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Jamie Gans Interview

Narrator: Jamie Gans

Interviewer: Dáithí Sproule

Date: 7 May, 2018

DS: Dáithí Sproule

JG: Jamie Gans

[BEGIN JAMIE GANS PART 01—filename: A1012a_EML_mmtc]

DS: I am here with Jamie Gans, my old friend Jamie Gans, in our house on Cherokee Avenue,

and Jamie has come to town to do a concert with me and other people last night at the Celtic

Junction and to do this interview. This must be May the 7th, because the gig was May the 6th.

I start everybody chronologically, so that’s what I’m going to do with you, Jamie. I’m going to

act as if I don’t know as much about you as I do.

Could you tell me, where were you born and raised?

JG: I was born in New Jersey. Do you need a specific place?

DS: I need details…yea, it would be nice…

JG: Well, I was born in a town that I never knew. It was a favorite doctor of my mother’s – she

always told me it was this town called Plainfield, New Jersey, which I have never been to since

1952 when I came out of my mother’s stomach. But I did grow up in a rural part of New Jersey,

which is no longer rural, from the 1950s till the late 60s.

DS: What is the background of your parents?

JG: My father grew up in Milwaukee, although his mother was from New York, so they

eventually moved back to New York City. His dad was a businessman in Milwaukee in the

1920s, 30s, and I never knew him because he passed away in 1950. And my mother’s side goes

back to some of the earliest settlements in the northeastern part of the United States, or North

America, I should say.

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DS: What’s her surname?

JG: Her dad’s name was Gould and her mother’s name was Laval. Gould was an old English

name because it goes back to a minister who came over, John Gould, in the early 1600s. Her

mother’s side was Labaw and Adair, which is my middle name and her first name.

DS: How to you spell Labaw?

JG: It was changed from – well, I’m not sure what the original spelling was -- LeBeau – but it

changed to Labaw. So Labaw was her paternal side and her maternal side was Adair. And my

middle name is Adair. I was hoping it was our Irish connection, but Adair is apparently a

lowland Scottish name, which I found out. But there are some Adairs that moved to Ireland.

DS: Of course, like the Sproules – the same thing.

JG: As far as I know from my genealogical research, that’s about the only thing, I’ve got to have

some bit of Irish.

DS: Well, it’s funny, in talking to other people and also in talking to Brian Miller about this

project, one of the themes that emerges – it’s probably not surprising – is Irishness or how people

felt about playing Irish music. I suppose it’s particularly interesting if the people don’t have any

connection with Ireland. It’s a bit early in the chat to talk about it, but, since you mentioned it,

once you started playing Irish music, did you think about that, the business of – “Is it funny me

playing Irish music when I’m not Irish?” Did any of those issues arise, or did people confront

you and say, “Well, you’re not Irish”?

JG: Well, that’s true. The time that I got into Irish music, I was experimenting around. Well, of

course, I don’t know if you want me to go back, but I started, and you might have done this too,

in the late 50s or early 60s, I was starting to get into the movement of the Beatles and the Dave

Clark Five and all that, and I wanted to play the drums and so forth. So I was into that, and then

somehow I got pulled in through different avenues – like, I was interested in old jazz music, I

wanted to find a way…

DS: 20s, 30s?

JG: Yea. My dad earned a lot of money, so he sent me to a private school. I was in a boarding

school in Connecticut.

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DS: That’s from the age of what? What age?

JG: High school age, which is ninth through twelfth grade. Everybody liked the British

movement of rock music, and then there was some other great rock music on this side of the

Atlantic. I was interested in that, but, somehow, I don’t know how I got interested in things like

Jelly Roll Morton and that type of jazz – early – I can’t think of all the jazz things. But in those

days RCA put out these RCA Vintage albums of those artists – early black jazz music. I loved it.

But when I say this, I actually think the RCA Vintage also put out early bluegrass music, and I

purchased that probably. And through that, the connection, I was attracted to that too. When

everybody pretty much had their blinders on, only listening to one style of rock music, I was

getting interested in all sorts of different musics, including Indian music, like Ravi Shankar – of

course, the Beatles pulled that in too.

DS: This is when you were in boarding school? So how were you hearing it? Were you hearing

these various musics on the radio?

JG: In those days people had tons of LPs. That’s the thing unfortunately I can’t remember –

what pulled me into that. Maybe I’ll have a dream some night – if I remember, I’ll tell you.

DS: I suppose you’re talking about fourteenish?

JG: I’m thinking aged sixteen. At fourteen I was in eighth grade, because they put me back in

third grade. Fifteen through eighteen…

DS: We touch base with certain things with everybody. One of them is, did you have any formal

musical education, say, before that, and up to that? And the other one to remember to mention is,

were your parents actively interested in, or your brothers and sisters, interested in any form of

live music, singing around the house, playing, going to concerts?

JG: Yea, my mother, who has been a visual artist up until about two years ago – she’s ninety

five, now she’s in assisted living -- but before that she was teaching beautiful painting. So it

influenced us all, and we all thought we were going to be visual artists, all my siblings and I. I

started drawing on our wallpaper, which was not acceptable, but visual art was my first

expression and I loved it through I majored in college. But somehow the music was really deep

in my heart, and I had to go with it. The only connection I remember was, my mother’s mother

was a really good piano player. I would stay over with her, and I would hear her playing, and she

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would still be playing these pop songs from the 1920s, which I knew nothing about at the time,

and then some small classical stuff. Then her husband, my grandfather, was also a piano player,

but he played less. So that was the musical side. But they weren’t interested in any necessarily

cultural music, you know. I think of myself as being part of the movement at that era. I wasn’t

pulled in by any specifics.

DS: You weren’t studying playing an instrument at school, or choirs, or anything like that?

JG: Drums – I did take drum lessons, a little minor rock. That was the true definition of a garage

band. Then during my high school age I didn’t play music at all. I listened to a lot of it. But I did

not play until I went to college, and that’s where what I play now was seeding.

DS: Yea, the seeds were planted, yea. The business of feeding your mind with music is so

important, and anybody who gets seriously involved with music, they have started that process of

sucking in stuff at an early age. And probably the more variety of stuff that people have

interested themselves in, the richer their music will be. Any of the great musicians in any genre

that I ever read about, that’s true.

JG: I just remembered this time frame. After I graduated from the boarding school, I spent a

years and a half not going to college, because I was nineteen and it was during the Vietnam era,

the end of it, and they were starting to draft people, and I was definitely not wanting to go be in

the army, eventually go to Vietnam, so I went and visited my sister who was going to college in

Ohio, called Lake Erie College. It was just a women’s college then, and she had a good friend

who was from British Columbia. Her friend said, “If you want to go somewhere really beautiful

in Canada, go to British Columbia.” Somebody else there said, “Jamie, I’ll take you – let’s go to

British Columbia.” So I went there, and that was actually my first musical… I started playing

guitar there. That was really good because they were playing kind of jug band music in this south

central part of British Columbia. And there were some American young folks that moved there

because they had been drafted, and the rest of them of course were from that area.

DS: And the jug band music, is that what we would call old time, old records of the 20s and 30s?

JG: Yea. I know, my first acoustic instrument was blues harp, harmonica. I started to play it

there. Now I remember I actually started playing it…that was my first instrument from my

drums. I did start playing it in the prep school that I went to, because my roommate was playing

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it my junior senior year. He was playing in a blues band. Then I started – “I want to do that.” I

started playing harmonica, and I carried that to my British Columbia musical experience. The

harmonica’s not that respectable an instrument – it’s ok, but I’d better learn something real like a

guitar. So I messed around with that.

