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Anticipated duet recording of flute player Mike Rafferty and protégée Willie Kelly

By
PAUL KEATING,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Friday, May 15, 2009, 5:08 PM
Updated Thursday, July 23, 2009, 5:48 PM

 

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Willie Kelly, Mike Rafferty and Donal Clancy
Willie Kelly, Mike Rafferty and Donal Clancy
Photo by Eddie Mintel

“The new broom sweeps clean but the old one knows the corners.”

The Irish maxim is one of those great expressions declaring that with age comes wisdom and experience, and there are times when you simply have to sit back and admire people who hold fast to principles that may not flow with the current trends. 

Even in the world of traditional Irish music where musicians always draw from the past, then many musicians take it in fast forward mode simply because they can or think that speed is what the listeners desire in their playing. 

Along comes the widely anticipated duet recording of the venerable Mike Rafferty and one of his favorite protégées, the younger Willie Kelly originally from the Bronx taking its title from that axiom the new broom, and we find ourselves again resting comfortably by the hearth listening to that fireside music, unhurried and time blissfully on our side.

Flute player Rafferty hails from Ballinakill in East Galway. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1948 and today is a very young 82 in reasonably good health. Judging by his enthusiasm and ability to hold court in a session of music or storytelling, his faculties are all still very acute.   

He has been a significant influence on many musicians of all generations in America and a source of tunes from the East Galway/Clare region where the music held fast and deep, producing so many great traditional musicians down through the years. 

The number of younger musicians who hold him as a treasured source and friend speaks to his sincerity and genuine belief that traditional music has it owns charms and merits, and not to be deluded or contaminated by outside forces.

Fiddler Kelly’s early musical training was with the legendary Martin Mulvihill from Glynn, Co. Limerick, whose school of music turned out an incredible number of very fine and successful traditional musicians in the American diaspora, in that very first wave in the seventies.

As his own musical tastes developed, Kelly eventually gravitated to the music of his mentor, Rafferty, whom Mulvhill had introduced him to back in 1982, and also the slow lyrical style of East Galway and Clare, as well as lovely dance music of the Tulla Ceili Band that featured P.J. Hayes, Paddy Canny and Peadar O’Loughlin, who were very strong influences on him as well. 

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