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The Influence of James Morrison on Irish Traditional Music Many influences have undoubtedly contributed to the development of Irish traditional music over the past two hundred years, but when the history of this music in the twentieth century is written, the contribution made by the musicians of County Sligo will have a special place of mention. For it was in the southern part of this county that a unique fiddle style emerged in the late nineteenth century which dominated other styles of Irish music for many years and played a major role in influencing the way Irish music is played to the present day. Foremost amongst the musicians who spearheaded this style of playing and gained acclaim by his recordings was a young emigrant from the Ballymote area of Sligo called James Morrison. Many tunes played by Irish musicians are simply called 'Morrison's', an indication of the influence his records had on the last generation. His music has now become part of the standard repertoire with present day musicians like Frankie Gavin, Charlie Lennon and many others, bringing Morrison's music to an ever-growing audience. Back to the Morrison Story index
Apart from the few remaining people who heard James Morrison play, his followers today can only appreciate his music through the impressive body of recordings he left behind, eighty- four sides made between 1921 and 1936. On these we hear a supreme artist among traditional fiddlers with an undisputed mastery of the bow coupled with drive, sense of rhythm within a tune, great attack, impeccable taste, and an overall feeling of propulsion and excitement. As well as his solo fiddle records, Morrison made a number of impressive duet recordings with the leading players of his day, and these have seldom been surpassed for their musicality and rapport. The growing commercialisation of Irish music in New York in the late 1920's, led Morrison to form his own band, and with it he played for dancers on the ballroom circuit there for many years. Recordings of this band display a particular freshness and exuberance, qualities which still have an immediate appeal fifty years after the records were made. After initial attempts in 1899, the first serious effort to make authentic commercial recordings of Irish traditional music in America was made in September 1916, when Eddie Herborn and James Wheeler recorded accordion and banjo duets for Ellen O'Byrne De Witt on behalf of the Columbia company. By 1921 several small independent record labels had come into existence
to serve the emerging Irish record-buying market, catered for until then
chiefly by the Edison, Victor and Columbia companies. It was for one of
the independent labels, The M. & C. New Republic Irish Record Company,
that Jim Morrison made his first record in New York in 1921. The
Provincial Hornpipes and Gardiner's Reels were the titles recorded. The Gaelic Phonograph Co. recorded two further sides, and then Jim was asked to team up with Chicago-born piper Tom Ennis to record duets, the first selection being released on the New Republic and the second on the Vocalion label in 1922. The pair also made a test recording in June of that year for Columbia, which was rejected, but six weeks later the recording was remade and released. The combination of Ennis and Morrison with John Muller on piano was obviously popular, as four subsequent sessions yielded nine sides for Columbia between November 1922 and April 1923, bringing the total of duet recordings they made to fifteen. Apart from his duets, Jim continued recording as a solo player, cutting discs for the Okeh and Gennett labels between 1922 and 1924. Jim had also taken a job at the Morningside Music Shop on 120th Street where in September 1925 he met a young emigrant from Dromlacht, Co. Kerry, the accordion player Tom Carmody. The pair struck up an immediate musical association and the closeness of playing on the records they later made is remarkable. They also became firm friends, their friendship lasting up to Morrison's death. In March 1926 Jim recorded his first session as a solo fiddle player for the Columbia company, confirming his position as one of the leading Irish musicians of the day. With accompaniment on piano by Claire Reardon, this session produced vintage Morrison tracks like the reel The Flax in Bloom, and the jigs The Lark in the Morning and The Wandering Minstrel. From that same session came the airs The Glen of Aherlow and Master McGrath. These recordings show Morrison's skills to the full as a 'violinist', Jim's command and skill on the instrument allowed him to play in keys which were regarded as unusual and difficult and avoided by most of his fellow fiddle players. One of the most enduring legacies of Jim Morrison's music is a series of duets he recorded around this time which are still regarded as some of the finest in Irish music. In February 1928 he joined forces with the Leitrim flute player John McKenna who came from the same area as his maternal grandfather, and a stream of classic fiddle/flute duets followed. A rarity amid these discs is a duet where Jim plays tin whistle to McKenna's flute. Though Jim was undoubtedly a better fiddler than whistle player, the track is nevertheless interesting and is the only known recording of Morrison playing an instrument other than the fiddle.
The Morrison memorial at Drumfin.