DS: Where exactly in British Columbia were you?

JG: It was in the Salmon River area. I almost have to look on my phone.

DS: So you were out in the country, or was it a little town?

JG: Yea. It was great. I should remember the closest city but I’ll remember it probably after the

interview. Or if I looked at a map. There was a great Native American – I guess First Nations

People – population there. I got to meet them and I worked in a saw mill. And I got my social

insurance number, because they said, “We need some workers – you’re American. You’re not

legal here, but we’ll still get you a social insurance number.” Later on when I did live in Ottawa

legally, the government said, “Oh, this is your social insurance number, I didn’t know you had

one.”

DS: You were there for a while, but you didn’t stay, obviously.

JG: Then there was a time when the immigration…like we were in a farming area, beautiful

mountains…and some government people came in, had heard that there were some young

Americans hanging out who did not have legal arrangements for staying there. They were very

kind at that time. This was in the early 70s – ’70, ’71, I think it was. They said, “You’re going to

have to leave pretty soon, or else get some kind of a six month or a two year legal…” I’d been in

contact with my parents, and they said, “You’ve got to go to college because we can pay for it

now, but we can’t pay for later on.” So I returned home and then went to college. And that was

the beginning of my story with my Irish music.

I went to Beloit College in Wisconsin, a private college in not a pretty part of Wisconsin close to

the Illinois border in the flattish part. I met a number of musicians, one of whom was from

Northfield, Minnesota, Laura MacKenzie. I knew I wanted to play fiddle, because I started

hearing all kinds of fiddle music. Maybe it was bluegrass – I think that’s what it was – early

bluegrass, Flatt and Scruggs and all that stuff. And Doc Watson was my favorite.

DS: That’s a good influence.

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JG: And he had fiddle players with him. So I messed around with that. Then I met Laura

MacKenzie, who was trying to relate to her Scottish ancestral background and was playing the

highland pipes. And I thought, “I love the bagpipes.” Coincidentally, on my father’s side, my

paternal grandmother had been to Scotland, and she bought, just as a gift for my uncle, my

father’s brother, a set of bagpipes, and I didn’t know that. I contacted my parents and said, “You

know, maybe I should learn bagpipes.” “Well, your uncle has a set of bagpipes.” So I don’t know

if I wrote him a letter or called him, but within about a week he was ready to give them – “Here,

take them!” And he sent them to me, and they were really a decent set of bagpipes. I can’t

remember when it was -- I was going out with Laura, and she said, “Well, I’m going to go to this

bagpipe camp in Coeur d’Alene,” and there were some Canadian pipers and John Wilson, who

was a well recognized Scottish piper, an older man. That was my first step into the Celtic music

world.

DS: Were you and Laura then playing pipes together at home?

JG: Well, she was always a little bit ahead of me on the pipes. She would coach me, and when

you start with the pipes you don’t start playing the bagpipes right away. You play your practice

chanter. She was already on the pipes, and I was still looking at her but having to play my

chanter. Then I easily transferred from – oh, I know – she graduated from Beloit. I wanted to go

with her to Northfield, Minnesota, and I had only completed my freshman and sophomore year,

and she had graduated as a senior. So I moved with her to Northfield and lived there for about

the length of a school year, and my dad said, “I would like you to go back to college, and I will

still pay for it – if you don’t now, definitely won’t.” Laura was going to do her graduate program

at the University of Minnesota and move up to the Twin Cities here. So I found out that I could

transfer to Macalester College. I was not a great college student unfortunately – Laura was – and

my wife Tamara, she did brilliantly well at schools, so I’ve always been with very bright women,

proudly. I remember my interview at Macalester, they were writing things, and said, “We could

probably work this out,” and I said, “The one thing I’m really looking forward to is playing the

bagpipes in the Macalester pipe band because I play them.” They went, “You play pipes? Ok,

you’re in.” (laughter)

DS: So did you play in the Macalester Pipe Band?

JG: Yes, I did.

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DS: That’s a very brilliant band. Has it always been great?

JG, Aw, no, in those days it was kind of novice to intermediate, and on the first weekend of May,

I think it was, or the second weekend of May, they’d have a big Scottish event there, and these

pipe bands from Winnipeg and Thunder Bay would come down, then you’d hear really good

pipers. So then you knew you were just novice pipers at the time.

DS: Later on, and up to this day, you are a great one for writing out tunes, had you been literate

in music before the piping, or how quickly did you get into reading tunes or writing tunes?

JG: Well, reading piping, there’s a pattern to it, so I was not a great music reader, but you’d

have to play these embellishments and you’d just see this row of notes and you’d know that you

had to do this with your fingers. But there was a transfer when I was starting to get outside of the

piping world, when I’d hear a jig or a reel or something on an album. Actually one of the first

fiddle albums I liked was this Canadian fiddle, the Riendeau Family, that was actually from

northern New Hampshire, but they were French Canadian. Laura transcribed it, because she was

classically trained, and she transcribed it for me so that was the beginning of my reading music.

Then I learned soon after to transcribe music into tunes, so it allowed me, if I’d hear a tune -- in

those days it was hard to slow down an LP – she would put it on and transcribe it – but anyway

that’s what I’d do – transcribe from LPs and then eventually cassettes.

I think I moved with Laura from Northfield in ’72 or ’73. But no, it was ’74 maybe, and she was

up in Duluth and found a used violin for me and got it restored, and that was my first violin –

that was the beginning of my fiddling.

DS: And you took to the fiddle quickly, did you?

JG: Yea, and playing the bagpipes requires so much, the reeds require so much attention, and

you’ve got to make sure you don’t put too much moisture without cracking the chanter and so

forth. The fiddle was so much easier, and it was much more versatile, and you could go

anywhere with it. The highland pipes, you’ve got to stay in one narrow path.

DS: Yea, where can you play them? You can’t sit around the apartment playing your Scottish

pipes.

JG: The funny thing is, I always remembered – when you heard pipes inside, which are quite

loud, it was always the test of who likes them, who are truly highland pipes fans. If they were

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inside and someone was playing for you and went, “Oh, beautiful!” then you knew – and if they

went, “Oh, so loud!!” that separated it. (laughter) I always loved highland pipes. I’ve always

loved all kinds of bagpipe traditions. I still love highland pipe music, but I never followed back

on them.

DS: Did you get any lessons from anybody when you started the fiddle?

JG: No, actually. I listened very closely, I studied. There was one point when I was interested in

Appalachian old time music before I devoted myself to the Irish traditional path. I started to mess

around with it, but when I heard bands like the Chieftains, they were probably the biggest

influential band to me at that. I said, “I’ve got to go in that direction.” Listening to an incredible

fiddle player like Sean Keane, I could never follow him too closely, but yea…

DS: Was hearing the Chieftains what sent you in an Irish direction at all?

JG: I mentioned the Riendeau family. It was an album of Canadian-style fiddling, and I loved it.

But then when I heard Irish fiddling – it must have been Sean Keane with the Chieftains -- that

just pulled me in. I just thought this was really beautiful music. I think that they were the first

ones that pulled me in. Then, of course, things expanded beyond that.

DS: Was this while you were still at Macalester or after Macalester?

