Michael Walsh - Quarehawk

Michael Walsh’s father came from Mayo to England in the late 1950s, part of the Irish diaspora who settled in the North West of England. Michael was born in Manchester and brought up in Stockport, learning and listening to Irish music. His teachers included Marian Egan and Tony Ryan. He was inspired and influenced as a teenager by the really strong Irish music scene in Manchester. Nowadays he lives in Sheffield, married with a young son and daughter. His father died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2017. This album was planned but the loss of his father changed the shape of it in unexpected ways as he dealt with the grief. There’s a deeper story to the album and its music. As well as being a fantastic musician, Michael Walsh is a very honest man and he’s not shy of sharing. ‘Quarehawk’ was launched at the recent Cambridge Folk Festival, and he also appeared on a panel there discussing musicians and their mental health. The music scene is an uncertain world and depression, drugs and drink play a part in it. Honesty and openness can help, and listening to Michael Walsh being interviewed on BBC Radio Sheffield recently helped me to put some of his story together. I also saw him perform a warm up gig with Irish American and Sheffield based fiddle player Liz Hanley at my favourite local venue, Cafe #9. A breakdown some years ago led to him walking the Camino de Compostela. On the walk he met a fellow traveller who invited him to his wedding in the Asturias region of northern Spain, an autonomous region with a strong sense of identity. There he met traditional musicians and made connections with his own Irish musical roots. This meeting led to him studying for a PhD at the University of Sheffield Department of Music, researching identity, nationalism and music in the contemporary Asturian folk scene. So he’s a mix of a talented musician, a teacher, an academic, a bereaved son and a family man. You could say he’s a ‘quarehawk’. A meeting at a local Sheffield playgroup led to collaboration with neighbour and cellist Liz Hanks. The album brings together musicians from across his life and history, including Michael McGoldrick and Tom Wright who encouraged him back into the studio after the death of his father. There are a couple of surprises too. Kepa Junkera, Basque trixitixas/accordion player appears. Mike Garry, who some of you may know from touring with John Cooper Clarke and through his poetic tribute to Tony Wilson, ‘St Anthony:An Ode to Anthony H Wilson’, contributes a spoken lyric, ‘The Visitor’. Michael Walsh has also found his own voice on this album. A shoulder injury meant he couldn’t pay his flute, so he developed his singing. The opening track, ‘Marian’s Favourite’, is a short flute tune recorded direct to a vinyl lathe by Newcastle’s Lathe Revival. The next to final track ‘Crowley’s Reel’ was recorded live in the same way, and both pieces transport you to another time and place, the best kind of pub session. ‘Quarehawk’, the title track, includes tunes written for his children as well as a spoken word poem about identifying as a quarehawk, full of honesty and mature acceptance. ‘The Shores of Lough Bran’ is as haunting as any Irish song you will ever hear, all about loss and leaving. It is made all the more poignant by its arrangement. Michael sings in English, Asturian singer Leticia Gonzalez Menendez sings in Asturian dialect and Manchester’s Rioghnach Connolly sings in Irish. It’s heartbreaking because it is about loss of language, family and identity as well as leaving a home land as economic emigrants. There’s a possible Stockport hometown connection to ‘The Boys of Blue Hill/The Stockport Hornpipe’, in spite of the tune being held in a Scottish archive. Mike Garry wrote the words to ‘The Visitor ‘in response to Michael’s request for a song to honour his father. It’s a ghost story, the return of the friendly dead, the deep desire for connection beyond the grave through memory and hallucination. Barralin/Pasucais de Uveu shares some Asturian folk music. ‘Tribute to Pedar O’Donnell’ by Moving Hearts’ Donal Lunny is a tribute to the Irish Republican hero from Donegal. From the sleeve notes I realise that Michael and I were both at a very memorable Moving Hearts gig at International 2 in Manchester in the early 1980s. More connections. Ewan MacColl’s ‘Come My Little Son (England’s Motorway)’ is a heartbreaking insight into family life of the 1960s, when absent Irish fathers were working on the motorway system and building sites. One of my own father’s favourite songs too. There’s Sligo style flute playing at its best on ‘Boys of the Lough/Trip to Birmingham’ and ‘Ships in Full Sail’. The final track revisits ‘Quarehawk ‘and Kepa Junkera’s contribution to it, recorded before his present bout of ill health. It’s a great album. It has its share of grief and sorrow but it is also about how those feelings can be transformed through music and words. Michael Walsh is one of a growing band of musicians who are using the traditional music of their heritage and taking it somewhere contemporary, brave, groundbreaking and experimental. The support and involvement of friends and family is very obvious in the album with its honest and helpful sleeve notes. It’s something special to witness and it is a great example of what collaboration and connection can achieve.

Track Listing:-

1 The Lathe Revival, Part 1: Marian’s Favourite
2 Quarehawk
3 The Shores Of Lough Bran
4 The Boys Of Blue Hill
5 The Visitor
6 Barralín / Pasucáis De Uviéu
7 Tribute To Peadar O’Donnell
8 Paddy’s Return / Trip To Athlone
9 Come My Little Son (England’s Motorway)
10 Boys Of The Lough / Trip To Birmingham
11 Ships In Full Sail / Killavil / Michael Dwyer’s
12 The Lathe Revival, Part 2: Crowley’s Reel
13 Quarehawk - Kepa Junkera Party Mix