Sharon Shannon told David Hennessy about her forthcoming dates at The Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith, her tribute show to Shane MacGowan and playing The Mean Fiddler at the age of 14.
Sharon Shannon has been at the forefront of Irish music for more than thirty years and has played with everyone from the Waterboys to Bono and of course she featured not only on Steve Earle’s original Galway Girl but also on Mundy’s phenomenally popular cover.
Undoubtedly one of the biggest names in Irish traditional music, she comes to The Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith for three shows this month.
She will also be bringing her tribute show to Shane MacGowan- featuring big names such as Imelda May, Liam Ó Maonlaí, Camille O’Sullivan, Cait O’Riordan and Mundy- to the UK before the end of the year.
Sharon’s three nights at the ICC will mark a return to that venue having played three nights there last year, and a swift return to London having played The Wolfe Tones’ big show at Finsbury Park in July.
Are you looking forward to coming back to the ICC?
“It’s great, I love coming to London and it’s great that we’ll be there three nights in a row.
“That’s Jim Murray on the guitar, fantastic guitar player, ‘Gerry Banjo’ and myself.
“I have a new album as well, a brand new album called Now.”
Yes, of course. I was wondering, is Now your 20th album?
“It might be.
“It would be the 13th or 14th studio album but then there was a lot of other albums as well, we put together compilations, live albums and stuff like that over the years.
“It might be the 20th, I don’t know.
“I’m not sure what the count is of the whole lot of them together.”
I guess it could be hard to keep track alright. The new album has some special guests. A Barrack Obama speech features on the track Greenroots and then you have The Scratch on there too….
“I do.
“They’re fantastic. They’re absolutely incredible, phenomenal musicians, and really wild craic on stage.
“I love their music and I love the four lads themselves as well, so great friends with them.
“It was only fitting to get them involved somehow.
“I had done a good few appearances with them on their shows as well so it was great that they were on for doing that tune, The Diddley Doo, with me on my album.
“It was incredible how popular that particular tune became with people of all ages looking for that tune at our gigs.
“I had a show at one stage where there were these four small little girls.
“They were only somewhere in the ages between seven and nine, with signs, A4 sheets of paper, holding them up for me to read, ‘Can you play the Diddley Doo please?’
“I got the little girls up on stage singing the Diddley Doo, gave them the microphone and everything, was really funny.”
I bet there’s one song you can’t get away without playing at any show you do and that’s Galway Girl…
“Oh God, yeah. Everyone loves that one.
“It’s a great one at the gigs.
“People love it and everyone just goes wild when they hear it.
“I’ve no problem doing it at all because people love it so much.
“That’s what we’re there for, to give people what they want.”
Of course you played on the original with Steve Earle and the later cover by Mundy, did you know what a good song it was going to be for you from the very start?
“Not a hope. No, not a clue.
“And even when we did release it first, it wasn’t an immediate hit at all by any means.
“It was a very slow burner.
“It was a good few years, maybe five or six years later when Mundy and myself did it at a live radio show.
“It was for Tom Dunne from Something Happens.
“He loved it and he got a huge response to it.
“Then Tom started playing it every day, it was Today FM at the time.
“Ray Darcy started playing it every day and so huge thanks to Tom Dunne and Ray Darcy for giving it so much airplay.
“Thanks to them, the whole thing took off.
“And then loads of other things happened then with the song, loads of really lucky breaks.
“It was selected to be the music for a Bulmers ad in Ireland so that was great exposure for it.
“And then it was on a Hollywood movie also, PS I Love You. That was a huge thing for it also.”
And that became iconic then. Speaking of Mundy he is one of those joining you for those special concerts paying tribute to Shane McGowan, isn’t he?
“He’s just mighty and we’re the best of buddies.
“I could go to the moon with Mundy and still have a great time.”
Tell us about the Shane MacGowan tributes shows you have been doing. I’d say they’re very emotional, are they?
“They’re amazing, absolutely fantastic. Really, really fantastic. But very emotional is the right word: People in the audience crying, people on stage crying.
“It’s something else alright.
“It’s a lovely thing to be involved in.”
It must be great to pay tribute to him. Shane is gone but he’ll never be forgotten..
“It’s very exciting, yeah.
“The show, I presume you know who’s in it: Imelda May, Liam Ó Maonlaí, Mundy, Camille O’Sullivan, Cait O’Riordan, and then in the band, we have the one and only Gerry O’Connor- ‘Gerry Banjo’, and I think Richie Buckley the sax player, is doing a lot of those gigs as well.
“It’s a great band and great guests.
“It’s really exciting.
“It’s 85% all Shane’s music and then the rest is lively tunes by the band, tunes by ourselves.”
Shane sang with you for many years, didn’t he?
“He did, we toured at Christmas time with Shane for about seven years in a row.”
What was he like?
“Lovely, really nice.
“He was partying a lot.
“We were all trying to keep up with him as well. That wasn’t easy.”
Do you have a particular highlight of all the great things you have done in your career?
“There are loads, I wouldn’t know where to start or to finish.
“I suppose when I was 22 or 23, there was a full Late Late Show dedicated to me, that was amazing.
“Then joining The Waterboys, actually joining The Waterboys was before that.
“Then my own album being such a huge success.
“Then the Woman’s Heart thing being such an incredible success.
“It’s hard to kind of pinpoint one or other as being a better highlight than the other.
“Playing all these amazing shows with The Waterboys as well.
“I got to work with Christy Moore as well which was really fantastic and then, of course, doing the shows with Shane MacGowan all those years as well, that was really great as well.
“I feel really honoured to have been able to share the stage with such an absolute legend and he’ll never be forgotten.
“He’ll go down in history, that’s for sure.”
You worked with someone else that we sadly lost year and that is Sinéad O’Connor..
