Publishers
Weekly
Now
in his 60s, acclaimed Irish folk musician Clancy masterfully recounts
more than "40 years of acting, singing and great foolishness" with a
powerful, melodic voice and guileless magnetism. The author's emotion
is as unmistakable as his brogue when he describes his childhood (at
times overshadowed by provincialism, Catholicism and adversity) as the
youngest of 11 in tiny Carrick-on-Suir, Ireland. He reflects on the
heartrending effect of a sibling's death on his mother, the pain of
first love, a young friend's drowning and the unfortunate circumstances
of his first daughter's birth; yet he balances these recollections with
sheer joy as he speaks of his lifelong passion for poetry and theater.
"Discovered"
in the mid-1950s by American heiress Diane Guggenheim, Clancy eventually
joined his two brothers, already a part of the Irish diaspora living
in the U.S., and settled in New York City. There, he co-created Tradition
Records, bankrolled by Guggenheim, and formed the Clancy Brothers and
Tommy Makem band. Despite a conviction to act and several well-received
plays in Cambridge, Mass., music inevitably took priority, and while
the band made it big, Clancy "rampaged through the females of Greenwich
Village," escaped to the White Horse Tavern (immortalized by Welsh poet
Dylan Thomas) and had brushes with Lenny Bruce, Bob Dylan and Barbra
Streisand along the way.
Snippets
of original music, as well as several full-length songs, help segue
between subject matter in this production, while underscoring the tremendous
sentimentality of specific passages. This is a superbly recorded, albeit
abridged, performance; the content (both spoken and musical) is at once
brilliant, funny and sad. Simultaneous release with the Doubleday hardcover
(Forecasts, Dec. 17, 2001).
