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PAUL KEATING

Cathie Ryan brings "Danny Boy" to Life

By
Paul Keating

Published Wednesday, November 4, 2009, 3:08 PM
Updated Wednesday, November 4, 2009, 3:08 PM

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Cathie Ryan brings "Danny Boy" to Life | Entertainment in Ireland and Around the World | IrishCentral




Cathie Ryan

Back in 2008 a midtown pub garnered more than its share of notoriety for banning the singing of “Danny Boy,” the melancholy song penned to the Londonderry Air.   

I don’t know if that PR stunt warranted a new chapter in a revised version of Malachy McCourt’s tome “Danny Boy: The Beloved Ballad,” but it certainly cast light on a song that has long created many a row for the emotional pangs and Irish angst it sets in motion whenever someone sings it, especially around St. Patrick’s Day. 

Hearing it last Saturday evening as the closing encore by songstress Cathie Ryan at the Irish Arts Center, however, was a thing of beauty and in the right place at the right time, its simple eloquence and sentiment can steal your heart away.

Coming at the end of a two night stand at the familiar Hell’s Kitchen home for the Irish since the mid-1970s with aspirations for growing bigger, the Cathie Ryan Band did their bid to help bring that about and to help encourage its regular educational activities.

Back in those days, and for many years after, the center was a “Danny-Boy free-zone” also, mostly in strong reaction to those who thought it was the be-all and end-all of Irish music, to be sung anywhere and everywhere around St. Patrick’s Day for the once a year Irish crowd.   The nascent Irish Arts Center was planting seeds that would be nurturing the Irish arts year round without attaching itself to an anthem that was as much a sobriety test as it was a song that touched the heart and soul in more liquid environs. 

But in the voice of gifted singer like Ryan who received personal encouragement to sing the lonesome ballad one night at a Waldorf Astoria banquet by Liam Neeson, it takes on a new meaning devoid of mawkish sentimentality.  

You could hear a pin drop in the center’s Donaghy Theatre while the audience hung on every familiar note and verse though taken by surprise at the selection for her closing number.

The irony of hearing “Danny Boy” sung in the present day Irish Arts Center was a fleeting notion that gave way to a more prevailing impression that the evening had made on me.

I have seen and heard Ryan perform in a number of places and with varying accompanying casts over the year, but I don’t think that I ever heard her sing better or more soulfully, and I think the setting had something to do with that.

The quiet hush in the room was a testament to the spell she was weaving this Halloween night whether or not it was witches brew steaming from her little thermos bottle on stage.  Even though it has been five years since her last recording, her material still has great power.

Especially for those who are hearing Ryan for the first time, her crystal clear singing offers just a touch of heartbreak for the common touch. 

Like any good folk singer, she has a knack for knowing what songs are honest for her and she is very capable of producing her own songs when she has something to convey as well.  She moved easily from songs like John Spillane’s “Wildflowers,” the country song “Rough and Rocky,” the Irish lullaby “Dance the Baby,” Rick Kemp’s “Somewhere Along the Road” and Alan Bell’s “Here’s to You.” 

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Cathie Ryan brings "Danny Boy" to Life | Entertainment in Ireland and Around the World | IrishCentral


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