Danny Gillespie and Friends - Feile Artist Introduction.

In this episode we’ll hear from some of the members of Danny Gillespie & Friends, to spend a few minutes getting to know more about the band and what audiences can expect at this year's Féile. We'll also share a couple of their songs to give you a taste of what's in store.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Tides that Die, a podcast about all things Aaron Moore in Beaver Island. I'm Ron Gregg. Over the next few weeks, as we're counting down the days to the Emerald Isle Irish Pela on Beaver Island, we'd like to introduce you to some of the incredible artists who will be taking the stage this September. It's a chance to hear a little bit about their music, their stories, and what inspires them before they arrive on the island. In this episode, we'll hear from some of the members of Danny Gillespie and Friends to spend a few minutes getting to know more about the band and what audiences can expect at this year's Phaela. We'll also share a couple of their songs to give you a taste of what's in store. You can find more information about the Phaela and purchase tickets at the Beaver Island Irish Heritage Group website, www.bi-hg.com. Thanks for listening and enjoy the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

I'm here with Danny and friends. You guys, of course, are uh legends on Beaver Island, but we really just want to talk to you today and get kind of an overview on who you guys are. And uh so, Dan, start with that.

SPEAKER_04 1:05

I'm not sure about the legend comment, Kevin, but uh we all love to play music. We're blessed to know each other. It's uh oh my dad is Jewel Francis Gillespie. Uh he was born and raised on Beaver Island, and uh he was a well-known island musician, played the piano guitar, he could play any instrument really, and uh mostly on just chord progressions, but he could play them all. Played the fiddle, guitar, steel guitar, piano harmonicas. You know, being raised here on the island and uh having foundation given to me like people from Patrick Bonner, turn of the century Beaver Islander. My dad used to play music with him and stuff like that. So it's my foundation started during them years, at least listening to fiddles. You could be upstairs in the house and you could be listening to the fiddle with Patrick Bonner, my dad playing down in the living room and stuff. And and you fast forward later years. Uh I was in my early teens, and Edward Palmer came home from the service, and he was a master musician when he came home from the service and uh got to join in. Edward taught me chord progressions and stuff like that, and my dad helped me with chord progressions, uh, Len McDonough. We had a friend here, Ed Sobey. We were we were just lucky to uh have some really good quality people came here and helped teach us all music. And then once I got to the mainland, I got going to Fiddler's Jamborees, and I ran into this guy from Goodhart, Michigan. His name was Danny Johnston. He'd be almost stepdancing when he's playing music. And I said to myself, I said, I'm gonna play music with that guy. So sure enough, a couple years later I'm in his band where him and I were having this great time, and we we just really love playing with each other, and he taught me tons of techniques, and he liked my timing, so he kept we're gonna be trying to make a guitar player about it. And two years after I started playing with Danny, there's this young guy come from uh St. Ignes, Michigan to a Federal Stranger. And uh he was a super fun guy, character, and uh I said to Danny, you know, I said I said, I like that kid from St. Ignes. You think we'll never see him again? So he said, Yeah, we were in East Jordan, Michigan. And he was gonna be playing over in Johannesburg the following weekend. He said, I bet you he'd be over in Johannesburg. So I said, I'll go over there and I come over there and tap him on the call Jackson. I said, I come to see you. So him and I have been playing together now for over 30 years. I know. Are you going to be 18 then?

SPEAKER_08 3:32

It's been over 40 years training.

SPEAKER_04 3:35

So Jimmy Boyne, born and raised in saying that he's now a Jesuit brother. I started playing uh music with him before he became a Jesuit.