“Yeah, another highlight getting to work with Sinéad. An honour to share the stage with her and to record with her and to get to hang out with her every now and then.
“An absolute amazing, incredible singer. The voice of gold, amazing.
“When she sang, she just meant every word.
“She just really got into the song.
“And when you listen to her, she brings you into the song.”
We lost so many last year. Another was your good friend Séamus Begley…
“Oh my God, huge loss, absolutely huge.
“I have a tune dedicated to Séamus.
“I’m really happy with it. Really, really proud of it.
“I tried to make it majestic sounding like the man himself.
“And poor Christy Dignam as well, of course.
“I was a fan, an amazing singer.”
Another that we lost last year was Seán Keane of The Chieftains, another band you did a lot with…
“Yeah, and poor old Paddy Moloney (only a few years ago).
“They’re a huge loss.
“An absolute huge loss.”
The Chieftains broke down barriers, didn’t they paving the way for people like you..
“Oh, they opened the door for us all big time.
“The Chieftains, the Pogues, the Dubliners and all, what they did for Irish music is absolutely huge.
“And for ballads and all these old songs that my father used to sing.
“My father sang all these songs that you would think that nobody gave a flying feck about, now the Mary Wallopers are digging up all these mad old songs that you would think no one had any interest in.
“The Mary Wallopers are doing all these songs now and it’s brilliant to hear them all being revived.
“I was asked to play with the Mary Wallopers at a show in Galway this year with 1,000 people there, all young ones going absolutely crazy to these old songs.
“And they knew all the words, and all these young fellas going absolutely mad dancing to these mad old songs.
“It’s just brilliant to see the revival.”
That’s the spirit of Shane McGowan really, isn’t it? What he did was breathe new life into music that could have been lost..
“Yeah, absolutely, and the Dubliners as well, of course. And the Wolfe Tones, all of that becoming massively popular again.
“All of a sudden, there’s a real interest, massive interest in the old ballads again.”
We had you over for the big St Patrick’s Day concert in Trafalgar Square last year as well.
“Yeah, that’s right. That was great. There was some kind of a big rugby match on, I remember we were watching it on our phones.”
You had the rugby jersey on that day, I remember. You used to not be into the rugby one time, but you must be into it now. Is that down to Robbie Henshaw (Irish rugby player who also comes from a family of musicians who Sharon has played with)? “It is, yeah but I still don’t understand it.
“I don’t have a clue really.
“I was only wearing the jersey to support our own gang.”
You have to support your own, were you supporting Clare’s hurlers this year?
“I was watching but I’m not a sporty person really at all.
“I don’t really follow it.
“My sporty friends are disgusted,” she laughs. “It’s like religion to them.
“I was actually doing a festival gig the evening of that match and I was getting ready.
“It was an unusual gig for me because it was the Shane MacGowan tribute show gig that I was preparing for, so there was an awful lot to learn for that and it was one of the first ones that we did so I was trying to put all my notes in order and everything and watch the match at the same time.”
Of course you have played St Patrick’s gigs all over the world. I’d say there’s very special moments when you get to have St Patrick’s Day somewhere outside of Ireland..
“That’s right, I was in Melbourne this year.
“It was great, absolutely great: Huge Irish music scene in Melbourne and Sydney, massive. All the young ones.
“My sister, 30 years ago, lived in Sydney and she plays tunes same as me but there was hardly any musicians over there doing the same thing as her.
“But these days my nephew is over there and every single person that’s in the Irish pub are all young, all brilliant musicians playing tunes so it’s a very different music scene now than it was 30 years ago.
“It’s like going to the Willie Clancy week or something there’s so many young musicians over there.”
You played the Galtymore many times over the years, did you ever play The Mean Fiddler?
“I was there. The first time I ever came to London I was 14 and we played in the Mean Fiddler.
“I came over with a band called Disirt Tola. There was a band of my family, the four of us, and lots of great young musicians from Clare were in this band, and a few from Dublin as well.
“A man called Gearoid O’hAllmhurain from Cahercalla in Ennis formed the band.
“We did loads of stuff.
“We went to England two or three times and we did a few festivals in Europe.
“We were in America twice, then I did a Comhaltas tour.
“I was 16 when I did the first Comhaltas tour and I did England and America.”
Sounds brilliant. You must have known it was music for you then..
“I didn’t really because there was a lot of pressure on in school to decide what you want to do for a living and all this kind of stuff.
“And dare not you mention music.
“It didn’t even enter my head anyway that I could do music or be a professional musician, I would have been hung drawn and quartered if I mentioned something like that in school or at home,” she laughs.
Once again are you looking forward to coming over to the ICC in Hammersmith?
“Yes, with fantastic Gerry Banjo, the one and only. He’s amazing on the banjo.
“I love playing with Gerry, and I love playing with Jim.
“Jim is a lovely singer as well so we’ll have a few songs from Jim and a bit of craic.
“The two lads are great craic.
“There’s usually a bit of craic flying on stage as well.
“We have Jack Francis playing before us.
“When I got to listen to his music I thought, ‘Lovely, really good’, so delighted to have him.
“I haven’t met him so I’m looking forward to meeting him. “And he’s going to play with us as well.
“Jack will be doing two numbers with us.
“Actually he might be singing Galway Girl with us.”
Sharon Shannon with her trio plays The Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith on Friday 18 October, Saturday 19 October and Sunday 20 October.
For tickets and more information, click here.
Sharon also brings her Shane MacGowan tribute featuring Mundy, Liam Ó Maonlaí, Imelda May, Cait O’Riordan and Camille O’Sullivan to Birmingham’s O2 Institute on 20 December, London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire on 21 December and Manchester’s O2 Ritz on 22 December.
For more information about Sharon, click here.
