{TEXT} Gather one flautist, nine fiddlers, a guitarist and an impish bodhran player around the hearth and what do you get? Answer: In Good Company, a collection of duets - fine tunes (some jagged, others pristine) that'll sound as fresh in a decade or three as they do now. Truly these guys are the Busby's Babes of trad. Like the finest distillations, traditional music's essence is there for the taking, condensed into one glorious concoction.
Kevin Crawford, Lunasa's flautist, is the man behind this collection. This Brummie has never been satisfied to let the grass grow under his feet. Failed fiddler, intrepid trad fan, radio DJ (on Clare FM), and world traveller, recent years have seen Crawford busily touring the globe with the Bothy Band's rightful inheritors, Lunasa, but all the concert halls, ticket stubs and headlining gigs in the world couldn't compensate him for being distanced from his roots; roots, it has to be said, that stretch well beyond the usual reach of most musicians.
Crawford's Birmingham homeplace is hardly to be heard in his accent, but the city left a definite mark on his musical identity, as he recalls with a smile.
"It's strange enough, I suppose," he says, scratching his head as though the unlikeliness of it all had just struck him, "but my starting point with traditional music came courtesy of the summer holidays, coming from Birmingham to County Clare. Both my parents are from just outside Miltown Malbay, in a place called Mountscott, and hearing players like P.J. Crotty, Eamon McGivney and Sean Talty, I was really taken by the love these players had for the music. I couldn't believe the way they wanted to play tunes all night. It was their passion I wanted to be part of."
Despite his geographical location, Crawford hardly wanted for company during his early years of playing in the UK. Mick McGoldrick, (the erstwhile "Talvin Singh of trad"), John Carty, Mick Conneely, Karen Tweed and Dezi Donnelly all wended their way between Birmingham, Manchester and London. It was a wagontrain that provided ample preparation for his ultimate return to Ennis, the belly of the beast, where traditional music reigns supreme.
With one solo album already under his belt (1994's D Flute Album), and a trio of mint collections with Lunasa in just four years (their latest, The Merry Sisters Of Fate, is out now), Crawford has found himself mixing in musical circles he had previously merely dreamt of. Critical plaudits, avid punters and sales with the health rating of a proverbial horse notwithstanding, he couldn't shake a hankering, like an attention-seeking toddler tugging defiantly at his memory, to return to the intimacy of tunes played in pairs, with the thrust and parry of fiddle and flute.
On In Good Company, Kevin Crawford is in the very best of company. With a rake of fine previous fiddle and flute pairings to ), he was secure in the knowledge that this was a collaboration that would work. Casting an eye over the players who'd helped hone and shape his playing since he took up residence in Ennis eight years ago, Crawford had little difficulty roping in the compadres with whom he itched to reprise the old tunes.
Tommy Peoples, Tony Linnane, Martin Hayes, Frankie Gavin, Conor Tully, James Cullinan, Mick Conneely, (who sneaked in his bouzouki as well as his fiddle), Sean Smyth (of Lunasa) and Manus Maguire were, remarkably, all amenable and available within a brief window of two weeks. All that remained was for Crawford to ensure the right accompaniment was in place, in this case guitarist Arty McGlynn, keyboardist Carl Hession and Jimmy Higgins on bodhran.
"To be honest, I took for granted what I had captured on tape," he admits, "until I began to mix it a few months later. It was then that I realised that this was quite a rare achievement. It wasn't my intention initially to have such a hit list of musicians, but as I listened to it, I realised that this was very special, and if I wasn't involved in it, I would be glorying in the fantastic collection of musicians."
With tunes such as The Mouse In The Mug, The First Pint and The Flying Wheelchair, Crawford sacrificed neither artistry nor humour at the mixing desk. This was a collection to be savoured, and he quickly realised , he knew this music would find a cosy . But once I heard it, I wanted to do as much justice as I possibly could to it, because there was such good music in there."
Crawford is quick to credit the musicians who laid the groundwork for his and Lunasa's current success. While there's plenty of hay to be made in traditional music these days, this hasn't always been the case.
"There is an incredible renaissance, and Irish music is in vogue all over the world at the moment," Crawford notes, "but I remember when I first came to Ennis, there were no pubs that allowed music. It's all because of musicians like P. Joe Hayes( who is a recently deceased member of the Tulla Ceilidh band and father of Martin Hayes) and Junior Crehan, who kept the whole thing going with house dances and local events. The music almost had to become popular away, in England and the States, before people started to recognise what it was worth at home".
Now there is a circuit for us to tour" he acknowledges. It's more acceptable for traditional musicians to be full time on the road, It's a respectable job now. That's thanks to all the musicians who laid the ground down through the years. Bands like the Chieftains were brave when they started to travel, as were the Bothy band and De Dannan. It might have been great craic but they had brutal schedules. It was purely because they were on a high from the music.
"These ddays we're quite lucky in that we can have everything: we can get a buzz out of the music but we can also do quite well out of it. And it's really only in the last 10 years that's become possible."In Good Company is on Green Linnet Records.