘This doesn’t say anything about my life,’ ” she said. “They want to get away from all that spoon-fed stuff.”

Obviously, thousands have been introduced to Irish music and dance through choreographer Michael Flatley’s recent stage-cum-TV extravaganzas “Riverdance” and “Lord of the Dance.”

“All of those big, mass-appealing events do enter into this resurgence,” said Sean Walsh, director of the Celtic Arts Center in North Hollywood. Since 1985, his center’s mission has been to preserve Celtic culture by presenting a variety of music, dance and theater projects throughout Southern California.

“There was some interest before,” Walsh said, “but it’s just grown and grown since Michael Flatley captured everyone’s heart and imagination.”

But Walsh and others see the success of those shows as the effect, not the cause, of growing interest in Irish culture, also reflected in the marathon bestseller status of “Angela’s Ashes,” Frank McCourt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a horrific Irish childhood.

“I believe it’s been a slow but steady build,” Reed said. “More and more people are rising up from the grass-roots level, rather than trickling down from the mainstream success of a few blockbuster events. Most of the people I meet at concerts are looking to get away from the bigger, highly commercial productions.”

Elaine Weissman, executive director of the California Traditional Music Society, a like-minded, nonprofit organization based in Tarzana, agrees. She and her husband, Clark, have been promoting folk-based festivals for 16 years, including last weekend’s “Irish Fire” concert at the Coast Hills Community Church in Aliso Viejo.

That event drew nearly 1,400 people for performances by the band Dervish, fiddler Martin Hayes and guitarist Dennis Cahill, balladeer Sean Keane and a number of champion Irish step dancers.

“Celtic music has always been very strong in the folk music movement, but ‘Riverdance’ changed the whole face of it,” Weissman said. “All of a sudden, its time has come to be very visible. That hasn’t happened to folk music in a long, long time--and it’s very exciting.”

Added Clancy: “People are tired of the repetition and coldness that mark more manufactured kinds of pop music. Instead, they’re turning to the honesty and purity that defines traditional forms of Irish and other folk musics. These are the songs and ballads of ordinary people. They’re not written and sung to be bestsellers. . . . They’re just honest, gritty tales of everyday life.”

Those tales seemed on the way to being lost in their homeland until the Chieftains spearheaded a revival in traditional Irish music starting in the early ‘60s.

More than any other group, the Chieftains championed the intoxicating sounds of the bodhran (hand drum), fiddle, uileann pipes, harp and tin whistle--first at home, then far abroad. In recent years, the group has been joined on record and stage by a host of notables, including Van Morrison, Nanci Griffith, Roger Daltrey, Elvis Costello, Los Lobos, Ry Cooder and Linda Ronstadt.

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The modern pop music landscape also has been prominently infiltrated by Irish musicians, ranging from the soulful rock of Van Morrison to the mellow strains of Enya and Clannad; from the stately and searching contemporary rock of U2 and Sinead O’Connor to such genre benders as the Pogues, Ashley MacIsaac and the Saw Doctors, all of whom blend traditional Celtic music with elements of rock, R&B; and punk.

But what almost all those interviewed cited as a key factor behind the upswing in Irish music’s presence locally is the desire to return to an earthier sound and subject matter.

“The music is not just appealing to the people of Irish ‘distraction,’ as they say, but to those with a variety of ethnic backgrounds,” said Clancy, who lives in Helvic Head, a small fishing village on the south coast of Ireland. “It’s very widespread. . . . Traditional Irish music is hugely popular in Europe right now. Even places like Norway and Denmark had Irish music festivals this past summer. After we finished performing at one, a young lad approached me and said, ‘Do you have any idea how much influence you’ve had on Danish folk music?’ ”

What many people also cite is a sense of community that is often hard to find in today’s sprawling urban landscape.

“There’s this craving to get back to a village-like way of life,” Reed said, “that kind of neighborhood thing that’s really no longer a part of the Southern California lifestyle.