JG: When I was at Beloit, I actually thought I was going to play lap dulcimer because there was

an older community… It was before maybe I met Laura, but I was interested in some kind of

acoustic folk music at the time. But when I moved here, I probably got to know fewer of my

classmates at Macalester and got to know more of the community here. When I first moved here,

I’m not sure how I met Sam and Mary. It was about the same time I went to Macalester I met the

Irish music scene here, which was small.

DS: Do you think it would have been through sessions, or did you go to céilís?

JG: No, I don’t know if it was through hearing the Dayhills when they came to town. I would be

curious to ask Sam, “Do you remember meeting me?” (laughter) Or Laura.

DS: Talking to them, of course, they would talk about how they met you, so one of the nice

things about this – it’s like weaving the story, and the strands come out. They’re completely

separate and coming from different places, and then they’re gradually converging, and then

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they’re all going in and out, under each other, so through everybody’s version of that

intersection, there’s the completeness.

JG: It’s funny though when you go back in your memory, there’s things that I’d forgotten that

come back up to my brain – like trying to play lap dulcimer. Most college students stay within

the vacuum of their classmates. But I remember hanging out in Beloit, Wisconsin, with older

people. “Older” meaning they were probably in their late twenties and early thirties, maybe even

forties – playing music and going to someone’s house in that area. The same thing happened

here, only people were basically my age.

DS: You were now playing some Irish music? With Laura too?

JG: Yea. She picked up a violin for me. I think it was February, ’74. But anyway that’s when I

knew I had to learn fiddle, and I remember… No, it was ’73, because we were still in Northfield,

because I remember trying to learn how to play it, and both her mother and Laura saying, “Jamie,

can you close the door please?” (laughter)

There was a time – and I’m trying to remember if Laura went with me – but I mentioned this

previously. I think it was the winter of ’74, maybe it was the winter of ’75, when we went down

to Chicago for the folk festival at the University of Chicago, and that’s when I was trying to

remember the name of Armon Barnett, who I’d met in my Beloit days. He was a great fiddle

player, and he was playing old time music. Now I’m remembering, my old time connection too

when I was a Beloit resident was these folks living in Chicago. There was a fellow in Beloit who

was not going to Beloit College, who was a guitar player, and he said, “Jamie, come with me,

I’m going to Chicago, we’ll go to this guy Mark Gunther’s house,” and they played great music.

But Armon would sneak in some simple Irish tunes. So now I remember that was maybe the first

Irish music. And Armon was the MC at the University of Chicago Folk Festival, and the Irish

music was played by Liz Carroll and Jimmy Keane. That’s when it blew my mind to hear

amazing musicianship in the Irish music world. I had my cassette recorder and I taped their

concerts and then I followed them – because it was on the campus of the university – they’d go

into a classroom and practice some of the tunes or just play tunes. I would just be a few feet

away from them, and I’d say, “Do you mind if I just tape you guys?” “No, don’t worry.” So I

taped two ninety minute tapes and I still have it, some great music. So I’m trying to think

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whether I heard Liz or the Chieftains first. But Armon, now I credit him as one of my first

transfers to the Irish music world from old time music.

DS: Well, the Chieftains had a huge influence all over. In fact, the first time I heard of the

Chieftains, which was in the late 60s, the whole point of it was, the guy I was talking to was

saying, “Look, this is, these guys are actually playing traditional Irish music. This is real

traditional Irish music.” I know they arranged it in ways, but this was it. They’ve been a

wonderful gateway for people.

JG: And at that time I would always try to buy their newest album – up until they started to add

different kinds of music…

DS: Mick Jagger! (laughter)

JG: Yea, Mick Jagger and all sorts of others. I remember saying I’d better get their very first

album, which didn’t have Sean Keane on it. I can’t remember the violinist they had on there.

DS: They must have just had Martin Fay. They didn’t have any other traditional fiddler, did

they? Not that I remember. Martin Fay was probably on the very first album.

JG: He was sounding more classical.

DS: He wasn’t really a traditional fiddler, no. But then the combination of him and Sean – he

brought a lot to it, particularly the air playing. The combination of the two fiddles was great.

JG: Now I want to go home and pull out that first LP of the Chieftains and listen to it.

[END JAMIE GANS PART 01—filename: A1012a_EML_mmtc]

[BEGIN JAMIE GANS PART 02—filename: A1012b_EML_mmtc]

DS: Your first gigs, or sessions, or céilís, or playing in public in the Twin Cities, what do you

remember about that?

JG: The first bit was when I would start playing my fiddle with Laura, because she was

converting from her classical flute-playing to Irish flute-playing. I credit her for picking up my

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very first fiddle. I actually found her very first old flutes, the old wood classical flutes that

became the Irish flute. I found two flutes for her in a secondhand shop in New Jersey. I think I

was visiting family, and I went to a concert close to where my parents used to live, hearing Mick

Moloney. It was some little short outdoor festival. It was Mick Moloney, and there was these two

young – they were my age – a flute player and a concertina player, and I cannot remember their

names. But they were good players and I recorded them too. That was the weekend I picked up

Laura’s flutes.

DS: And one of those was the one with the bone…

JG: Yes, ivory head joint. And the other, I guess, was not playable or something. It might have

had a crack or something. She was able to use that for a few years. Somehow we connected with

Mary MacEachron and Sam Dillon. I think they had already been connected to the Dayhills. I’m

trying to think how I met Marty.

DS: That’s another question I was just about to ask.

JG: I wish I could remember, but it was through Sam and Mary.

DS: But if you visualized meeting Martin and playing with him, would that have been O’Gara’s?

JG: I think so. There was one time I remember. I don’t believe I was playing with him. I think

the Dayhills were here, and I mentioned this to Sam yesterday. They were going to play a céilí

and it was off University, up in the Oddfellows or something, and Marty was there.

Unfortunately he was not in good condition. He was there, and that might have been one of my

first times to see him. The Dayhills were playing with him, and I think they did invite us to play

a couple of tunes with them. Of course, always the standard reel to start with was either

“Cooley’s” or what’s the one? (lilts) “The Silver Spear”! “Rolling in the Rye Grass”!

DS: The older fiddlers were not in action any more?

JG: No. Martin was the only one that I had met. At one point Tom was talking about – who was

the fiddle player?

DS: Paddy Hill?

JG: Yea, Paddy Hill. I think Paddy Hill had passed away before then.

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DS: Bill and Judy – were they hanging out with you? Bill Hinkley and Judy Larson? They did

some gigs, some céilís.

JG: They did?

DS: I think they did. Bill anyhow.

JG: I’m not sure if I’d met them yet. There was a big community and well connected, no matter

what style of music you played, whether you played Irish or bluegrass or old time. You somehow

got to know everyone. It was partly because of…Prairie Home Companion helped. It was a local

show, and local musicians like Bill and Judy would go onto the show.

DS: Well, the Plough and the Stars got going.

JG: It was during my Macalester years. I didn’t actually graduate from Macalester until 1978. I

didn’t go back to Macalester till ’76, ’77. I guess what that means is I moved here with Laura –

she went to the university, but I didn’t go to Macalester yet, because I believe we moved here in

’75. We stayed a year down in Northfield and then moved here. It might have been previous to

Macalester that I met Sam and Mary and the Dayhills. I think that makes sense. I’m sorry I didn’t

take all my notes and do the research. (laughter)

DS: That’s all right – we have it covered from every angle!

JG: In that short period from 1974 to within the next five years, so much happened. Then you

guys came. When did you do your first performance?

DS: ’78.

JG: So that’s right. When was that in ’78?

