I had never heard of Dougie Maclean before I saw him perform at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in 2007. It was a highlight of the weekend. At one point, he told a story about the Lewis Chessmen. They were discovered in 1831 on the Isle of Lewis, off the coast of Scotland.
Maclean explained that he was fascinated with the ancient chess pieces and ended up ordering a set of replicas. When they arrived he opened the box and lined them up on his kitchen table. As he gazed at them he thought they looked like they were marching somewhere. He was inspired to write a song, “Marching Mystery” which he was going to perform for us.
“And so,” he said, “to add some atmosphere* I brought some of them with me from Scotland.”
He then placed a few of the pieces at the front of the stage and played Marching Mystery. As I said, it was a highlight of the festival.
*Add some atmosphere? !? As if that story you just told wasn’t enough?
Some Celtic music is definitely considered cool. You could successfully name drop Dropkick Murphys or Flogging Molly among any appropriately hip and pretentious crowd of musically serious people. According to Wikipedia those bands belong to a genre known as “Diaspora Celtic Punk.”
Dropkick Murphys are fun. I’m a pretty big fan of Flogging Molly. A sampling:
I like Enya and Black 47 has a sort of charm–but those are not what I assume people mean. Enya is new age, Black 47 is…alternative? “Celtic” is a silly term, like calling rock’n’roll “Black.” Would you call U2’s music “Celtic,” even at their folkiest?
I don’t really like glurgy overproduced string-based folk-rooted…stuff the way other people really, really like glurgy overproduced string-based folk-rooted stuff. I don’t know what it is, but if someone says they really like Celtic music, I assume we are not going to agree.
Very true, I have a serious dislike to the xylophone soft jazz that was so common in travelogues in the late 60s/early 70s, and heartily dislike Enya’s soft wafty unsupported attempt at singing. I do like Thelonius Monk, and am currently listening to a compilation disc with the Chieftains, some planxtys by a friend and some bagpipe music.
[actually I like most music that many people dislike, like bagpipe music and nohplays. ]
Quite a while back I dated a woman who was into things Celtic. We did some fun things but kept ending up in bars and pubs and dances with what I guess would be the folkier end of Celtic music. It sent her into raptures, but like a lot of musical forms (dixieland being another) about ten minutes of it serves me a long, long time. I’ve heard most of the performers mentioned in this thread and can’t think of one that’s outside that “a little is good” feeling.
Enya was more Celtic when she was with her family group, Clannad. They sang a lot of songs in Irish. When she went out on her own she became more New Age.
But I like Enya for what it is and I like most Celtic music.
Berlin had a surprising number of Irish bars back in the day - I guess the Irish like to drink?
In any case, I rarely went to any of them - despite them being quite nicely designed and fairly popular - as I couldn’t stand the endless “diddley diddley dee” Irish folk music that was played, non-stop, in every one of those bars - with the maudlin “Oh Danny Boy” thrown in every once in awhile to cause the drunks to weep openly.
This kind of Irish folk music is OK, in really small doses - but not if you sit in an Irish bar for longer than 15 minutes.
(Couldn’t help it).