“It’s really the same phenomenon in world music . . . in roots music . . . or the blues,” she said. These kinds of music help foster a sense of community building. . . . And there’s so much crossover appeal between Celtic music and other forms of ethnic music, like Jewish klezmer.”

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Taking advantage of this surging popularity within Irish music, veteran singer Black is in the midst of her most ambitious world tour yet. In support of her new album, “Shine,” she opens her U.S. tour at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano on Nov. 20. By year’s end, she will have also played in Canada and Great Britain. Her 1998 stopovers are scheduled to include Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Australia and a return trip to America.

Black, who lives in Dublin with her husband and three children, has always enjoyed huge success in her homeland. In fact, she has sold more records in Ireland than anyone--including U2 and the Chieftains. Now, the crystalline-voiced singer has a chance to reach a broader fan base.

“Generally, I think people are taking more pride in whatever roots they have,” said Black by phone from a hotel room in Newcastle, England. “They don’t want to be isolated and disconnected from each other or their past.

“But, yes, the spotlight today is definitely shining on the arts in Ireland,” she said. “Out of hardship, struggle and pain has come some of the best music, art and literature in the world. A quiet confidence is creeping into the Irish way of thinking and creating.

“I believe we have a deep-seated passion that people have come to recognize,” she said. “You know, the Irish look right into the face of hardship, and our art has the ability to make you laugh or cry. Celtic is an enduring music of great hope and strength.”

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THE GREEN SCENE

Upcoming Irish concerts in Orange County (and beyond) featuring nationally touring or strong local acts:

Saturday: Susan McKeown & the Chanting House. A soulful singing feminist, McKeown blends progressive Irish folk music with a harder-edged, pop-rock sensibility. Her latest album, “Bones,” is a stirring work of intense soul-searching. San Juan Capistrano Regional Library, 31495 El Camino Real, San Juan Capistrano. 7 and 9 p.m. $3-$6. (714) 248-7469.

Saturday: “Next Generation Concert.” Part of the Living Tradition folk concert series, this Orange County-based lineup includes two Celtic-based groups (Blackthorn and Common Thread), plus a fledgling bluegrass band, the Eclectones, featuring four promising teenagers. Rancho San Joaquin Senior Center, 3 Sandburg Way, Irvine. 7:30 p.m. $10. (714) 841-5932 or (714) 724-6800.

Sunday: Second annual Irish News Celtic Fiddle Competition. In the family-friendly surroundings of the pub’s courtyard, a four-member panel--including Young Dubliners’ violinist Mark Epting--will judge this toe-to-bow battle. Cash awards to the top three finishers, so lads and lassies, you’d best start practicing. Muldoon’s Pub, 202 Newport Center Dr., Newport Beach. 2 p.m. Free. (714) 640-4110.

Sunday: The Tinker’s Own. This engaging, seven-piece Costa Mesa band offers a freewheeling selection of traditional Irish airs and energetic jigs and reels, fueled gently by recorder, penny whistle, fiddle, harp, dulcimer, banjo and mandolin. Ain’t life grand? Steamers Cafe, 138 W. Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton. 5-8 p.m. Free. (714) 871-8800. Also Dec. 6 at Border’s Books & Music, 429 S. Associated Road, Brea. 8:30 p.m. Free. (714) 672-0120.

Nov. 20: Mary Black. In her first local appearance in nearly three years, the Irish songstress will be showcasing material from her new release, which ventures into pop and rock without sacrificing her essential grace and folksiness. Catch her in a rare club appearance. The Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. 8 p.m. $29.50-$31.50. (714) 496-8930.

Nov. 22: Boys of the Lough. This veteran traditional Irish-Scottish-British ensemble offers a Christmas program on its latest tour. McKinney Theatre, Saddleback College, 28000 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo. 8 p.m. $20-$22. (714) 582-4656.

Nov. 23: The Saw Doctors. Hailing from the County Galway town of Tuam, the “people’s band” mixes classic rock strains, punk aggressiveness and traditional Irish folk music into quite a noisy but satisfying stew. Best consumed with a pint or two of your favorite ale. The Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood. 8 p.m. $12.50. (310) 276-6168.