It consists of the original milestone, which
A year later, in February 1929, Jim recorded with Michael Carney with
whom he had lodged in Brooklyn eleven years earlier. From a family of
pipers in Dunmacreena near Irishtown, in Co. Mayo, Carney had come to
America in 1880. He became paralyzed from the waist down and played his
pipes in a wheelchair. A month before this recording was made, Jim had
been in the Columbia studio with the accordion player It is a great pity that the two giants of this age, Coleman and Morrison, never made a recording together that we know of. It has been suggested that jealousy and acrimony existed between the two, but the opposite seems to have been the case as attested by Tom Carmody and Hughie Gillespie who knew both men well. Perhaps the strongest denial of ill feeling between them came from Michael Coleman's daughter Mary Hannan. She had this to say: "No, no, that's not true! People said that, but it wasn't true. They were great friends and got along fine together. And James Morrison was in my house many many times, and him and my father would play music together, sure, all the time". The James Morrison band first recorded in 1929 and the session yielded perhaps Jim's most bizarre recording "Rambles Through Ireland". Parts 1 and 2 is a musical travelogue using a contrived script to link various popular tunes of the day around the hornpipe The Stack of Barley. Tightly and cleverly arranged and well played, this piece of stage Irishness must be seen in the context of the time from which it came. Jim seems to have disassociated himself from the record and, instead of using his name, Columbia credited the performers as The Wandering Minstrels. A point of particular interest today about Jim's recordings is the great variety of tune types he used. With the reel predominant over all other types today, it is worth noting that Jim's records reflect the wide range of rhythms popular in his time, with reels, jigs, hornpipes, polkas, barndances, airs, waltzes, schottisches, set-dances and two-steps being played. David Lyth, in his book Bowing Styles in Irish Fiddle Playing, published in 1981, presents an analysis of Morrison's intricate bowing. Much of the music played and recorded by Morrison appears to have come from the written collections available at the time like O'Neill's and Cole's. Scottish tunes seem to have had an attraction for Morrison and among his recorded selections are hornpipes, reels and strathspeys from the Scottish repertoire. Apart from written music, Jim also absorbed music from the musicians he played with and appears to have been always receptive to a good tune. Tom Carmody tells this story: "Jim was up at my house the night before we were to go to the studio, and I played him this jig. Jim asked me where I had got it from and I told him it was my father's jig called "The Stick Across the Hob". Jim asked me to play it again and he wrote it down as I played, then he got the fiddle and played it off. "I will put that on record tomorrow", he said, and we'll call it Maurice Carmody's Favourite". One of the remaining unsolved mysteries of Jim Morrison's recordings is the unidentified second fiddle player on his later discs. Free as a Bird is a good example, where a skilled fiddler plays a delicate complementary part on this intricate tune. The final recording sessions by Jim's band, called on record The James Morrison Instrumental Quartet, took place in the Columbia studio with producer Sandor Porges in January and April 1936. The line-up was Jim and Tom Carmody, with Tom Banks on piano and Italian-born Martin Christi on guitar and banjo. A wide variety of solo fiddle tunes and band tracks was recorded, ranging from the commercial-sounding Wreck of the 99 to fiddle tracks like The Turnpike and Maurice Carmody's Favourites which show Morrison's fiddle playing at its exciting best. Jim's final commercial recording, the reels McFadden's and The Blackberry Blossom, was made with an almost 'swing' backing on 14 April 1936
Jackie Roach, James Morrison and Paddy Sweeny New York circa 1938
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James Charles Morrison was born on 3 May 1893 at Drumfin, a townland on the Sligo-Dublin road near the town of Collooney.
The house in the foreground stands
on the exact spot where the Morrison Family home His people had been in that part of Co. Sligo for a century and a half. His grandfather, Pat Morrison, farmed thirteen acres in Drumfin in the 1850's, and Pat's son Frank, James' father, also farmed while making his main living as a builder and carpenter. Frank married Margaret Dolan from Lackagh, the next townland, in 1879, and James, known as Jim, was the second youngest of their eleven children, five girls and six boys. It is said that music came to Jim and his brothers principally from their mother's people the Dolans. Jack Dolan, Jim's grandfather came originally from Drumkeerin in Co. Leitrim, an area noted for its musicians and dancers. These skills were passed on to Jack's son Charlie Dolan, the "returned Yankee', who was the dancing master in the area and Charlie taught dancing to his nephews the young Morrison boys. Charlie Dolan's house in Lackagh was a well known meeting place for dancers and musicians and it was here that Jim and his brothers had their introduction to the music of the area. It was in this house also that Jim met a boy of his own age who took occasional dancing lessons from Charlie when on visits to his aunt nearby. This boy was Michael Coleman from Knockgrania near Killavil,Co. Sligo.
