The Music Of Poetic Jack McCracken
By mcscraic
- 4352 reads
Like the song says absence makes the heart grow fonder and being
away from Ireland is just like that . For ten years I have produced and
presented an Irish Radio program called Craic With Mc down under here
in Australia .
There has always been lots of good Craic on the show and whenever I
meet people from Belfast I like them know about my program . When we
talk after a while it's as if we are all kind of related .We know the
same places and have similar experiences of the part of the world we
call home even though we are so far away .
Recently I met up with Jack McCracken who has been blessed with the
wanderlust passion most Irish poets and musicians acquire early on in
their inspired lives .
Jack has just released his first CD entitled The Spinner and is in the
process of finishing his second album .
I interviewed Jack on Craic With Mc and we spoke of the deeper things
of life as well as the romantic and funny things he has experienced
.
Being a writer Jack has a serious side and it can be hard to open up
that world for others to appreciate .
I hope to give you here an insight into
the poetic lifestyle and folk tradition that are the essence behind the
background to Jack McCracken from Belfast in Northern Ireland .
Well hello Jack and What about you ?
" Not to bad Paul and yourself ?"
Pretty good . We had a bit of an earthquake the other day we were all a
bit shaken up here . Did you have anything from your neck of the woods
in Queanbeyan ?
"Yea it rock and rolled a bit some time mid evening "
Awesome weather we've been having here lately .
I like a bit of thunder and lightening you know . Last summer was a
little bit too warm and hot for my liking ."
In relation to the darker things of life . In one of the higher arts
forms of poetry you're a bit of a dark horse .
"Aye . Miserable . Ha! Ha!"
I've been playing some of your work on the program and I'd like to talk
to you about your album The Spinner . Tale of The Tinker , Nancy and
also The Working Class People Of Belfast are three tracks on the album
. Tell me a little about those .
"Well I grew up in Belfast . Born and raised there . I was one of the
last of the generations to see the place the way it used to be . You
know peaceable, because in what '68 there was bloody explosions started
again and the two communities fractured back into the old tribes
whereas before that when I was growing up for the most part there was
no problems really . You used to go down to the dances in Belfast on
Saturday night and two three in the morning used to cross the Falls or
cut over the Shankill . There was no problems at all . You knew people
in both divides and then when this thing started again people went back
into the old religions into the old politics or whatever the hell it is
I don't know . It's a madness but the actual piece itself The Working
Class People Of Belfast is certainly a lot of the people that I know
not only here in Australia but also back in Ireland both North and
South and in other parts of the world that I've been they do see it as
an nominally in a sense a non-identity . It could be different and I
guess that piece is one way as to how it could be different . I mean
its based on a very long tradition of socialism not communism where the
working classes have got more in common than that which has ever
separated them in many cases ."
My own knowledge of the working class people of Belfast a long time ago
tells me about those from the age of twelve who entered the Mill life
in bare feet and they give their life to their employer . They end up
with varicose veins but get very little back and it's the poor working
class people of Belfast that always have to suffer.
"Absolutely . I mean the last time I was back in Belfast I made a point
of taking a very long, as we say, dander round the city and in the
close perimeter to the city .
Crossing the old roads The Falls, The Shankill, Newtonards Road,
Woodstock Road all those places . I mean if you just looked at the
condition of the houses ,they're all the same ".
That's the great catalyst isn't it everyone within the working class
people of Belfast have a common denominator and its that which you just
mentioned the condition of the corporation house that needs a bit of
work done and the people who haven't got a lot materialistic wise but
they have soul Jack .
"Very much the soul in that place is just bursting ."
What do you put that down to ?
"I think it's a shared experience of the hardships which have been
visited on the place . Sometimes through the designs of other people,
sometimes through the designs of ourselves . One thing I found though
and I've have travelled a lot in my life Paul it seems that's all I've
ever done . What I have found is anytime Northern Irish people meet
there is a binding, a bonding, much more so than with the Southeners
.The experience is not unique its not a usual or a normal experience
that the people have had to endure ".
We are a people who belong to the same part of the world and we have
come through a lot . We can find each other all over the planet . I
have listened to and spoke to a lot of people from Belfast on the show
. The thing I always find is that its always great to be with your own
.Our thoughts are the same and it's a brilliant thing that we have .
Where do you write these days ?
"Everywhere . Its sort of never stops . It's a bit of a curse in a
sense you know .
That piece The Working Class People Of Belfast I had finished writing
on a beach in Spain one afternoon and at that time I made a conscious
decision to stop all this nonsense and put my time to mundane things
like earning money and trying to make a living and I deliberately shut
this off . I couldn't because it kept coming .
I don't know where it was coming from . I'd no idea but it kept coming
and this Working Class People Of Belfast kept twirling away until one
afternoon on the beach in Alicante-Alicante it declared itself written
. "
I think the vocal arrangement to The Working Class People Of Belfast is
quite unique. There is a lot of depth there .