SPEAKER_08 3:44

I uh my favorite instrument is the fiddle. And um very similar to the fiddle is the mandolin, so I also play the mandolin. I I picked up the tin whistle along the way. I'm a I taught for a long time. I still work in high schools. I watched my students play and from them, and then from watching this guy behind me, I learned guitar, watching my mom, I can plunk around on the piano. I got a harmonica in my case. I also have a flask in my case, I can play that pretty well. Those are my main instruments. So, as Danny mentioned, I was born in St. Ignes, which is just across the Mackinac Bridge in the UP. Um in 1983. I'll make a long story short. Um, but the funny thing is I was in my dad's barn and I was making a pipe bomb with Patrick Allers, who who the Allers has a long family history here in Beaver Island. His dad was Paul and his grandfather was Leroy. But we were making a pipe bomb, and my uncle came in the garage and he says, Hey, Jimmy, get in the truck. So I said, So Patrick went home and we went to a barn, we went to Crosstow's farm, and they were having a sale, and at that sale, there was a fiddle. And five minutes before that, I would have never even I had no interest in the fiddle. I saw the thing and I absolutely fell in love with it. I said, I'm gonna learn to play that thing. And my uncle says, Well, you better ask your folks to before you buy it. So I went home and I asked my folks, and my mom said no. And then um I was kind of dejected, and I went back out in the barn. I was looking at that pipe bomb again. And my dad came in, he said, Did you want that fiddle? I said, Yeah. He said, Will you learn to play it? I said, Yes, I will. He says, Your mom said you won't. I said, I'll prove her wrong. And so he says, I'll go in halves. So we went back out there, I bought that fiddle, and I absolutely attacked that thing. And there were some old people in on in St. Agnes uh near the um in the in the reservation there. There were some people on Macken Island that uh showed me the scales and stuff, and a guy in Sheboygan. But then my dad showed me in the St. Angus news there was a fiddle jamboree in Sheboygan. So I said, I'll go, but I'm not gonna play. I only knew two songs. You're supposed to play three songs at these things. So I went to that, and all of a sudden they called my name out, Jimmy Boynton, you're up. And I said, I I looked at my dad. I said, Dad, I'm not playing, I didn't even bring my fiddle, and he held up my fiddle. And Ma said she'd back me up in the piano. So we went up and in front of all these people, my first time playing in public, and I played a French-Canadian song called Pull on the Oars, and then I played the Tennessee Waltz, and you're supposed to play three songs. And I said, I only know two. And then from behind me, this old guy says, Well, now why don't you play that Tennessee waltz again? And this time you do it a little slower, and I'll be right here behind you. And that's when I met Danny Johnston. And um, I I just worshiped the guy. He as Danny Gillespie just said, he almost step danced when he played, and I thought he was the coolest guy, and so I just followed him around those jamborees. I remember going to a jamboree in East Jordan where he was there, and he introduced me to Jewel Gillespie. So I met him and played with him. My Ma was playing with us, and I remember talking to Jewel, and he's from Beaver Island. It used to be a Mormon kingdom, and my mother's family were Mormons over here, and they were kicked off in the 1860s. I remember telling Jewel that Jewel started laughing at that, and um so I started playing with with old Danny, and then as young Danny, he's in the 70s, we call him young Danny, introduced me. I remember when when they sought me out and and and started playing with them in the Cedar Swamp Boys and then the Jamborees, and I just got into that fiddle like it was the coolest thing in the world. And uh so that was 83. Shortly after that I I would have met Danny and been playing here and with them ever since, and um it just been alright. So Danny Johnston is gone, played with Ed Palmer, and he's gone. Um but it's cool that there's young people coming up. It's uh it's never been my profession, it's been my passion, it's been my hobby. And the other thing I would say just briefly is through music, I've met so many fantastic people, and as much as I love music, that's as much as I love the friends that I play with or hang out as as a result. And uh that that's the cool part of this band, and and these guys that are coming up after me, uh it's it's pretty nifty.

SPEAKER_06 11:31

When we sing the flight, and I won't forget to hear the night, give the sound of the football, my feeling the will on my hands ever.

SPEAKER_04 12:21

When he was in his middle teens probably, I said, Sean, what are you gonna do when you're gone? He said, I'm gonna play music with Danny and Danny. Well, look, here we are 20 20 years later.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Yeah, so uh my name's Sean McDonough. You heard uh Danny talking about 1983 or Jimmy talking about 1983 earlier. I was born a year after that. Uh-huh. So there's the next generation. My dad is also Sean McDonough. Uh my my grandparents are Bruce and Gretchen McDonough. And so uh I grew up in Charleville, actually about a block away from Daniel Gillespie and would come over to Beaver Island a lot as a kid and would hear people like Barry Pishner and Rich Scripps and Danny and later Jimmy. I don't think I was ever on the earth at the same time as Jewel, or else I would have heard him, Edward Palmer. And when I was a kid, I thought it was kind of hokey. Um it was old old person music, right? I loved it. You know, my dad had the Barry Pishner, my music man CD, which I think was about your dad, Danny, right? He was on the cover of that. Yep. Um and so really love that stuff, but uh you know, Irish music is probably my third or fourth love, and it's growing in the ranks, but I grew up on um rock and uh folk and a little bit of jazz and a little bit of hip hop and have really uh found a new love and appreciation for Irish music. Um and a lot of the old country stuff that we play as well, which is uh very close to my heart. Uh I am the only member of my family, besides my two younger brothers who don't travel, who hasn't been to Aramor, but my wife and I are uh going this October for the first time, so excited to make the connection there. Um Yeah, and I I love playing with these guys. I play banjo and bass mostly. Uh I play pick three-finger banjo. It's loosely Scrug style, but you know, Scruggs has a lot of crazy cross picking he does, and I haven't learned all those roles yet, but um it's it's bluegrass style, I would say. Uh love playing guitar, but you know, that's uh taken up by people who have a lot more skill than I do. So I do what I can with the instruments I do. Um yeah, and just really uh I live in Detroit and so get up to the island with a fair amount of frequency, but I really only play with these guys when I'm up here.

SPEAKER_04 14:39

Just for you, Mary.

