University Daily Kansan, August 19, 1962
Page 3
Photo by JILL M. YATES
Three of the six musicians who make up the band Scartaglen perform traditional Irish music for a live broadcast at the KANU radio station studio. Pictured from left to right are Dave Brown, Dave Agee and Michael Dugger, all of Kansas City.
Celtic music finding its spot by way of K.C. radio show
By ANDREW deVALPINE
Staff Reporter
Saturday afternoons and Sunday evening, if a person knows where to turn on his radio dial, he can treat himself to a cornucopia of vibrant and evocative music from the British Isles and Europe.
The show offering such music is called "Ballads, Bards and Bagpires." It airs at 3 p.m. on Saturdays on KCUR-FM and 10:30 p.m. on Sundays on KCUR-FM. Its hosts are Dave Brown and Gerald Trimble, North Kansas City, Mo.
"Ballads, Bards and Bagpiples," a weekly, hour-long look at traditional music of the British Isles, is the only program in the United States to offer a detailed look at traditional Celtic music. Brown said.
"FROM TIME TO time local stations would devote some time to a special program of it, but there has been no cohesive attempt at reviewing and looking at the music comprehensively." Brown said.
"And because we are both musicians, it gives us more insight into the music."
Tremble plays the cittern, guitar and boquitk, and Brown plays the bass.
Being the only syndicated folk music show in the country, "Ballads, Bards and Baggipes" has brought attention to Kansas City.
John Heuertz, co-direct of "The Flint Hills Special" on KANU Sunday evenings, said Kansas City had gained a new record for Celtic music because of the show.
"The impression I've got from taking with people from around the coun-
Irish folk music to some university students. Brown said.
"At that point, about the extent of Gerald's experience was with the Clancy brothers," he said.
THE STUDENTS LAUGHED, Brown said, and took Gerald to some pubs to show him what the music was really about.
The Forest Hill Bar, renowned as a session bar where musicians would play.
There Trimble was exposed to a tradition as it had existed at the bar for the past 35 years, a tradition of hard-driving reams and jigs. Brown said.
From that point onward, Trimble's life has been one of traveling to collect Celtic folk music and records, playing in sessions and recording albums, one to be released in January under his own name.
For Dave, initiation was more second-hand, but his interest was no less
From music recorded by the Bothy Band and the Chieftains, two Irish groups, he stumbled on to the morris chant of England, and English folk music.
Morris dance is a ceremonial dance, the舞者 said, which the story is acted out by the performers.
English folk music, he said, is quite different from Irish and Scottish folk music. "It's more subtle, more restrained."
Trimble and Brown now have 250 to 300 albums between them devolved al-
ways.
Yearly one of them travels to Great Britain to do interviews with traditional players for the show, to go from pub to pub to play and to collect records.
FINDING CELTIC MUSIC in this
"... Folk music is an aurally transmitted music which nobody can remember who the hell wrote it . . .."
said Dave Brown, folk musician.
try is that Dave and Gerald have pu-
kansas City on the map," Heurtz said.
INITIALLY, THE STATION gave them a half-hour for a trial run. Brown
"The station manager asked us if we had enough material to keep the show going. Three years later we haven't touched what we have," he said.
When the show was first offered at no charge to the receiving station, 60 staff members were on hand.
In April 1980, National Public Radio launched a satellite system that enabled the station to transmit the show to 260 stations at a low cost, Brown said.
After three months, however, Trimble and Brown had to start charging stations for the program because KCUR would no longer pay production costs. At that point the show lost half of the stations. Brown said.
One station in Vermont that had dropped the show for financial reasons picked it up again after receiving a message of nasty letters complaining, he said.
NOW 25 STATIONS, from Sitka,
Alaska, to Philadelphia, Pa., carry the
show. Brown said.
"Folk music," he said, "is an aurally transmitted music which nobody can remember who the hell wrote it."
The term "folk music" covers an amorphous spectrum, but for Dave Berry it refers to the songwriting.
Irish, British and Scottish folk music appeal to Americans because, to a large extent, our American heritage is European heritage. Brown said.
"There is so much variety within the music, lips, reels, salsas and slow dance."