DS: September ’78.

JG: I was trying to figure out was my first trip to Ireland in ’78 or ’77. We met you in Ireland

beforehand – James… We’d heard you at the Four Seasons.

DS: That must have been ’77.

JG: Ok.

DS: It was before ’78 anyway.

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JG: Ok, so my first year was ’77. I went to Ireland with Laura. First, we went to Scotland. Then

we figured out we weren’t doing well together, so we split up. Then we went to Ireland, because

she had a sister in Edinburgh. We both spent a long time in Ireland. I think we were there from

late May to September.

DS: How did you end up in the Four Seasons?

JG: Oh, I know. I have to backtrack a little bit. Comhaltas came and did a concert here, and one

of the young musicians of the Comhaltas group was James Kelly. I think he connected with

Mary, and she went to Ireland. I can’t remember if it was soon after the Comhaltas tour, and so

that was the connection. She was going out with James, and that was in Dublin, so of course

James would have been the connection to the Four Seasons since his dad was the host pretty

much.

DS: I remember Mary being over, but for some weird reason I don’t remember meeting you as a

group of people before I met you here, which is really odd – I don’t know why.

JG: That makes sense because there were other folks that were there that summer from Australia

or Germany that were all kind of like, “Oh, I want to play this music.” And we were all on the

outside crowd because we couldn’t just sit down and start playing. But the doors opened that

summer.

DS: Was it that very summer that you went off and met other musicians down the country?

Could you tell me about some of that? Did you go and meet Josie McDermott?

JG: I did not meet Josie McDermott.

DS: But you met the McConnells? Is that the time you went and visited Maura McConnell?

Cathal’s family?

JG: I’m trying to think if that was the second year. That year we went, and even though Laura

and I broke up she had such a great time, she said, “I’m going next year.” And so I thought, “I’m

going to go too.” We didn’t go together, but we went at the same time. So that year I met Maura

McConnell, and that’s a story in and of itself. I’m trying to think where I had met her – it might

have been in Dublin. But she had said, “You are welcome to come.” Where we they?

DS: In Fermanagh?

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JG: But I’m trying to think of the closest…I’d have to look at the map again. But she invited me

there and I went up separately. I remember my entry into Northern Ireland because, of course, in

those days it was during the peak of the Troubles. The British army was there to look at your

passport with a semi-automatic in the right hand and looking at you. But when we crossed the

border – south of Ireland to the north – soon after there was a British tank that was flipped over,

and there was a big flood of blood underneath there, so it was my first shock to see the horrors of

a war zone.

DS: Wow. So you just drove past this.

JG: We were stopped and I don’t know if it was the police or the army, but they re-directed the

traffic, but when we’d go by, you’d see it – “Oh, my god, this is the first time I’ve been in a real

war zone.” So then she picked me up in the little town that was closest to them. I stayed in their

house. In fact, I slept in Cathal’s old room. She was great. She introduced me – “Do you want to

hear some of the recordings that Cathal did?” He collected musicians all around the area and had

connections to Tommy Peoples, before they started their band. So I spent so much time there.

During the day she set up the reel-to-reel and I was able to connect my cassette, and so I

recorded a lot of material, and then we went to a session in the evening. I also remember being

stopped by the local constabulary, and she knew them, and they would say, “Can I see your

driver’s license?” and Maura would say, “They know me.” She’d say, “I’m with this American

and he wants to hear the music.” And I remember them looking at my passport and handing it

back.

DS: Did she sing or play herself? I don’t think I’ve ever met her.

JG: No, I hate to say this, but I don’t remember her doing so.

DS: But Cathal wasn’t around?

JG: No, he was not. She would tell me stories of his experiences. She was younger than him,

maybe seven or eight years younger.

DS: What were the sessions like? Do you remember any names from the sessions?

JG: I do not.

DS: Instrumentation? Was it a mixture of fiddle and flute?

15

JG: It was mostly fiddles, I remember. For some reason I can’t remember that session as well.

My biggest memory is coming back from it – being stopped by the security forces.

DS: The whole thing is pretty weird and traumatic.

JG: Yea, it just overwhelmed my memory of playing some tunes. But she was really so

generous. If I’d gone there by myself, it obviously would have been frightening. “Why are you

here?” Because so few tourists went into the north of Ireland during the war period.

DS: That’s right. And nothing happened as far as I know to any tourist, but at the same time it

was scary. I was scared. I’d be looking around wondering what was going on.

JG: I remember – was it ’81 that we went? – when we went to Belfast.

DS: Yes.

JG: Whose apartment were we staying in?

DS: In Belfast? Was it Frank Shiels?

JG: I think, yea. Maybe I was sleeping on the couch or something, but the army were coming

round knocking on each door. They were looking for someone. I remember them coming along

and knocking on the door – and then they left. I remember we went to a session, you and I, and

you had to go through this entry, this protected entryway. It had a lock or something, that

protected the door.

DS: Something to protect against bomb damage too.

JG: Someone would have to open the door and let you in.

DS: Of course, it’s scary having people point guns at you. But also the things I was scared about,

in the back of my mind, I wouldn’t say anything at all, but was car bombs. Cars bombs were

going off in the north. But there were car bomb attacks in Dublin when I was in Dublin.

JG: What year?

DS: I’m not very good on the years. That must have been the 70s. I was living in Dublin and we

were going to the Abbey Theatre that night or the Peacock Theatre and bombs went off, and my

brother walked past one of them just a few minutes before it blew up and wasn’t injured, but

innocent people were killed. So I always thought about that afterwards. I was always aware of

16

cars. And the most innocent thing in the world is a car sitting beside the street as you walked

past, but once you got that idea of car bombs in your head I found it hard to forget it.

JG: I’m glad I didn’t hear that story because in Dublin I didn’t even think of the north. You

knew what was going on but…

If you don’t mind backing up, my first trip when I did go to Dublin and would go to the Four

Seasons. Bobby Casey, of course, was there, and when we would go visit where Mary was

staying with – I don’t know if she was staying at James’s apartment, but Bobby Casey would be

there, and he was such a sweet gentleman. He’d say, “Get out your fiddle and this is the tune that

you might want to learn.” I have some cassettes of him, but I can’t remember if that was the

situation. But he always had this humor of tapping you with the bow – what was the thing? If

you were playing next to him, he would take his bow and go on your far shoulder and tap you.

He did that to me a couple of times. I always think of him as being like, “Wow, he’s my guru.”

DS: Well, it’s amazing to get the chance of being in the presence of these people here who’ve

just such a high standard. But also I did admire the stories I heard about you and Laura and Sam

and Patty and so on going and seeking out people, that you actually went and met these people in

a way that I would have been too shy to do. As it happens, I stumbled over them because of my

life, but it’s great to go and seek them out, and it’s much appreciated by them actually, that

people are interested.

Were you amazed by Bobby’s playing face to face when you saw him playing? Do you kind of

get it, and the only reason I’m asking is because at that time I didn’t get it. (laughs)

JG: His playing? I didn’t analyze it and try to reproduce his playing, although later on I did. I

would listen and think he had a really nice sweet style. A few years ago when I was talking to

Liz Carroll, I said, “He might not have been as technically brilliant as you,” I never said that to

her – I was thinking that. “He wasn’t technically as you, but he was definitely, for want of better

words, a folk artist, really a high artist in his style.” When I listen to him, it’s like, that’s one of

my favorite styles of playing, even if I don’t play that. If I restarted, I might have said, “Maybe I

should go back and try to reproduce his.”

