o What: Battle Ground folk singer Tom May performs locally throughout the week in recognition of St. Patrick’s Day.
o When: 6:30 p.m. March 12 and 12:30 p.m. March 13-14 as well as noon and 2:30 p.m. March 17 at Kells Irish Restaurant and Pub, 112 S.W. Second Ave., Portland; plus an additional show at 8 p.m. March 17 at IrishTown Bar and Grill, 11600 S.E. Mill Plain Blvd., Suite F, Vancouver.
o Admission: Free.
o Information: http://www.kellsirish.com or http://www.irishtownbar.com.
Folk singer Tom May didn’t know much about Irish music until some friends gave him a cassette tape in the late 1970s that included the Furey Brothers’ rendition of “From Clare to Here.” The Battle Ground resident loved that song so much he learned to play it, and he began voraciously searching for and listening to other traditional Celtic tunes, adding them as quickly as he could to his repertoire.
o What: Battle Ground folk singer Tom May performs locally throughout the week in recognition of St. Patrick's Day.
o When: 6:30 p.m. March 12 and 12:30 p.m. March 13-14 as well as noon and 2:30 p.m. March 17 at Kells Irish Restaurant and Pub, 112 S.W. Second Ave., Portland; plus an additional show at 8 p.m. March 17 at IrishTown Bar and Grill, 11600 S.E. Mill Plain Blvd., Suite F, Vancouver.
o Admission: Free.
o Information:http://www.kellsirish.com or http://www.irishtownbar.com.
While his career blossomed in many different directions during that decade, May decided to also create a niche from his interest in Irish music, That led him to Kells Irish Restaurant and Pub in Portland, which hired him to take part in the establishment’s first St. Patrick’s Day celebration 19 years ago. While Kells has grown to become a nationally significant Irish Pub — hosting this region’s largest party to commemorate the patron saint of Ireland — May’s influence in folk music also has soared.
May and Kells will reunite again this week around St. Patrick’s Day, with May performing free March 12-14 as well as March 17 among a lineup that also includes bagpipers, Irish dancers and rockabilly star Imelda May (no relation). Tom May will also perform in east Vancouver on the holiday, at 8 p.m. March 17 at IrishTown Bar and Grill.
The first time May went to Ireland in 1977, he didn’t even get a chance to look around, busily working as the opening act for prominent folk singer Gordon Lightfoot. But he returned a year later with his fiancée, who had attended college in Dublin, and that time he stayed for weeks and really became acquainted with the style of music.
When he returned to St. Louis, he lived in a place just a few blocks from John D. McGurk’s Irish Pub, at the time the top venue in the country for traditional Irish musicians.
“That was my education in Irish music,” he said. “Just sitting there and listening. These performers were the best in the world, and you could just walk in, order a beer and sit and listen.”
Next door to the pub was a little house, where the touring musicians stayed. May spent a significant amount of time there, too, and he later started performing at John D. McGurk’s as well.
“It was there I became enamored with the style and quality of Irish music, not just the ballads but also the jigs and reels,” May said. “Those resonate with us so strongly, whether we are Irish or not, because of the timeless sense of melody, melodies that have lasted through the centuries, not because of any single famous person singing them. This is just an authentic expression of a culture. That authenticity gives it such impact and makes it so memorable.”
May has performed in every state, but he said he decided to move to the Northwest — after living in Boston; Omaha, Neb.; Toronto; and St. Louis — because of the combination of the beautiful landscape, the temperate weather and the friendly people, who have been major supporters of his career. One fan even paid for his travel to Portland in 1988, to get him to perform for a 40th birthday party. That concert was so successful, it became a yearly affair that blossomed into the Winterfolk Festival, the region’s largest annual acoustic music celebration.
May has also, for nearly 25 years, produce and hosted his own national radio program, “River City Folk,” that is aired on more than 150 radio stations nationwide (although available locally only through XM Satellite Radio Ch. 15). The 57-year-old still performs about one week a month at Kells, and he regularly includes “From Clare to Here” on his set list. Some of his other Irish and Scottish favorites include: “The Leavin’ of Liverpool,” “The Queen of All Argyle” and “Fiddler’s Green.” Among his dozen albums is a crowd pleaser around this time of year, “Just Another Night at Kells,” and such a night typically becomes a sing-along.
“For St. Patrick’s Day, we play the songs we love, and the ones we know we can get people involved in,” he said. “We want the crowd clapping and singing and having a good time. A lot of Irish ballads have parts where people can clap in a certain way, or have a chorus to sing along to. It’s a participatory kind of music. It’s not a concert. It’s music that involves people in the truest sense of folk music.”