All that remains of Charlie Dolan's
house in Lackagh is now "but a stone upon a stone". The Morrison children attended Kilmorgan school where the local priest, Father Bernard Creehan, recognising the boys' musical talent, encouraged them with lessons and instruction in reading and writing music. Jim's brothers Tom and John were particularly musical and played flute and fiddle. It was on Tom's concert flute that the young Jim made his first tentative efforts in music. When he reached the age of thirteen, Jim’s parents gave him a fiddle as a present. His sister Ann later recalled to her son Kevin Quigley that;
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Young Jim Morrison did not have far to look to find musical inspiration and encouragement around Drumfin. House dances in his uncle's home in Lackagh and at their neighbours, the Mulligans, were where good music was most often heard. It was common for two house dances to be held in one townland on the same night and a dance was not considered a success unless the best players attended. The noted musicians of those days are still remembered in Drumfin today. Fiddle players like Ned Killeen of Ballymote and the Sheerin brothers from Riverstown. There was also Paddy McHugh from Freehen, Tom Conlon, Dennis O'Connor, and Batt Henry, the schoolteacher from Emlanaughten. Occasionally a melodeon was heard, but the instrument most popular after the fiddle was the concert flute, with players like Peter Bereen from Ballymote; Brian Luby; Mr. Gilroy; and the man remembered as the finest flute player in the area, Willie Snee from Carrowcusacly, a nearby townland. Younger players closer to the Morrisons' age were John Joe Gardiner from Corhubber; Barney Conlon, a fiddler from Geevagh who would later make records in America; and, on occasional visits, the young Michael Coleman. Apart from these players, two musicians in particular were said to have had a major influence on Jim's early music. Tom Johnston was one. A noted fiddle player from Drumfin Cross, he put great emphasis on technique and the importance of good tone production. The other was Johnny Gorman, the blind travelling uilleann piper, who visited Drumfin every year. In the area he was kept for periods up to a month in Mulligan's of Coolteen, where "people from miles around used gather to hear him play."' Jim's ability to write music brought him to the attention of the piper, who took a special interest in his progress. It is remembered that as Jim's fiddle playing improved, he and Johnny would play together for hours on end, much to the delight of all.
James Joseph Mulligan stands beside the
old Mulligan household at Coolteen/Lackagh where
The role played by Johnny Gorman, or Jack the Piper as he was also known, in spreading music throughout North-West Connacht was considerable. From the townland of Derrylahan on the Roscommon-Mayo border, he was a well known figure at the turn of the century, playing his pipes in music houses and at fairs in these counties as well as throughout neighbouring Leitrim and Sligo. By all accounts, Gorman was a highly respected and accomplished piper. In 1902, he made what must have been the arduous journey to Dublin to win the Feis Ceoil piping competition. Two years later he was awarded first prize in piping at the Oireachtas, but the hardships and gruelling life of a travelling piper finally overtook him in 1917 when he died tragically and was buried in a pauper's grave in Co. Leitrim. Johnny Gorman left his stamp on the repertoire and style of music played in this region, particularly in the Ballymote area and its surroundings. By taking 'the near cut' over Cloonagashel, Ballymote was four miles from Jim Morrison's home and he is known to have often played at dances in the area. Musicians abounded around Ballymote at this time, and in particular the neighbourhoods of Bunnanadden, Doocastle, and Gurteen were especially rich in fiddle players. Back to the Morrison Story index
When Jim Morrison left Kilmorgan school about the age of fifteen, prospects for him in the Sligo of 1908 were bleak. The Morrison children were remembered as good scholars, "grand smart people and good dancers". Mary, the eldest, had emigrated to America in 1900, and over the following years she assisted her brothers and sisters to follow her in search of a better way of life. Pat, the eldest boy, became a policeman and served for four years in the Royal Irish Constabulary in counties Monaghan and Clare before leaving for America in 1907. In fact two of Jim's other brothers also joined the RIC. A local account tells that Jim also may have tried to become a policeman. Patrick Madden, a son of Jim's cousin, remembered his mother telling of Jim sitting the entrance examination in Sligo and on his second attempt being called to the force in 1911. The documents, which would have confirmed if Jim had in fact applied to become a policeman, do not exist, having been destroyed when the R.I.C disbanded in 1922. However, Jim's life and career followed a completely different course. He decided to follow in the footsteps, literally, of his Uncle Charlie Dolan and became a dancing master. This came about with the help of Jim's old friend Father Creehan, now an official of the Gaelic League, the movement for the revival of Irish language and culture