by Phil Hall

Artist: Tommy Makem & Liam Clancy
Album: The Makem & Clancy Concert
Year produced: 1990

Not only is "The Makem & Clancy Concert" the finest live Celtic recording of all time, but it is also among the greatest concert recordings every captured on microphone -- regardless of the musical genre. Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy were in top musical form as they barreled their way through an amazing mixture of comic, romantic, haunting and Celt-flavored patriotic tunes.

"The Makem & Clancy Concert" is the rare recording where the humorous songs and lively comic patter can be heard endlessly and still raise gales of laughter. Whether running amok with the zany situations of "My Father Loves Nikita Khruschev" or taking hedonism to surreal borders with "The 200 Year Old Alcoholic," the duo can turn novelty songs into classics of brilliantly conceived mirth. Even their running commentaries are goldmines of good humor: when an attempt to rouse the audience into a sing-along results in a lopsided and lethargic mess, Tommy Clancy exhorts the audience members to join hands in an attempt "to contact the living."

But Clancy and Makem know how to pull at the heartstrings with a sincerity that is uncommon even among the most gifted of folk singers. "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" recounts the Australian experience in World War I with brutal and devastating results. "The Dutchman," with its story of love amid the challenges of aging and a fraying mind, is given its single most poignant rendition here. "Leave Her Jonny," with its cry for the premature end of a doomed love, is work of simple grace but rich power.

And no red-blooded Celt cannot feel the call to arms with "Sound the Pibroch," which recalls the doomed nobility of a historic war with a resonance that echoes through the centuries into today's war-weary world. While Makem & Clancy may not have intended a new Celtic uprising with their performance, they nonetheless inspire a new generation of Celtic music lovers with their endless talents. This classic recording is one for the ages.

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Celtic MP3s Music Magazine writer, Phil Hall is contributing editor for Film Threat, book editor for the New York Resident, author of "The Encyclopedia of Underground Movies" (MWP Books) and a proud child of Wales.

Labels: cd_review_2005

Posted by Marc Gunn, Thursday, April 21, 2005.
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