DS: Could I ask you, as you were developing, as a fiddler, if you had to name a couple of aspects

of your style that you were trying to capture, can you name them or describe them? Apart from

17

just learning tunes -- right, you want to learn nice tunes – but were there things that were

fascinating you? “I want to capture a tone, or I want to capture a certain way of ornamenting or

of phrasing.” Were you aware of goals like that that you were struggling to get, that you could

name?

JG: I wish I could say that I did, because the way I learned how to play I didn’t try to learn it one

to one. I just said, I’m using my cassette player. Which reminds me of when I was around

Séamus Mac Mathúna and he had a whole school of kids. He seemed like a good middle school

teacher in a way. Kids younger than me in their mid-teens loved him. But one time he saw me –

somehow I was invited the second year I went to Ireland, ’78 -- there’s classes they have before

the Fleadh Cheoil, and I was invited to go there but only people went there who won their local -

- first, second or third. He was there and he was instructing people, then he saw me in my dorm

room, transcribing from what I was listening to, and he said, “Is that the way you learn tunes?

That’s not the natural way to learn tunes.” That was my way of really studying. But in some

ways it was just like asking someone, “Just play this one phrase.” And just repeat it, keep

repeating. Instead I didn’t have to ask, I had the control.

DS: But that is the way everybody learned. They did learn from recordings. You learn a certain

amount playing along with people, but in fact all the great musicians I know, our age and older,

they did learn, everybody learned from recordings. John Doherty learned from recordings, you

know what I mean.

JG: If I knew that, I’d say that to Séamus. But I was in total respect, of course – it would be like

being rude to your teacher. But maybe because I was a non-Irish American he thought, “I’ve got

to tease this guy.”

DS: It’s great to bring back the riches from Ireland, bring back your recordings and study them,

your memories of having met people, and you’re fertilizing the soil when you get home.

JG: I met…I’m trying to remember the fiddle player – he played with Altan.

DS: Paul O’Shaughnessy?

JG: Paul was in my class, and, of course, Séamus adored him. “This is the top kid that is going

to…” I think he was maybe six or seven years younger than me. I met folks like Paul. If I met

him again, he might say, “I think I remember you.” So my first trip was strongly influenced by

18

Bobby Casey. I can’t remember the year – I obviously knew you, so it must have been ’81 when

we were hanging out with Bobby’s son.

DS: With Sean, yea. In Dublin?

JG: Yea. That must have been ’81.

DS: It could have been.

JG: Because we were together then. I remember riding a vehicle, and he was playing his banjo.

DS: I spent a lot of time with Sean in the 70s playing in sessions and gigs.

JG: I think I have a cassette somewhere. I didn’t transfer it to CD. I transferred a lot of my

valued cassettes to CD. I had the CD player before you could get the app on your laptop, and I

was able to transfer to the CD player directly. I had a cassette of him playing. I think you guys

were playing together.

DS: Was it banjo?

JG: Yea.

DS: I have a recording Jode Dowling gave me – I made the original recording of me and Sean

playing in the Four Seasons. I remember the day that we were playing. But there was another

recording of him playing the mandola, and I’ve lost that long ago. I’d love to have had that – it

was so sweet. It was very, very nice.

JG: Which reminds me, it was some time in the 70s, I was able to buy this really old Austrian

viola in Minneapolis.

DS: You used the viola a wee bit with the Northern Stars, didn’t you?

JG: No, more with vocals and things.

DS: Of course, we did have song arrangements with the Northern Stars.

JG: No, when we performed as Miltown na nGael, I heard on the cassette, when we performed

at Walker Church, I could hear, oh, that’s my viola. And I still have that – that’s fun. Tamara

likes to sing some songs that she learned in her Bruderhoff era, and she’ll give me the right

harmony to play and I’ll play it on viola.

DS: The Plough and the Stars/Northern Stars became a really serious céilí band. I felt anyway.

19

JG: Yes and no. We didn’t have the right instruments necessarily to go and compete at the

Fleadh. Nowadays if you form a céilí band, you’re going to perform in the Midwest Fleadh. It

was three fiddles, two flutes, and Dick Rees was playing the piano, and sometimes Bob Douglas

was playing mandolin, and of course Marty. I don’t know if we could have competed in the

Fleadh Cheoil.

DS: It’s funny, it’s just a personal thing. I was familiar with céilí bands growing up, but céilí

bands playing for dances. That’s what a céilí band was. And then when I came here and I heard

the céilí band and I played in the céilí band, a céilí band was a band that played for céilís. And

then when I heard people talking about the Kilfenora Céilí Band and the Tulla Céilí Band

through the years after that, I was thinking of a band that plays Irish music for dances. And it

was a long, long time before the penny dropped that all this had anything to do with

competitions. I was oblivious, and I remember I heard Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin giving a lecture

on céilí bands, in the Catskills maybe, and that was when the penny dropped, because that’s what

he was talking about, and I thought, “Oh!”

JG: The competitive style.

DS: The specific line-up you’re referring to. And I suppose I’m so out of sympathy with every

idea of competition that I just felt that’s ridiculous.

JG: Yea, the céilí bands now have to have a particular sound, when they switch tunes. But we

did play céilís.

DS: You were an active céilí band.

JG: And the céilís were kind of coinciding with the revival of contra dances in the rest of the

country, like in New England. I always like to joke about this. You could purchase beers at the

céilís here, pay and get a ticket. And so one time close to that time I went to New England to see

friends, and I went to a contra dance and I said, “Oh, before I go to the contra dance, I better pick

up a six-pack of beer and bring it there.” And I remember bringing it there and I said, “Anybody

want a beer?” And it was like, “You can’t have beer here.”

DS: The same thing happened to me with Lisa when I moved to New England. I just couldn’t

believe there wasn’t a drink, and I had some whiskey in the car – Lisa said, “You can’t!

20

JG: So the opposite side when I went to Scotland with Tamara and we had a gig playing at a…I

don’t know if you’d call it a contra dance. It was kind of a Scottish céilí. And there were tables

all around. And most of the people were dancing, but they, of course, had bottles of whiskey and

beer, and there were a lot of drunk folks at the end.

But, you know, one thing I was just remembering, speaking of céilí bands. The second year, ’78,

Comhaltas came again, and Eileen O’Brien was here, daughter of Paddy of Tipperary. And

Eileen sort of gave out little invitations. “I’m going to Ireland.” “Well, you can come visit –

come to our house and visit there.” I don’t know if she actually expected me, but at one point I

knocked on the door and I remember Paddy opening the door and said, “Oh, hello.” And I would

introduce myself: “I know your daughter, Eileen.” And Eileen would come. And I remember her

going, “Ehh.” And I explained that Eileen invited me when she was in America, and he said,

“James, come in – you’re welcome.” He put me up and he took me around. He gave me stories

of his stays in New York City. And I mentioned tunes and he said, “Oh yes, that’s named after

the bus driver who was from my area,” you know, in New York City, and so forth. And they

were prepping for the Fleadh, and he had composed these tunes that became very popular session

tunes – “The Barge Inn” – I forget what the names were. I wrote down the names of the tunes

that he said – “Ok, this is called the New Barge Inn.” And later it was called something like “The

Old Barge Inn.” The names had changed. That was one of my favorite experiences being with

someone who was well known as a musician. Even Joe Burke would refer to Paddy O’Brien.

DS: Did you stay there long?

