Ever the courteous man also.
If the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem resembled the Beatles (just go with it, OK?) in their impact on music and the introduction of a particular type to the US, The Dubliners always reminded me of the Rolling Stones. Edgier, a little less polished (well, "Seven Drunken Nights" was one of their popular songs - perhaps a lot less polished.)
But they had staying power. Some of the sounds on the double CD are a little more mellow than they once were - but they team up with The Pogues and also with Billy Connelly - so not all the edges are worn off.
It's also fascinating, for me at least, as it paints pictures of a Dublin now gone. Still there, mind you, as I grew up, but much/most of it now vanished.
Cities, societies, need to move forward. Else they die, or become frozen in time and little more than tourist venues. For a city that celebrated 1,000 years of existence more than two decades ago, that would be a tragedy.
The last story in the volume is, perhaps, the most famous. The Dead. Famous for the movie, the last one if I remember rightly, by John Huston. And starring his daughter, Anjelica Huston. I remember, when I first saw this movie - and still do, thinking to myself, "I know these people."Even though I wasn't born for another half century after the story's set, you could find these people still around about the city. Some things don't change.
Many years later, I saw it, become a musical, on stage in San Francisco. And it still had its power.
The movie also starred the late Frank Patterson, a very well known Irish lyric tenor - playing a tenor.
