Christy Moore on my programme this week
I always reckon that just as you remember where you were when was assassinated (OK some of you were still DNA - get over it) and when died, you always remember where you were the first time you saw .
For me it was a small, smoky folk club in a pub called The Old House At ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ
in Lower Crumpsall/Blackley, Manchester way back in the late 60s.
The pub was really interesting because it had been built alongside a public right of way that could not be extinguished.
Over the years a massive chemical factory had grown up all round it so that, from one direction at least, you approached it under hissing steam pipes and cable bridges.
I was running the club at the time - I reckon the room seated fifty at the most and all we could pay was three quid.
One night Jerry Brady of the Beggarmen - a cracking Irish band based in Manchester said to me: "You ought to book this guy Christy Moore. He's brilliant. If he doesn¹t go down a storm I'll give you his fee meself."
There is some controversy about whether this was Christy's first English gig (Bury Folk Club may have been the first) but it was certainly one of the first.
He came in that night, a quiet bank clerk from Kildare, quite shy and a bit nervous.
He was only over in England because there was a bank strike in Ireland and there was naff all for him to do over there.
He was wearing slacks and a neat shirt and a smart pair of boots.
The crowd arrived and I opened up the night with my mate Tony Downes singing a couple of Lancashire songs and a few and songs.
Then Christy got up, slung his guitar round his neck, put one foot on a low stool and started in on The Galway Races.
From the first chords he had the audience enthralled. That night he sang The Little Beggarman, James Connolly, Avondale and the CLiffs Of Dooneen. I forget the rest.
The crowd wouldn't let him off and it took the landlord coming in really heavy before we could finish the night. After that he came back to the club every month and filled it every time.
Somewhere I have a letter from Christy telling me that he has a night free and will do the club for three quid. I should hold him to it.
Since then of course.....well there was , and wonderful solo album after solo album.
The man once described as "a storm in a teeshirt" has travelled the world and filled the biggest venues on the planet (seven nights at The Point for example).
Yet he's still a modest and sincere man, the same old Christy, a fighter for people's rights, a stone in the craw of the establishment and a demolisher of cant and falsity.
On my show this Wednesday you can hear talking about his new album Listen and his life and work in a one hour special devoted to this great "Ordinary Man".
Comment number 1.
At 30th Apr 2009, Mark Friend wrote:I will always remember my first Christy gig. Hitched to London (1984 I think) to see Steve Ray Vaughn at the Hammersmith Palais and couldn't get in. Christy was playing over the way at the Odeon and we managed to get a couple of tickets off this guy. Didn't know his music at the time but was blown away. Wicklow Boy, Ride On, El Salvador, Don't forget your shovel, GO MOVE SHIFT, City of Chicago, Faithful departed and an evening of being swallowed up into an artist, music and atmosphere that I'm still in love.
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