Its interesting . Mike Collins who runs an Irish program in Canberra
made a comment on this piece and in the chorus I asked The Trade Union
Choir from Canberra directed by Chrissie Shaw to sing the chorus and I
recite the chorus and we just don't quite match up and Mike said yea
that makes a point with that place and again it was one of those things
. It wasn't really consciously done it was unconsciously done . Yea
.
There's a lot to be said for what's happening in Belfast today . I
think you know I suppose we're lucky to be away from . There's a lot of
things that you and I can say and do that we couldn't do in Belfast .
With our music, with our poetry .
It kind of frees us a bit being away from it .
"I think it does . One of the things about countries like Australia is
its still the new world when you come out here . Pretty much anything
goes you know, within reason, simply because the place in European
settlement terms is too young .
We haven't had the time here to develop old ancient institutions which
rightly or wrongly, good or badly start to build walls . I think in
time it will happen .You can see possibly things like that starting to
happen in the States . Certain dynasties starting to happen,
establishment, the old Iveagh League type thing. I don't think its
really settled here yet, but it will . I think its human nature .
Certainly artistically
I think it's a great benefit when you can really do what you want .
Nobody really cares which is a good thing and a bad thing of course
.
Another track on The Spinner album I love is Nancy . You've got a great
feel of the blues in that musical expression there .Some of the
musicians on this track are fantastic .
Oh yea. The trumpeter in particular Miroslav Bukovsky originally from
Bohemia .
His band is Wunderlust, a jazz band and he teaches at the jazz school
in Canberra .
We needed a bit of top trumpet so we used Duntroon Army people to come
in and do the horns and that . The likes of Tony Hunter who's claim to
fame mainly is the Bluegrass world . I don't like Bluegrass butTony is
one of those guys who can play just about any stringed instrument . I
think he came to one of the sessions one night with about fifteen of
them . All sorts including one he made himself . He came with a pedal
steel or some kind of slide guitar that he made himself from various
bits that he procured from the tip .
Who came up with the melody for Nancy ?
Its sort of always going on . Its formulating all the time . Well I
mean you're a writer so I'm sure to a greater or lesser extend a
similar thing happens to you as well . You've really got no choice
about it .The melody has been there for a long time . The song itself
is a true story . I used to live in Dublin and its about a girl I met
one night and things started from there .
I lived in Dublin myself for a while and I found it is a great centre
for the arts .
I used to go to a pub there called Sean O'Caseys and as you'd expect
there was always a good supply of Craic centred on Irish writers and
the Irish music .
Lots of writers frequented the place .
Sure , I mean even if you go to any of the Irish Clubs around Australia
you'll see the posters up on the wall Irish Writers and you look at
this and I mean any one country would be pretty chuffed to have one or
two of them of these guys and we've got the first eleven sort of . I
mean there's hundreds of them. I mean Shaw Joyce, Yeats and Stoker . We
were talking about stoker and a lot of people didn't even know he was
Irish . They think he was Transylvanian but like Bram Stoker doesn't
even make it on to the poster .
I suppose at the time when he was writing about Count Dracula not many
people related to what he was trying to say . People backed away from
all that because it was very dark . They might have said this fella not
well or something like that and they pushed him out into the margins
somewhere .Today Irish writers are getting the recognition they deserve
and the quality and depth of their work is incredible .
Oh yea . Like Sammy Beckett . He moved North for a while and he taught
for a while in one of the Grammar schools . Campbell College . I think
he lasted about ten months . He didn't like Belfast at all . I know a
lot of people seem to think its the Birmingham of Ireland .
It's a hard station all right . I remember Richard Harris God rest him
said one night in front of the home crowd in the Belfast Opera House .
To make it to the top in New York is tough but if you can please a
Belfast audience you'll make it anywhere . Not everyone could afford to
go to the Opera house so the people who could wanted to be entertained
and expected the very best .If you were lacking in any department
they'd soon let you know it .
Oh yes . I remember once a few years ago going down to the city hall
lights at Christmas .There was so much soul in the place. You could
touch it .
You could feel it .It's a feeling I've rarely had any where else and
the earthiness and grittiness and some the expression people have I
mean, its performance poetry in every other sentence .
That's where it comes from .
Its from the soul . The art itself . I found that the music in
particular its very much Grittier than Dublin .
Its been suffered for . Some people would laugh or scoff at that or say
ah everything's suffered for . But living a slaughter house brings out
the grit in writing You either fight about it or write about it . So
others may understand where you are and what suffering is all about .
Unless something has been suffered for it can't last the testing of
time . What the people of Belfast have experienced is a suffering that
has brought out a great strength of soul . There's also a great healing
in being able to talk about or write about that experience as well .
Another song on The Spinner Jack is The Tale Of The Tinker and it
speaks of a place near to where I grew up . Crumlin Road Jail and The
Mater Hospital .
Oh yea a wonderful cathedral of misery .
That's a good way to put it . A dark wee spot opposite the court house
.
I was going up there on the bus about three or four years ago and it
was pelting down with that sort of sleet and the bus stopped in a bit
of a traffic jam and you could see right up the side of the jail where
on one side was the wall with the razor wire and on the inside was the
prison . You had this dirty sort of ally type of area in between,
Jesus, the ghosts in that place .
In that piece on the album there is one .