Groups such as the Bothy Band, De Dannan, Kentigern and many others started using their numbers to produce counter-rhythms and melodies that brought them close to what Bach did centuries ago. Brown said.
Trimble and Brown came to Celtic music by two separate routes.
"But I suppose an ass-kickin' reel is what will turn a person on to the mu-
While in Edinburgh, Scotland, Trimble was displaying his knowledge of
country has been a problem, primarily because of the unavailability of records, said Cheryl White, owner of Classics Books. Mr. Jones, 401 Pennsylvania, Kansas City, Mo.
Her store has become the repository for traditional British Isles music in Kansas City since "Ballads, Bards and Bagpipes" hit the airwaves.
"The original musicians didn't pay attention to the harmonics because they were inherent in the music," Brown said.
"When our customers come here they expect to hear classical music," White said. "But the folk music is the kind we thought we could play here, an out-of-the-ordinary sound that a classical listener might enjoy."
She said that if one travelled far enough back into the history of classical music, the Renaissance era, then one would have had an interesting between the folk and classical idioms.
But many of her customers never set foot in the store.
"A good chunk of what we do is mail-order," she said. And as the show's popularity has grown, so has her mail-order business.
THE DECISION TO carry Celtic music required considerable thought, because the only music the store carried in the past was classical.
A result was a sophistication of the music, which was originally played by itinerant 'harpers who roamed the countryside in search of a patron or a dance.
"We're getting letters from people across the country as a source of this information."
A music that is difficult to obtain on records is even more difficult to hear live. It just isn't feasible for a traditional musician to come to the United States because there are not enough jobs, Brown said.
With ensemble playing, the diversity of the instruments playing together brought out the harmony, making the music more exciting, he said.
BROWN AND TRIMBLE each have said they would like to see a network develop through which a musician from overseas could circulate.
The energy level of a live performance is so high, Brown said, "that you haven't heard the music until you've heard it live."
CONCOMITANT WITH THE rise of ensemble playing and improved communications was the decline of regional styles, Brown said. They still exist, but they are not as pronounced or meaningful as they once were, he said.
MUCH OF THE excitement in live performances is in assemble playing done by many traditional groups. Brown said.
Traditionally, the various counties of Ireland had their own idiosyncrasies in how the music was played and to some extent still do. For example, the fiddle playing of Sligo County is lyrical, with long sweeps of the bow across the strings and intricate flourishes done by the fingers, Brown said.
The fiddle playing of Donegal County, on the other hand, is punctuated by short, choppy strokes of the bow, with flourishes done by the bow, he said.
THESE DIFFERENCES in style throughout Ireland were a result of the lack of communication between regions.
In Dublin, where musicians from across the country have gravitated to participate in pub sessions, a more unifying experience has been emerging. Brown said.
"In Dublin, you see an amalgamation of all the styles because it is the center."
IN ENLAND, the music has been heavily influenced by the Irish ass-
    ament.
"The music is more directed and heavily influenced by the pace and leaps that occur in morris dancing," he said.
"You will find that all traditional music is rooted in dance.
Conversely, English song has exercised a great deal of influence on Irish music.
"There was a time when the English and the Irish lived peacefully side by side on the island," Brown said. During the Irish adopted the English folk song,
Brown and Trimble's interest in Celtic folk music has led them beyond the islands and onto the European continent.
The spectrum of folk music is so wide and deep, Brown said, that he and Triangle were led by the Celtic tradition to Brittany in France.
From Breton wine the trail continued on to the French troubadour tradition, some German groups and Swedish groups fit into the British isles framework.
LEADING THEM further south is what Dave considers the strongest thread of all connecting the traditional coasts to Isles with the continent: the bannie.
"It is Celtic in origin, and is found on the steppes of Russia, as far north as Scotland and as far south as Rumania and Italy," he said.
John McBride, co-host of "The Flint Hills Special," said the hippie had even extended its influence to America. Evidence of that is found in Appalachian and bluegrass music, he said.
IMITATIONS OF THE drones on bagpipes were preserved in the melodies of Appalachian folk music and reproduced on the fiddle, Bride said.
Although Brown said that "Barnard Bards and Bagpipes" had helped to generate interest in the music, he refused to take credit for its appeal.
"The diversity of the music is what is fascinating," he said. "The music was so different."
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