On Saturday, March 28, at 7 p.m. Glucksman Ireland House at New York University, located at One Washington Mews (at Fifth Avenue), will present Liam Clancy, the last remaining member of the Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem, launching a special Sony Legacy 2-CD recording of their entire March 1963 Carnegie Hall concert, a seminal moment in Irish American history and culture in that period. Clancy will be introduced by Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz, who wrote the extensive liner notes for this recording.
Admission is free to this special event. It is expected that full capacity will be reached quickly. RSVPS are required. To reserve a seat, call 212.998.3950 or email ireland.house@nyu.edu.
The 1963 concert took place on a damp St. Patricks Day evening when the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem rocked and reeled Carnegie Hall with their saga songs of rebels, outlaws, lovers, and rovers. The performers were well-established stars, though not yet at their peak; and the high-spirited audience overflowed the stalls into seats placed onstage, back behind the spotlights. The two-hour concert was recorded by Columbia Records and issued six months later as a drastically re-sequenced 38-minute, 11-track LP. The record has never been out-of-print in the Columbia catalog for four and a half decades. The new two CDs restore the night in its entirety, complete with between-song dialogues and introductions, and 29 musical tracks.
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, Wilentz says, still powerfully influence artists ranging from Dylan and his devotees to Irish singers and songwriters as different as Paul Brady and Shane McGowan. Their music and its spirit retain an enthusiastic following across the globe. Mores the reason to celebrate the full recovery of their art, as they superbly performed it one St. Patricks Day evening in Manhattan long ago.