Oh yes . That's a interesting piece that one . A couple of people here
don't like that It disturbs them . It troubles them . First of all
you've got the murder . Basically its about a tinker who is happy with
his life, a bit of a boy I suppose , a larrikin, he has the fortune or
misfortune to meet this lady in a place called Larne . He wants to
marry her and she won't have a bar of it so he stabs her and he's put
away in the pokey and when he's in this wonderful holiday camp called
the Crumlin Road jail . He's in his bunk one night and the ghost of
this lady comes and visits him and tells him his fortune literally
.
Like any art form it will have a different impression of people where
it will throw up an image within the subconscious mind and the impact
is always going to be a different appreciation . Some people will like
it while others fear it .
Personally I think that's the function of all art . In some way to
challenge peoples perceptions and cause them to wonder . I think if you
can do that, you've done you're job .
Some of the other tracks on the album like "For You" are quite
evocative Jack .
Yes Paul I've been blessed with the women I've known in my life and
that's about one of them . One of the difficulties about this and being
a writer is that sometimes the partners can't really fathom as to why
you're so distant most of the time like in outer space maybe, or why
you're always watching people, as opposed to joining in. The reasons
why is, you're working .
On the track Santo Girls you've brought out some of your mariners
tales.
Oh yea Paul . Its part of my travel portfolio career . Ha! Ha! I
thought I'd go to sea and I did . I ended up going down to South
America a lot . I spent a lot of time between there and the Middle East
. Brazil itself there was the jewel in the crown There was some lovely
friendly ladies there in Santos . They soothed away a lot of our
troubles .
There is some nice fiddle on that track as well .
Yea that's Dan Efraemson . He is a lovely fiddle player . I got
introduced to him from Tony Hunter who does a lot of guitar and
mandolin work on the album .
Tell me the story behind the Wild Geese in the lyrics after the Santos
Girls .
Well the basis of that piece is and I couldn't actually make this up
Paul .
I was in a place in Jordan near Israel . It's a close as to being in
Israel without actually being in Israel . I was standing in a bar and
had just come off a ship and this guy came up to me and said, I suppose
you'll be going down to the Holiday Inn tonight and I said Why , he
said Well its St Patricks day and there's a good band down there . I
says So it is ok I'll go down there so I went and there was this band
from Glengormley in Belfast and about fifteen County Antrim farmers .
Its along long story as to what they and I were doing there .
You play keyboards and Box on the album .
Yea I just fiddle around with that . I'm really a words man .I'm very
fortunate to have a lot of musicians around me .. My sense of timing is
appalling and I do things which people say you can't do and they cover
them all up .
I think with music there is a part of it that can't ever be written .
That essence from the heart and soul . You know it's a feeling .
Yea it's a tone .You see Paul one of the places I learnt singing was in
the back room of a pub at two in the morning half drunk on Guinness
with a bunch of old codgers from the hills . Somebody would say right,
its your turn and whatever you do you do and a lot of that was
unaccompanied singing . There was no music of course , you had to make
the song or the story carry and you had to do that by your own meter
and tonal qualities . I guess from a commercial sense what it ended up
was a very eccentric type of singing way of expressing yourself within
the context of that tradition . It made perfect sense .
That tradition being folk ..
Oh yea I mean this was as folk as you could ever possibly get . We used
to drink in this bar Mick Cunninghams in Dundrum just outside of
Newcastle .You'd be in there Friday Saturday night, I think it was half
eleven closing time you were thrown out and Mick would come around with
one of the sons and invite certain people back into the back room,
there'd be singers and a musician, a fiddler maybe , from memory
there'd be twenty people all sitting just around doing individual bits
.
Old stories, prose, poetry, sort of songs, everything . Pure folk .
You'd have some very old guys coming in you know, my mate, his father
used to run a poteen still up in the Castlewhellan Mountains and some
of his mates used to come down and you'd hear all these stories . It
was such a wealth or spread of stories ,earthiness , of grit, of humour
, of pathos . Sometimes they'd be sung . Sometimes some of the people
would be so drunk they could sing it would be spoken . It just ended up
what it ended up as . Now wither people would pigeon hole it as this or
as that, I don't know . Its irrelevant .
That kind of grit and background in music has an ability to give
strength to the your voice and enable you to talk through concrete and
if you make a mistake you just carry on with it .
Yea , I mean that was all part and parcel of it . Old Johnny falling
off his stool in the middle it as he's getting up to the vinegar stroke
of it . That's all part of it .
Having a go at it with all the old codgers from my perspective was
great . They wouldn't quite criticize you but they would give you a
couple of hints on how to carry a song .
So you learnt how to chant and carry some of these old songs from these
people way back in the County Down .
Don't forget Paul as you know yourself a lot of these songs and folk
stories were quite long . So in order to carry them especially in noisy
pubs , I've seen guys do this , they've stopped the place you've got to
be able to vary, alter and what I think is very important is to be this
channel .
Thanks Jack for being a channel for us to tune into . Its been great to
talk with you . I hope to see you again .
Thanks a million for having me .
All the best .
The End
By Paul McCann
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