JG: I stayed there three or four nights.

DS: I never met him, so that was great that you met him.

JG: That was one of my favorite experiences, because he was such a generous fellow, and he

would practice in the Barge Inn, the closest pub, and he said, “Just sit there, listen – if you want

to tape that’s fine.” So I have this tape of their rehearsal. And they played all these tunes, most of

which became popular.

DS: And what was the band name?

21

JG: I could probably track it down on line. And they won that year. And of course Eileen was a

member. She was the youngest musician in the band. The rest of them were his generation. Then

I recorded them at the Fleadh.

[END JAMIE GANS PART 02—filename: A1012b_EML_mmtc]

[BEGIN JAMIE GANS PART 03—filename: A1012c_EML_mmtc]

DS: A lot of the stuff we just talked about was your trips to Ireland, how wonderful they were

and the music you got there, and you were bringing some of that music, the tunes as well as the

inspiration, back here to the Twin Cities, and you were sharing tunes with people. ’78 was when

I first appeared here to start visiting and gigging, and I felt that a lot of the great repertoire the

Northern Stars had must have come from you.

JG: I’d like to take that credit. Of course, we wanted to play Marty’s versions of tunes, and I

transcribed a lot of his pieces. I thought about bringing my transcriptions back here this

weekend, but I knew it was probably not a good time to do that. I have a lot of cassettes. When

he was in good form back in the mid to late 70s, he played a lot of tunes that he often wouldn’t

remember in sessions. I would go to his house, and he didn’t have any beverage with him, and he

would just play tunes and he had a larger repertoire than he had in a session.

DS: That’s interesting.

JG: So I would sometimes pull up some of his tunes at sessions, and sometimes he wouldn’t

even remember them, and it was probably because of his state of mind. I know that Laura helped

him remember some tunes.

DS: And of course Laura introduced a lot of tunes as well.

JG: Even when the Comhaltas tours came here, I recorded pieces. I remember Vincent

Broderick came when James Kelly came, and half their repertoire was Vincent Broderick

compositions, and I remember bringing Vincent tunes to the sessions. We played one last night

with Marty. So that was also a source of tunes. In those days LPs did not come out like

waterfalls. They were one at a time. Bothy Band, now you guys, now six months later another

one.

22

DS: That’s right. That made things different, and I’ve mentioned this to people, how different it

is. We’re flooded with recordings. I get so many commercial recordings that I never listen to

them. There’s not time.

JG: No, it’s true.

DS: Back then, something would come out. I would say, for example, Jackie Daly and Kevin

Burke, “The Eavesdropper.” It would come out, and it would be on the turntable for six months.

JG: I would transcribe every single tune from that album.

DS: I wouldn’t transcribe them, I would hear them in my head, and I would know, any of those

tunes, I would know what track they are on the album. But now we’re so flooded with stuff that

it’s hard to distinguish.

JG: You’re reminding me also. I probably did it more – it’s not as if I’m boasting about this – I

did notice that when Sam and I or Laura and I came together, I was always the one, often, with

the cassette player, and I would record things. And I remember – you’ll have to help me

remember their names. Two fiddlers – young…

DS: Women?

JG: Two men…

DS: Give me a clue – where from? When?

JG: In Kerry…

DS: Older people?

JG: They were a little older than me. Who’s the accordion player you just mentioned?

DS: Jackie Daly. Jackie Daly and Seamus Creagh?

JG: There was another fellow too. It was Seamus and this other fellow. And Jackie Daly was

playing with. Then for some reason Jackie Daly stopped playing, or he had to go somewhere or

something else. It was just the two of them, and I had this gorgeous two hours of them playing

tunes after tunes after tunes.

DS: And where was that?

JG: It was somewhere, wherever Jackie Daly was…

23

DS: Down in Cork?

JG: Down in Cork it was. Or close to County Kerry. I recorded some tunes that sooner or later

became popular. And I learned them – when I went home, I learned all these tunes which I don’t

play any more. And I would try to bring them to the sessions, and some would stick. Maybe one

out of fifty would stay with us. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do more than learn new

tunes. So that was one of the sources.

DS: I think then my impression was a correct impression. And I think the fact that you wrote out

tunes and gave them to people as well, I think that was a big thing, an additional reinforcer.

JG: Unfortunately I didn’t have it together to go and put them into a big form. I now play a lot of

music with Grey Larsen in Bloomington, who’s a great flute-player – with a great connection to

Matt Molloy. But he’s very organized. As soon as he had a transcription, he sent it to Mel Bay,

which I never thought of doing, but if I’d been together I would have. I had them still written in

pencil form, never thought.

DS: There are two things I thought about the céilí band – this was by the time I came along,

because I wasn’t part of the céilí band till about 1980. The line-up then when I got involved was

you and Laura and Mary and Patty, and John Anderson would also have been playing. But,

anyhow, there were two things I think of. Well, several things, the interesting repertoire, yes.

And it became a performance repertoire, which was great. Then also there was a lot of

craftsmanship to do with putting sets together that were interesting and that were good for

dancing. There was a consciousness of making dance selections that would suit the mood of a

dance and make people respond. There was a great craftsmanship about that. And pride.

JG: I forget that, that refinement.

DS: Refinement is a good word for it as well. It was refined. But I’m also aware that it channeled

through that band and through Laura, particularly in terms of repertoire, that tunes entered into

the local scene, and some of them fell away, and some of them are still played, but I know that

that was the channel that made it happen.

The céilí band continued and the session scene continued. O’Gara’s kind of ended and we’d

session in the Mixers. We’d sessions in Caesar’s. Caesar’s went for a few years.

JG: But Mixers didn’t last.

24

DS: Mixers wasn’t too long – it was on University. What’s the time-table? Me and Patty went to

Ireland about ’83, ’84. Patty Bronson. And I think that was more or less the end of the céilí band,

round about that time. So when did you move away?

JG: I moved away in March of ’83.

DS: That was around the same period then. And you were moving to…?

JG: I moved to Ottawa. There was one summer I wanted to do something interesting, I wanted

to find a way to explore the world. In this time I only had enough money to go to Canada. So I

went to eastern Canada and hung out in Montreal and decided I’m going to learn French, so I

took this class. I was older than everybody else. It was these high school students taking French

class, young Canadians taking French class at the University of Montreal. Some young person

who was like an intern there I met, and she introduced me to some folks there, and that’s how I

met this woman named Claire who was my first wife. I met her that summer and then I went

back here, and she said, “Come back and hang out.” So I went back and we got married, which

gave me my legal permanent residence. She was going to the University of Ottawa. She was

from Quebec City but going to the University of Ottawa. Ottawa was a great music scene.

DS: So you were playing what sort of music then?

JG: Well, I was playing Irish music, and I met other folks that were interested in Irish music, but

the biggest scene there, outside of Ottawa, was the Québécois scene. I feel somehow Québécois

music has a little bit of the rhythm of old time music but has the modal style of Irish tunes. So

when I fell in love with that music and wanted to learn it and the social events were so exciting

and my wife was of course French Québécois and so she would, we would go to parties and they

would understand English but not all of them would speak it. They were fine with me. But then

there was also a regular Irish session in Ottawa and I met this fellow who was French Canadian.

He was kind of like Jean Carignan, a young version. His name was Denis Lanctot. He was

always competing with Pierre Schryer, and I always said, “He’s better than Pierre Schryer.” But I

would play music and he was a great piano player, so he influenced me too. He was younger, he

was probably seven, eight years younger than me, a very, very talented musician. His important

status pulled me into the big scene of that area, the Ottawa Valley area.