which was then sweeping the land. The 1911 prospectus for the League's Irish language college in Tourmakeady, Co. Mayo, lists the teaching staff and includes these lines: Seamus Morrison of Drumfin, who teaches the best tradition of Irish dancing. And so at the age of seventeen, Jim became a youthful dancing master. The League's colleges were then in their infancy, with classes being held only through the Summer months. For the remainder of the year Jim earned his living as a dancing master around Drumfin, and when no pupils were available, he worked as a farm labourer for wages of eighteen pence a day. Father Creehan took Jim's career a step further in January 1912 when he assisted the young dancing master to begin dancing lessons in Sligo town, with Jim announcing himself in the local newspaper as Professor Morrison, the name by which he would become known many years later in America. He also became a member of the Ballymote branch of the Gaelic League and was soon a fluent Irish speaker, and this led later in 1912 to his being appointed "muinteoir taistil" or a travelling teacher of Irish and dancing. Employed by the League and based in the Co. Leitrim town of Manorhamilton, he travelled a circuit of schools and halls in the district, instructing up to two hundred children and adults. Taking lodgings in Manorhamilton, Jim worked in the area for two years, but managed to keep up musical contact with his friends around home, regularly cycling the eighteen miles of punishing mountain roads to spend musical weekends with John Joe Gardiner and his sister Kathleen in Corhubber. On one such visit he was introduced at a house dance to Teresa Flynn of Knockadalteen who would later follow him to America and become his wife. His first known appearance as a fiddle player was in St. Claire's Hall, Manorhamilton, where the concert programme advertised that Mr. Morrison will give exhibitions of Irish dancing in his own masterly manner. He is also to sing and contribute violin selections. Jim's first major success as a fiddle player came in April 1915 when he won the senior fiddle competition at the Sligo Feis Ceoil. His prize was ten shillings. The liner fare from Queenstown to Boston was £5. Back to the Morrison Story index
In 1915, at the age of twenty-two, he sailed for America. Five of Jim's brothers and sisters were already in Boston, and on arrival he settled in the home of his married sister Margaret, in the suburb of Peabody. His first job was in a shoe factory but he soon found a position with better prospects in the Essex Hotel on Dewey Square. His brothers Tom and John were prospering in Boston and had their own band. Tom, as well as playing the flute, had now taken up the uilleann pipes and was also a dancing teacher.
But Jim's stay in Boston was to be a brief one. In 1918, Teresa Flynn followed him to America and settled with her brother in New York. Jim moved there and got lodgings in the home of Michael Carney the piper who lived in the Navy Yard district of Brooklyn. This area had a large Irish community with many fine musicians who regularly got together for sessions in Carney's basement. Jim heralded his arrival in fine style by winning the New York Feis in November 1918. Prospects were obviously good and in the following April, Teresa and he were married in New York. Morrison could not have picked a better time to arrive in New York as the city was teeming with Irish musicians of extraordinary ability. Michael Coleman, Patsy Touhey, P.J. Conlon, Tom Ennis, John McKenna, and many more would leave their stamp on Irish music for many years to come. Back to the Morrison Story index
Jim had also begun to teach music, and one of his early pupils was Paddy Killoran who had arrived from Ballymote in the early 1920s. Paddy also lodged in the Morrison household, and within a few years the two were playing professionally as a fiddle duet around New York, but sadly, they do not seem to have recorded together. The opportunities open to Irish musicians in New York in these years were many, with an almost insatiable demand for good musicians in the bars, restaurants, clubs and ballrooms frequented by the large emigrant population. There was also a constant demand by the record companies and, by the early 1930s, no fewer than twenty-two radio stations broadcast programmes for the Irish audience in Greater New York. Orchestras were the fashion of the day so Jim formed 'The James Morrison Band' with Tom Carmody on accordion and a pool of other players whom Jim called on to suit the occasion and venue. Somewhat unusually, Jim decided to add a second fiddle to his line-up and although many would have welcomed the opportunity to play in this prestigious band, he offered the job to a little-known Sligo fiddler whom he heard playing at a party in 1928. This man was John Donagher from Carrigeenboy who, although flattered by the offer, turned the job down as he had married the year previously and needed steady work. Paddy Killoran, who led one of the most popular bands in later years, would seem to have been the obvious choice as Jim's second fiddle player, but unfortunately the two musicians had parted company over a difference of opinion. Back to the Morrison Story index
