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celticheartbeat in # • 2 years ago

Oh my , where do I even start...

First of all I damn near played this exact song for the moonshine theme but it wasn't Bob Dylan's version that inspired it , it was this version by The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.

A young Bob Dylan ,in his first years in Greenwich village was a regular at all of the Clancy brothers concerts. Liam Clancy and Bob were very close friends .A lot of Bobs first songs were inspired by the songs he heard the Clancy's and Tommy Makem sing. I would bet Bob got this one from the Clancy's, it has all the hallmarks of a young Dylan probably in his late teenage years hearing a Clanys bros song and reworking it.

The most famous example of this is Brennan on The Moor a traditional old Irish folk tune which Bob turned into a great little song called Ramblin Gamblin Willie.

Ireland also has a very long tradition of brewing illegal alcohol although they call it Poitín or Mountain dew, I would even go so far as to suggest Irish immigrants brought the art of moonshine over to America in the 1800s.

Your storytelling at the beginning of your video is something I do myself , Im a student of folk music and a natural born storyteller :).I guess we are kindred spirts here.

Your guitar playing is outstanding, I hope one day I can sound half as good :).You even have the harmonica and the neck brace going beautifully , what a treat for our ears.

Im supper happy to see this as your first entry to Hive open mic , Im certianly excited to see what you bring for future themes.

@cabelindsay is likely gonna be blown away with this first entry and I'm sure he is as excited to have you be part of the community as I am.

P.S ...I just realised both of us played our songs capoed on the 7th fret...Lucky number 7 ... I'll drink to that! :).

2 years ago in # by celticheartbeat

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jasperdick 2 years ago

I've watched the Clancy Brothers version of "Moonshiner" and then happened to watch their version of "Wild Rover" a bit later today... I think Bob Dylan meshed lines of both together and managed to make the tone a lot more sad than jovial! The Clancy Brothers seem to be celebrating their moonshining ways! Hahaha!

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celticheartbeat 2 years ago

Funny you say that ,I have spent the morning here mashing up a version of The Wild Rover that takes inspiration from The Clancy's and Lankum Dublin . I've even added Bob Dylan's line "The world is a bottle and life is a dram but when the bottle is empty it aint worth a damn."

Hold on a few minutes ill record what I came up with...
https://hive.blog/hive-193816/@celticheartbeat/vpjdblck

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jasperdick 2 years ago

Hello! Thank you for all your compliments! I liked your song, and had never heard it before, so I'm glad you chose it!

The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem - that rings a bell! Oh yes, my parents have a copy of the Bob Dylan documentary movie "No Direction Home" which is wonderful and describes a lot of the music scene that Bob Dylan arrived into in Greenwhich Village. What a time to be alive - do you think more people had an appetite for folk/blues, and a greater attention span for new songs in those days, or do you think that we look back with rose-coloured glasses, and most people were just listening to "Top of the Pops" in a similar way to today?

Here's the Clancy brothers song they featured on that documentary! Try and find it if you can?

Yes, I'm already trying to think of ideas for next week's theme... I will have to record it early as I have to travel for work next week!

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celticheartbeat 2 years ago

Yeah I have seen the documentary "No Direction Home" it was directed by Martin Scorsese and was one of the things that made me start buying Bob Dylan CDs back in 2005 in a time before Youtube and Spotify when we had to physically buy music :)

Yeah Greenwich village in the early 60s must have been a wonderful scene to be apart of. The Clanys left Ireland in the late 1950s I believe , they had originally planned to be actors and to put on plays in New York .When that didn't work out they decided to give folk music a try ,their thinking was something along the lines of "we'll give it 6 months and if it doesn't work we have no choice but to head back to Ireland"

Before that 6 months period was over they made a appearance on the Ed Sullivan show and quickly became overnight superstars. Here are a couple of songs from the show.

There is a wonderful documentary about their story which I believe was filmed in the late 80s

The Clanys and Makem along with the Dubliners and Planxty were huge sources of inspiration for me.Back in 2019 I was doing my first year of musical college , we had a module called musical appreciation where we had to pick 2 genres of music to study for around 4 months before giving a power point presentation on each of them.

I choose to study folk music and celtic music which meant every Friday at the college I got to spend hours watching documentaries and listening to old folk songs, I learned dozens of songs and stories that will stay with me for a life time :).

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