Description
“Hayes has one of the most ravishing violin styles in all of Celtic
music…Cahill’s gentle, supportive accompaniment adds precisely the
right touch.” – LOS ANGELES TIMES
Martin Hayes epitomizes the fiddle music of County Clare for many
people. He started playing when he was seven years old and, by the age
of thirteen, was touring with the Tulla Ceili Band, arguably the most
revered and famous ceili band in Ireland at the time which was led by
his father, PJ Hayes. Martin was also entering national competitions
and winning them. By the age of twenty he had won every available
competition in the country.
The music scene in East County Clare in the 1970’s was full of fine
fiddlers, and Martin’s locality near the village of Feakle was home to
many of them. In addition to PJ Hayes, Paddy Canny, Martin Rochford,
Francie Donnellan, Vincent Griffin and Martin Woods all were a great
influence on the young musician. The gentle contemplative style of
these fiddlers molded Martin at an impressionable age, and by the time
he left school he was playing to the approval of musicians thirty years
older and more. It is a rare thing to have such depth and clarity of
understanding in one so young, but Martin Hayes seemed to feel the
music of his home place and to hear what older players were trying to
express.
When Martin left Clare for Chicago in the 1980’s he became immersed
in the diversity of musical styles that the city had to offer. It was
also in Chicago where Martin met his current musical partner, Dennis
Cahill. With several other musicians, they formed an
electric/Irish/rock fusion band called Midnight Court, after the poem
by the eighteenth century Clareman, Brian Merriman. After three years
dedicated to the freedom of musical experimentation and exploration,
Martin was drawn back to the music of his roots with new insights and a
deeper confidence. He headed for Seattle in the 1990’s and pursued a
new path playing a pure and distilled version of the music he had grown
up with; a version built on universal musical principles that could now
find its place in the wider world of music.
The 1993 recording, Martin Hayes was greeted by widespread critical
acclaim, which garnered Martin the National Entertainment Award (the
Irish Grammies) and the Hot Press Heineken Award. His second album,
Under the Moon, released in 1995, continued to build on the success of
the first, attracting an international following.
For Martin, the music spoke to him and inspired him. He constantly
sought to express that inspiration and to convey the same musical
message as generations of musicians before him. With Dennis Cahill’s
understated guitar outlining and intensifying that message, the duo
touched audiences across the world. “The Lonesome Touch”, released in
1997, reached out to the Irish music community and beyond. Hayes and
Cahill became more adventurous, more empathic, more attuned to each
other, and more able to stretch the music while remaining true to its
essential qualities.
Following international festivals, concert tours, television spots
and awards ceremonies, Martin and Dennis released “Live in Seattle” in
1999. Their live sound had become legendary: tunes which never ended,
sets which started in one place and finished somewhere totally
different. Recorded at the Tractor Tavern, the album featured as its
centerpiece one medley lasting almost thirty minutes.
The duo’s new album, “Welcome Here Again”, is a fresh departure;
eighteen tracks and not one of them over seven minutes, but with that
same burning intensity and depth of emotion. It used to be common for
Irish musicians to record one tune at a time, to make each one a
self-contained masterpiece. The new album revives this tradition. The
playing of Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill renders the essence of the
tunes, revealed in their purest form, accessible and appealing to all.
“The Dear Irish Boy” is one such track. “P Joe’s Reel” is another. The
mesmeric rhythms, the tantalizing slow release of melody, the extra
tone from viola or tuned-down fiddle, all of that and more is on this
album. After eight years, Hayes and Cahill are indeed “Welcome Here
Again”.
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