ZoukFest 2010 is pleased to have Andy Irvine with us again as our special guest artist. The following interview was conducted via email by ZoukFest founder Roger Landes in December, 2007. Enjoy!

1. What would you say was your first experience of folk or traditional song? What was the first thing that really grabbed you?

When I was about 14 or 15 I heard an EP of Lonnie Donegan called Skiffle Session. It had “Railroad Bill” on it apart from others and that led me to believe that I had found a hint of the music I knew I was looking for. A year or so later, I saw an LP in the shop window of a small record company called Melodisc. It was called More Songs by Woody Guthrie & Cisco Houston. From the first micro groove of the first song (“Columbus Stockade”) I knew I had found my treasure!

2. In addition to the significant influence you’ve cited of Woody Guthrie, how would you characterize the influence of other American music(s), if any, on your own? On your website you mention Lonnie Donegan—to me he sounds very American—did you receive some “American-ness” from his music? And I remember you mentioning the guitar playing of Mother Maybelle Carter in an interview—what did you get from listening to her?

Yes, my initial impressions were all American. After Lonnie and Woody, I discovered American Old Time music on a second hand copy of Volume three of the Harry Smith Anthology. It was for sale in Dobell’s Record Shop in Charing Cross Road, London. That led me to The Carter Family among others. I realized immediately that Woody had learned a lot from Maybelle’s guitar playing and as I was trying to be Woody at that stage (!) it was important for me to try and emulate her style as well. Songs like “Willie Moore” and “The Lazy farmer Boy” made a big impression on me and I was thrilled to find an entire new genre of music, nearly all of which I really liked.

3. Other than the guitar lessons with Julian Bream, are you pretty much self-taught?

I didn’t have too many guitar lessons with Julian Bream. I would usually arrive for a guitar lesson to find a note on the door saying he had forgotten about a gig in Zurich or somewhere! Eventually, he decided that being a teacher was not going to fit into his life style and he passed me on to a former pupil of his called Hector (Bill) Quine. I studied with Bill for about three years. The music got harder and harder and my daily practice time got longer and longer till eventually I had to admit defeat in learning classical music. Just too hard for the amount of time I was willing to put into it. It stood me in very good stead for playing folk music which I had just discovered.

4. Your virtuosity on the bouzouki and mandolin seems like it may have grown out of an unwillingness to accept the traditional roles of those instruments, or that they may not have “belonged” in Irish music. Using those two instruments, as well as the harmonica and hurdy-gurdy, you created a unique approach to performing and arranging mostly traditional material. Do you think that is an accurate description of what you have done? Was there any self-consciousness about playing mandolin and bouzouki in traditional Irish music, or did you think of your music as being outside the tradition?

I always thought of my music as being my own. Realizing from the outset that accompanying traditional song took me out of the accepted tradition, I didn’t regard myself as being a traditional singer. Though I did and do, continue to sing unaccompanied in a traditional style.

The mandolin seemed like a good instrument for accompaniment. I could play two note half-chords like old time fiddle players did and I could use the top string, which was tuned down a tone, as a pseudo drone that reminded me of the 5 string banjo. A song like GB Grayson’s “Omie Wise” was like a template for my developing style and I began to sing songs like “All Things are Quite Silent”, “The Gallant Frigate Amphithrite”, “Reyanard the Fox” and “The Blacksmith” using this developing technique.

Later, a desire to add a little more body and depth to the music led me to the bouzouki. My style developed further with that instrument.

5. What, if anything, was Julian Bream’s influence on your playing?

Julian had very little influence after the initial realization, as I sat in front of him, that beautiful music, beautifully played was something I really wanted to try to learn how to do.

6. When you arrived on the Dublin music scene in the early 1960s, was there much of a distinction made between traditional music and folk music? Was everyone dipping from the same big well or was it more or less segregated?

It was pretty segregated. Traditional music was something you had to seek out in Dublin at that time. Music was not allowed in pubs. That’s what made O’Donoghues special. Traditional music was mainly played in places like The Pipers Club (Na Piobairi Uilleann, in Henrietta Street). Most of the musicians being country people who were working in Dublin.