DS: You were sessioning – were you performing?

25

JG: You know what, the Comhaltas came there too one year to Ottawa. I remember going to an

after-party, and the local dancers were doing their thing, and the Comhaltas dancers would do

their thing. I was trying to remember the name of this well known teacher in the Ottawa Valley

who taught so many people how to dance in the Ottawa Valley. And I’ll remember it sometime,

or I’ll look it up. It was great. As I mentioned, I met an older fellow who was retired, and I meant

to look up the Castlederg that I went to.

DS: You were saying Athlone, were you?

JG: I think it was Athlone. You could mention a few counties now.

DS: There’s Limerick, Tipperary, Galway.

JG: No, it was in the north.

DS: It was definitely in the north? Well, Athlone isn’t in the north. There’s Donegal, Fermanagh,

Tyrone, Derry – those are the northwest.

JG: I think it was…

DS: Then moving to the eastish in the north, you’ve got Antrim and Down…

JG: I think it was more like near Tyrone. I’ll look it up some time. Yea. He was from there. He’d

been there since the 1920s, and he was into Canadian waltzes, and he’d composed all these

waltzes that did not sound Irish. His wife was French Canadian. Somebody introduced me to

him, and I would go to his apartment and we would play Irish tunes, and he said, “Jamie, this is

great – this is the real music, you know. I’m just playing Canadian music because I’m here. But

let’s play ‘The Bucks of Oranmore’ .” I would learn tunes from him.

DS: He was a good fiddler, was he?

JG: Yea, he was. Though he was in his older stage. His hands were shaking and stuff. I ended up

with a violin – the violin maker, I was trying to remember him before, was Dennis Alexander.

He’s still around down there. He sold one of his early violins to Leo Brown, and one visit later

on when I moved to Bloomington we went back and visited, and he said, “Jamie,” and he must

have seen that he would be passing away soon, “Jamie, I want you to buy my fiddle.” “Oh,

ok…” He said, “It’s for Canadian 2000. When you go home, just find a way, and you can pay me

in ten dollars a week, or however it is.” So I found a thousand bucks, sent it to him and then

26

later another thousand. And in those days it was about twelves hundred US. Anyway I ended up

with the fiddle and I felt that was my connection. He passed away within about a year after that.

DS: Were you there long in Ottawa?

JG: I was there from ‘83’ to…then my marriage didn’t work out…so I moved in ’87. I thought

about staying in Ottawa, but we were having a rough time separating, so I thought I’ll just go

back to where my mother was living, which was in Vermont, and that connected me to the

Vermont scene, and I met Sam Bartlettt and so forth. And then somehow I reconnected with Kate

MacKenzie, and she said, “Come back to Minnesota.” That’s what I did. I moved back in ’88. I

was in Vermont maybe nine months or so and then moved back here, and left in ’95.

DS: ’95 was when you moved to Bloomington?

JG: Yea.

DS: Now the period from ’88 to ’95, what do you remember about the music here in that period?

JG: Well, that’s a good question.

DS: Were you not out as much sessioning? I can’t remember.

JG: It was a low period, I think.

DS: Maybe it was just a low period.

JG: Oh, I know. I started playing more contra dances because I met Bob Walser, and he was

familiar with French Canadian, he could play piano to Québécois stuff, and I remember getting

together and playing. And Linda Breitag – I met her by accident. First I met her after my trip to

go to the University of Montreal and came back here, and I learned from this French guy, not

from Quebec, but he was there and he taught me how to do this little…

DS: The foot thing.

JG: And I remember meeting this young woman named Linda Breitag, and she said, “I’m going

to go study French in Quebec.” She was playing fiddle and I taught her how to do that. Then she

became part of the Québécois community, and I just bumped into her, and she sounded more

Québécois than I could ever imagine. She returned here. She actually did a graduate program at

Indiana University too, so people knew her there – that was my connection. That was the music

27

scene I was connected to more my second visit, even though I of course went to sessions – I

can’t remember where the sessions were in that era.

DS: It’s kind of funny, with all these interviews, and now I’m thinking of that era, and I’m

thinking, well, what was going on?

JG: Then I was trying to revive my old time music scene.

DS: What about Walking on Air?

JG: I think Walking on Air was pre-Ottawa days, and a good strong way for me to remember it

is when you composed that tune “Jamie’s Farewell”, and you did that in ’83, and you said,

“Here’s a tune to take away with you,” and that was my Walking on Air era.

DS: So the Walking on Air era was the early ‘80s?

JG: Yea.

DS: So that means that that was the era of McGovern’s too?

JG: Yea.

DS: The gigs in McGovern’s were the early ‘80s, were they?

JG: Yea. I guess so.

DS: Those were nice gigs.

JG: On West 7th Street. But it seems that that picked up when I was gone, and I remember

coming back and doing a few gigs there in the early ‘90s. In those days too I was well connected

to the Prairie Home Companion. I didn’t go perform, of course, but my partner did. My mind

was distracted by a lot of different styles of music.

DS: It is a pattern that’s different in your musical career now compared to other people that I’ve

been talking to, that you got very deeply into other styles in addition to Irish and mastered them.

JG: Well somewhat.

DS: In addition to being an Irish fiddler now, you’re presently very much an old time fiddler too.

JG: The way that happened, of course, my friend Sam Bartlett who I met in 1985, when I was

still a resident of Ottawa… There was a woman below our apartment when I was living in

Ottawa with my wife. She was from Vermont, she’d married a fellow from Ottawa, and she said

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her dad was from Burlington, Vermont, and was a contra dancer, and they needed some

musicians on a trip to Europe. He came and visited his daughter and learned I played fiddle, and

he said, “Oh, you should come.” So I think that year I connected with them and I went down

there – I was still a resident of Ottawa. In fact, I remember having to get visiting permits from all

the countries, like the Czech embassy, for all this. So I went to Europe with them, and that also

got me more into the contra dance scene because I had to play contra dance music.

DS: In the period I was in New England, which was 2000 to 2005, and I went to quite a few

contra dances and knew the contra dance musicians…

JG: Did you ever play contra dances?

DS: Not really. I’ve played at contra dances at festivals over the years and one or two here, but I

didn’t get involved too much. I was just going to say a lot of the music was Irish music

definitely.

JG: I remember doing contra dances with visiting Tim Britton, and we’d just play Irish tunes.

Tamara would call them. Could I remember in chronological order what I played from ’88 to

’95? I suppose I was more involved in various communities. I remember them asking me to

teach some old time music, and I didn’t really have a good technique of it, but the old time music

was still a kind of a budding scene.

DS: Here?

JG: Yea. And when I left, just like the Irish music scene expanded, so did the old time music

scene.

DS: It definitely goes in waves, and I felt that, looking back, the time I moved to New England

for five years, the Irish sessions that I remember were back in O’Gara’s in the big room with the

big windows, and there were good musicians coming out to them, but I felt that it wasn’t the

greatest era for sessions in terms of liveliness and depth and so on at that particular era. Then

when I came back in 2005, it was just really great again.. It’s interesting the business of your

different genres because it raises an issue which I would also answer myself, having raised it.

You know this business of people playing different genres? In general, I don’t know whether it’s

a conservative fuddyduddism of Irish people, but we’re less eclectic, at least people of my era.