By the early 1930, Jim's career was at its height, but his marriage was not having the same success. Teresa and Jim had five children. Margaret, James Jnr ., Vincent and Aileen. They temporarily separated around 1930 when Jim shared an apartment with his friend and one-time pupil, the Mayo musician John McGrath. The couple reunited and a sixth child, Sheila, was born, but, sadly, she died in infancy. Another daughter Theresa was born afterwards, but the couple parted permanently in the mid- 1930s. Teresa and the children lived on Columbus Avenue while Jim lived in various apartments around the 96th Street district from where he carried on his music teaching. Morrison was regarded as a highly intelligent and widely read man. He kept his faculties sharp by sitting various state examinations, simply it seems for the challenge of doing so. His success rate was supposedly high, but he never accepted any of the positions he had won. As word of Jim's achievements in examinations spread, candidates for similar tests came to him for tuition and his reputation in the educational and musical fields led to his being known among New York musicians as "The Professor" as he had been in his youth in Sligo. Jim was much sought after as a music teacher, giving instruction on the fiddle, flute, banjo, and accordion. Joe Cunningham, a former pupil says: "He wasn't an expert on all these instruments but he could sure show you how to play them." Joe Cunningham also remembers some of the puzzles and stories, which were given to him by James Morrison, such as: 1. If this and that, plus half of this and half of that equals 12, what plus this and that makes 15? 2. Punctuate:
Jim Morrison told the following story to Joe Cunningham in 1929. Bart Henry was the master at a school where Jim Morrison attended. He had a very flowery command of the English language. A neighboring woman gave a tea party one afternoon and had Mr. Bart Henry as guest of honour. She made sweet cake for the occasion. All the guests partook of the cake, except for the honoured guest.
The hostess asked him 3 times why he was not eating the cake. He said , "Madam, the superfluity of the sugar content renders the flavourity diabolically obnoxious to my digestive organs!!"
When the Meisel Publishing House decided to add an accordion tutor to their range, the result was the book: The Meisel Method for the Irish Accordion, written by "Professor James Morrison" This is the preface of this book:
By the late 1930's, music teaching had become Jim's main occupation. However he made occasional appearances with a band, at a concert, or on a radio programme. After joining forces with the Kerry-born dancing master, James McKenna, the self-styled "professors" became the most successful teachers of Irish music and dancing in New York. Jim also took a job with the Transit Authority, working on the night shift as a ticket seller at the 92nd Street railway station. Like many of his fellow musicians of the time, Jim became a heavy drinker, and in his final years pupils remembered how he would disappear from circulation for a few days two or three times a year while he was 'under the weather'. He would then reappear and return to the straight and narrow, always impeccably groomed and turned out. Tom Carmody says: "He was a real gentleman, very jolly, you know, and good company. If Morrison came into your house and started playing the fiddle, you could sit down 'till morning listening to him." Just five months before his death, Jim had a meeting in his sister's house in New York with his newly-ordained nephew, Father Martin Quigley from Doorla, near Drumfin. Father Martin said: "He asked me a thousand questions about the old place, the living and the deceased friends of the family, the area, everything that I could possibly offer an emigrant who still had a great love for the old country, but somehow never had returned... He brought along two violins and that afternoon I heard a torrent of Irish music from a man I could see was a perfectionist and a genius in his own right". In 1947 Jim Morrison was found in a collapsed state in his apartment and removed to the Knickerbocker Hospital in Manhattan where he died on 11 November 1947 at the age of fifty-four. His grave is in St. Raymond's cemetery in the Bronx. An anecdote from his old friend Tom Carmody can perhaps provide us with a fitting epilogue. One of Jim's friends, on hearing that he had turned down yet another well-paid job to pursue his first love, music, remarked. "With the jobs you turned down, it would have been better for you when you came out on the liner, if you threw that fiddle into the ocean!" No doubt, a promising career and prosperous life would have rewarded James Morrison if he had chosen to apply his talents in another walk of life. But it would have deprived the followers of Irish music of the priceless legacy of one of its finest and most versatile performers.
By kind permission of Harry Bradshaw, who compiled this account from interviews with: Kevin Quigley, Father Martin Quigley, Patrick Madden, Charlie Madden, Pascal Morrison, John Tonry, Paddy McDonagh, Joey Flynn, Joe Cunningham, Tom Carmody, Teresa Carmody, Alice O'Sullivan and Mary Hannan,
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4 +4 + 2 +2 = 12 4 + 4 = 15
That, that is, is. That, that is not, is not. Is that not so?
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