The music that people like Johnny Moynihan, Luke Kelly and myself were playing was played at parties and gatherings in peoples’ houses and of course in O’Donoghues. We also played traditional tunes but on instruments that would not have been accepted in say, The Pipers Club! Barney McKenna was a fine exponent of reel playing but he preferred to play in our company rather than the more austere traditional circles.

There were very few traditional singers in Dublin at that time, that I encountered anyway. Most of those were sean nos singers like Joe Heaney.

7. You’ve been very closely identified with Irish traditional music for many years. Growing up in London, were you always conscious of having an Irish identity? Was moving to Ireland part of embracing your Irish identity?

My mother was Irish but she had long since settled in England and to a large extent she had lost her Irish identity. As a musical comedy actress, it would not have become her to have a strong Antrim accent! So, whether she ever had one or not, she had largely lost it by the time I came along. Likewise with my father who was from Glasgow.

As a young man I found a lot of fault with my parents’ attitudes. This led me to a desire to go back to my mother’s roots. I had always felt like an outsider. The boarding schools I attended were some distance from London and the boys were nearly all local, so I was not one of them.

8. What was your first impression of the music in the Balkans when you went there in 1968? Did you consciously set out to integrate the influence of the music you heard on that trip into your own or did it just happen by osmosis?

I was bemused by Bulgarian music at the same time as being enthralled by it! It took me quite a long time to get even a hint of the hang of it after I got back to Dublin. When I began to realize where the beat was, I was blown away and only then did I think to incorporate it into my arrangements.

9. You have said that Johnny Moynihan introduced you to the Greek bouzouki and to his GDAD tuning. Was your first bouzouki a Greek one? How long was it before you or he obtained a flat-backed “Irish” bouzouki? What was the first Irish bouzouki you had built especially for yourself and when was that?

Johnny was the first person to play the bouzouki in Ireland. There may have been a mysterious Greek player somewhere but as nobody ever heard him, I think it’s safe to say Johnny was the first. We – Joe Dolan and I – were not impressed with it when he took it out at a session in The Enda Hotel in Galway in 1966. I forget why. The GDAD tuning had been his idea as well but for the mandolin and some years before.

My first one was a Greek bouzouki bought in Thessaloniki in 1968.

Johnny had bought a flat back from a builder in London who I think had made it for a client who never came back to pick it up. I think the builder’s name was John Bailey and a rumor I heard some years ago was that the client was John Pearse, the now-string maker…..

I had a flat back bouzouki made for me in 1977 by Andrew Manson. It was a good instrument and I don’t remember why I sold it. I sold it to Sean Corcoran who still plays it.

10. Did you introduce Donal Lunny to the bouzouki?

Yes. Donal picked up my round back Greek bouzouki in my flat one day in 1970. He got good sounds out of it so quickly that I gave it to him then and there!

11. How did you go about arranging for Planxty? Did you bring in your songs already arranged for the other members to add their parts to or was everybody in on the arrangements from the ground up? Was there a different process for the instrumental tunes?

Yes, usually I would bring in a song with my own accompaniment already worked out. Donal would work out a part for himself to play with it and then, having got a grasp of the piece, he would usually write the parts for Christy and Liam. The fine tuning of the piece would be up to everyone. With the tunes, the process was similar. Liam would play the tune and Donal would work out an accompaniment. He would then have some ideas as to what Christy and myself should play. For Christy’s songs, he and I would often score off each other. I might play something that he liked and he would find something to go with it or vice versa.

12. What projects do you have on the horizon? Where would you like to take your music (or your music to take you) in the next 10 years?

At the moment, I am thinking of when I will have time to make another ’solo’ album. It’s over 8 years since my last one. I am trying hard to get Mozaik into some kind of limelight. It’s difficult because the music we play does not fit into a particular genre. The audiences we get are blown away but getting the audiences is not the easiest!

Also, we all live so far away from each other. It must surely be the most diversely scattered band of all time! Donal lives in Okinawa; Rens van der Zalm in Australia; Bruce Molsky in Washington DC and Nikola Parov in Budapest apart from me in Dublin. Difficult!

The project that excites me most, of course, is my probable re-connection with Paul Brady. We are playing a concert at the Celtic Connections in Glasgow on 30th Jan and all being well, we will play a few more concerts in the future. That’s exciting for me!