We weren’t eclectic. Eclecticism wasn’t a great thing, and when you come to the States, it’s very

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eclectic. And it’s natural because you have so many cultures all around. There’s a slight

suspicion of eclecticism, let’s say, and also probably a belief that if you take Irish music, for

example, that it’s so deep and wide, you’ve more than enough on your hands in Irish music.

(laughs) But then another thing is you sense the danger that one style may corrupt the other style.

I know from Tara and Dermy Diamond, who are wonderful Irish players of course, and Dermy

loves old time – so is this affecting his Irish playing?

JG: Well, if it is, it’s in a very subtle way.

DS: But that would be an example of the issue. But all that I’m going to say is that playing with

you, particularly in depth the last couple of days, …

JG: Can you hear some old time…?

DS: No, if any of these other things have any effect at all, they haven’t contaminated your Irish

playing at all, and if anything, they’ve enriched it. But not by you introducing techniques from

other things. There’s just such a breadth and depth of rhythm and phrasing and notes and all

interacting, it’s 100% great traditional playing, but in some amazing way I feel probably your in-

depth ventures into the other things have actually enriched your Irish.

JG: Well, there’s one little thing I wanted to add towards the end of my Minnesota days was,

first of all when I did gigs with Paddy in McGurk’s…

DS: When was that then?

JG: That was ’91-’92, I think. One time we did a gig, and this guy from Saint Louis came and he

loves Irish music, but he was an old time music player, and I said, “Oh, I like to hear old time,”

and he brought me this cassette of these old players. It inspired me – “Oh, I should learn this old

time music.”

DS: That was Chirps? Was that Chirps, because he used to come to McGurk’s?

JG: No, I hadn’t met Chirps yet. It was a guy who knew the fiddle player that I eventually got to

know, Bruce Green. But anyway that inspired me, and I remember playing this cassette for

Paddy and saying this is American old time, southern, and he would go, “Hm, ok.” (laughter)

“It’s not something I like.” That was before I ever thought… The reason I mentioned Sam

Bartlett also – he moved to Bloomington also because he fell in love with a young woman down

there named Abby Ladin. He came up to visit with me and do a CD together. He was talking on

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the phone once when I lived on Desnoyer – on the phone with this company that he worked

called Rhythm in Shoes, and he said, “Marty Somberg can’t make it. We need an Irish fiddle

player for this gig, for our next tour,” and Sam’s going, “Yea, I don’t know who to suggest,” and

he looks over at me and goes, “Oh, wait a minute,” (laughter) “I’ve got this friend and I just did a

recording with him, he plays Irish music.” And this guy named Rick Good said, “Mmm, I’ve got

to hear him.” Sam said, “Just trust me, he’s good.” “Ok, whatever, we need him.” That was my

first connection to their scene and then I met my future wife.

DS: And that’s the early ‘90s?

JG: Yes. It was ’93 or ’94.

DS: Rhythm in Shoes – just for the benefit of people who would be listening to this – was music,

and you had these fantastic clogger-based dancers.

JG: Yea, they hired me because they needed me to play Irish music, and that’s when I told that

quick story of Frank Hall saying, “If you want to stick with this gig, you’re going to have to

learn old time music.” I said, “Well, I like it.” And he said, “Well, let me show you some

things.” He didn’t give me lessons, he just said, “You want to do this more than that.” That kind

of thing. Then I got into it because it was a strong old time scene. But ironically there were also

at least ten folks playing Irish music in Bloomington that were either graduate students – till they

kind of dissipated… Unfortunately now our Irish scene is just a handful of folks.

DS: When you play your old time style, do you almost always use standard tuning? You were

saying that you have another fiddle that you tune to A.

JG: I’ll do both. Last night, if it’s solo fiddle, I played in D, and I tuned my G string up to D, so

it gives more resonance to it. She’d prefer if it’s an A tune and it’s a performance she wants me

to play in an open tuning. It does have a stylistic effect. But when we do gigs in Saint Louis,

there’s a whole old time scene there, and they want to stick to the Missouri style of fiddling,

which didn’t change their tunings. They play tunes in A in standard tuning.

DS: We were talking about great fiddlers that you become obsessed by. One guy worth being

obsessed by is Patrick Kelly. Did you listen to Patrick Kelly much?

JG: Yea, I love him. In fact he played in A.

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DS: Exactly – I was going to ask you – I think I asked James Kelly this too – Patrick Kelly used

A tuning, which was AEAE, and he’s the most famous person in Irish music who used a tuning.

His “Foxhunter’s”, which James recorded…

JG: I learned to play it in that key, because we used to play it here in G.

DS: That’s an association – everybody knew Patrick Kelly’s “Foxhunter’s”, and it was in A and

he used A tuning, but did he use a lot of that A tuning, Patrick Kelly? Can you tell from listening

to him?

JG: Well, I have a Séamus Mac Mathúna interview with him. Unfortunately it was on cassette,

and I can no longer understand the conversation. But one thing I would like to add is – and I’m

trying to remember where I got these recordings – probably at whatever the archives are at

Comhaltas in the south part of Dublin, but I have recordings of Denis Murphy playing at least

one or two medleys of reels in open A tuning.

DS: I never heard of that.

JG: Yea. In open A tuning, and so it made me believe – I have no way to prove this – that the

open A tuning was more common is different styles of – whether it was in Ireland or in

Scandinavia or wherever, and it just stuck here and stayed here. Obviously in Ireland when the

flute came in or the accordion, it didn’t work out for a fiddle to stay in A tuning, so maybe it was

in areas where it was just fiddles.

DS: It must have had a huge effect. There’s a theory – and I don’t know if one should attach any

importance to it or any credence to it at all – but the line of transmission in that Sliabh Luachra

music goes back to Pádraig O’Keeffe, and Pádraig O’Keeffe got a lot of his music from Cal

Callaghan, and Cal Callaghan lived in the States and played fiddle. So one theory is an old time

influence on Sliabh Luachra music came from him.

JG: I wonder where Cal Callaghan lived.

DS: And I can’t remember. Maybe Paddy O’Brien might know this or might have it written

somewhere. But that’s an interesting idea anyhow.

JG: It’s funny, because I had heard, or I thought, the story was that Pádraig O’Keeffe lived here.

DS: I never heard that, though it’s possible.

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JG: Though I’ve heard that theory, not necessarily old time, but that Pádraig O’Keeffe

developed that Sliabh Luachra style of polkas, but I don’t know if that’s true or not. Someone

said, maybe it was Tim Britton, “You know that that style was developed by Pádraig O’Keeffe,”

that backbeat style.

DS: He definitely is a huge influence, and then he names Cal Callaghan. And then also the polka

and slide thing came in quite late obviously as well.

JG: One more thing. This was when I was in Bloomington. Brad Leftwich, who’s a great old

time fiddle player who lives there, and he had been asked by, what’s the best known Québécois

band that… I can’t remember…

DS: La Bottine?

JG: The youngest fiddle player now with them wanted to come down to Bloomington to learn

some old time fiddle from Brad, and I remember meeting him at the party and he told me – the

fiddle player, I can’t remember his name – “I’m the first Québécois fiddler to learn old time

music,” and I said, ‘Well, can we just play some Québécois music?” and he said, “Sure.” So I

started playing, and he said, “Oh, you sound like an Irish player playing Québécois.” “Really?”

Sometimes people say I sound like a Québécois playing Irish music. (laughter) That’s the end –

that’s the story!

[END JAMIE GANS PART 03—filename: A1012c_EML_mmtc]