SPEAKER_03 14:44

Anybody ever heard of John Prime? Yeah. This is one of my favorites now. It's called the Speeds of Sonic. So my name's Tim Baker. Um I ain't from here. I don't know what I'm doing here. No, I'm always super excited when these guys get a hold of me and invite me to come play out. It's not every time. Sometimes it's a scheduled conflict, but um yeah, I love it. I think uh Beaver Island's more of a home to me on this earth than any anywhere else. Um like I said, I did grow up on the mainland, but um I spend a whole lot of my my favorite memories are are here with these guys. So um and a lot of that revolves around the music. Um personally, uh a lot a lot of music, I guess if I I would have to look back. Um my dad played the guitar a little bit, but it wasn't a you know, it wasn't a real deep memories from that. Um more so like on occasion. But uh I think where the spark happened for me with music was there's a really strange old guy in my church growing up. And uh nobody liked to talk to him. He he was he was just awkward, and but he played a whole lot of Hank Williams tunes and that just really caught my ear for some reason. Um so there was a lot of church hymns, a lot of stuff like that I learned growing up, but uh he'd be over in the corner by himself just jamming away um uh after church or whatever. So I'd sit with him and um from time to time he'd show me how some of the things worked on the guitar, and I I think that was uh my first recollection of um being interested in it. And beyond that, I think I was 13. No, I was it was just after my 13th birthday. I decided I was gonna buy a guitar for what with what I'd saved up, my life savings. It's $150. And I went down to the music store. Uh raised guitar, you might remember. It's gone now. I went in there and I bought a white guitar, not because it sounded good, but just because it was white and it was cool. And uh I started practicing. And I would tape uh you know, chord charts to my ceiling and lay there on my bed for ten hours a day and just go through and practice. And all the stuff I heard at church and all the stuff I heard from uh Floyd Parsons was his name. Um he was an iron worker, but a phenomenal musician. And um so I got to the point where I could pick it right along with him on some of those tunes, and then these guys talked a little bit about the jamboree. I never saw any of you guys there, but um uh when I was a kid, I'd frequent those, especially the one in East Jordan. Uh East Jordan, Michigan is my hometown, so we might have crossed paths and didn't even know it then. So years went by. Um I'd put I'd pick it up, put it down, life got busy. Like Danny was saying, I took a job at the airport um as a ground crew in 2006 and um met these guys, started getting to know them because you know when you when you fly a small community back and forth to an island like this, um everybody gets to know each other. So it was like a family. Um I'd call them most of them my family. There's a few of them I wouldn't uh claim. A few of them. I'm not looking at you, I'm just looking at you. But um no, at some point, um I don't know. Uh I forget the exact moment when they realized that I knew how to play guitar, some of these guys, and so um yeah, I don't know when that was. But either way. I wind up on Beaver Island. They still come over and play with us. I forget what the first one was, but I wound up making the rounds with them. It felt like three times a week sometimes. And I was spending way too much time on Beaver Island having fun and just really getting into the island music and the way of life. And um just kind of fell in love, I think, with the area and uh the people at that point. And especially the music. You know, a lot of stuff I hadn't earned. Uh there's a lot of Irish folk tunes, I would call it, and um uh stuff yeah, just stuff that wasn't in my repertoire, stuff had never come across my ears, so it was just like phenomenal to like get involved and and um memorize some of this old stuff. So uh over the years it's kind of been off and on. I didn't make it out here last year because my life's pretty be uh busy. Uh I fly for a living now, so it's kinda hard to kind of touch a bass once in a while and get back to my roots, but whenever I can, it's uh it's a beautiful thing, and I'm just so grateful to be uh here and uh that I would there again have the invite to be to be included in this. I just it just blows me away every time the phone rings for those things. So um yeah, that's me in a nutshell. Um but there again, like these guys were saying, it's uh on this trip, but this is the first instance I know they've been working with the kids out here. Um there's this uh this foundation and things that they put together, but to see what's going on with uh some of these young people. Like this is a concern. And some of these we've always this has been in the back of our mind, like um you worry about the future for this kind of music. Because like John said, it's old people music for a lot of kids, you know, they don't want anything to do with that, and there's so many other things to get to draw their attention away as far as uh um music goes. And uh it's just so cool to see that this foundation they put together out here and the things that they're doing with the with the youth. To see kids get up here and play tunes, and some of them are getting pretty good in just a couple of years. That's uh that's blown me away. And um I just to see that happen just uh gives me so much hope for the future of this uh style of music that we play. Yeah, I think that's uh that's about it.

SPEAKER_08 24:09

The the style of music that we do, and this goes we've talked about old Danny Johnston, and but he said this to me one time, and he said, the style of music we do is lumberjack style, and I said, Well, what does that mean? He says, Well, in the lumberjack camp, there were Irishmen, there were Frenchmen, there were scanny, there were Germans, there were Americans, there was everything. It was a mix. So we do a big mix, but I would say the the biggest part of a mix is Irish, and uh the country music I'll say of Jules' generation and my dad's generation, and my dad died a couple years ago in his 90s. So the country music of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, and then the Irish music of the 1840s all the way up to today. That's what we do.