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The Clancy Brothers

The Clancy Brothers were an influential Irish folk music group that developed initially as a part of the American folk music revival. Most popular during the 1960s, they were famed for their Aran jumpers and are widely credited with popularising Irish traditional music in the United States and revitalising it in Ireland, contributing to an Irish folk boom with groups like the Dubliners and the Wolfe Tones.[1][2][3][4][5]

The Clancy Brothers

The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, The Clancy Brothers and Louis Killen, The Clancy Brothers and Robbie O'Connell, The Clancy Brothers and Eddie Dillon

County Tipperary, Ireland and County Armagh, Northern Ireland

1956–1998

The Clancy Brothers, Paddy Clancy, Tom Clancy, and Liam Clancy, are known best for their work with Tommy Makem, recording almost two dozen albums together as The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. Makem left in 1969, the first of many changes in the group's membership. The most notable subsequent member to join was the fourth Clancy brother, Bobby. The group continued in various formations until Paddy Clancy's death in 1998.


The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem significantly influenced the young Bob Dylan and other artists, including Christy Moore and Paul Brady.[6][7] The group was famous for its often lively arrangements of old Irish ballads, rebel and drinking songs, sea shanties, and other traditional music.[5][8]

Legacy and influence[edit]

American folk revival[edit]

The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem were significant figures in the American folk revival of the early 1960s and played important roles in promoting and influencing the early development of the folk boom. In December 1964, Billboard Magazine listed the group as the eleventh best-selling folk musicians in the United States based on sales figures for that year. The Clancys' friends, Peter, Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan, and Pete Seeger, also appeared on the list in first, seventh, and ninth positions, respectively.[40]


Tradition Records, the small company that Paddy Clancy ran with the help of his brothers, recorded several significant figures of the folk revival and gave some important musical figures their first start in the recording industry. Tradition produced Odetta's first solo LP, Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues. Bob Dylan later cited this album as his inspiration to become a folk singer.[41] The success of that record helped to further finance the nascent company and led to an additional LP with Odetta on the Tradition label.[42] After the success of her Tradition records, Vanguard records signed her to a prestigious recording contract that led to many more albums.


The Clancys recorded numerous 1960s folk singers, including Jean Ritchie, Ed McCurdy, Ewan MacColl, Paul Clayton, and John Jacob Niles. Carolyn Hester's eponymous album with Tradition led to her first public recognition and her signing with Columbia Records.[43] The Clancys also released the only album on which folk song collector Alan Lomax sang.


Paddy Clancy and Tommy Makem were among the first singers to ever appear at the Newport Folk Festival in 1959.[44] The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem appeared there subsequently several times during the 1960s. The festival is renowned for introducing to a national audience a number of performers who went on to become major stars, most notably Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.

Influence on Bob Dylan[edit]

The Clancy Brothers were contemporaries of Bob Dylan, and they became friends as they played the clubs of Greenwich Village in New York in the early 1960s. Howard Sounes in his biography of Dylan describes how Dylan listened to the Clancys singing Irish rebel songs like "Roddy McCorley" which he found fascinating, not only in terms of their melodies but also their themes, structures and storytelling techniques. Although the songs were about Irish rebels, they reminded Dylan of American folk heroes. He wanted to write songs on similar themes and with equal depth.[45]


Dylan stopped Liam Clancy and Tommy Makem in the street one day in early 1962 and insisted on singing a new song he had written to the tune of "Brennan On The Moor", a song from the eponymous Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem album on Tradition Records. It was called "Rambling, Gambling Willie" and was Dylan's attempt to replicate Irish folk heroes in an American context. Dylan continued to use the melodies of songs from the Clancys' repertoire for his own lyrics several more times, including "The Leaving of Liverpool" for "Farewell To You My Own True Love", "The Parting Glass" for "Restless Farewell", and "The Patriot Game" for "With God on Our Side".


In an interview with U2's Bono from 1984, Dylan recalled: "Irish music has always been a great part of my life because I used to hang out with the Clancy Brothers. They influenced me tremendously." Later in the interview he added, "[O]ne of the things I recall from that time is how great they all were—I mean there is no question, but that they were great. But Liam Clancy was always my favorite singer, as a ballad singer. I just never heard anyone as good."[46] Dylan reiterated this view on camera for the documentary, The Story of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.[12]


Dylan never forgot his debt to the Clancys, which is why he invited them to perform at his 30th anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden. It was Dylan's wish that the party after the concert be held at Tommy Makem's Irish Pavilion, a Manhattan pub owned by Makem. At the exclusive party, attended by George Harrison and Eric Clapton among others, Liam Clancy tentatively asked Dylan if he would mind if the Clancys recorded an album of his songs, arranged in a traditional Irish style. Far from minding, Dylan was flattered by the idea: "Man, would you do that? Would you?" He added, "Liam, you don't realize, do you, man? You're my fucking hero."[47] Although the group never made an entire album of Dylan's music, two of his songs, "When the Ship Comes In" and "Rambin' Gamblin' Willie", appeared on the final Clancy Brothers album, Older But No Wiser, three years later. The 1997 eponymous Clancy, O'Connell, and Clancy album also contained a Dylan number, "Restless Farewell".

Partial discography[edit]

With Tommy Makem[edit]

Tradition Records

The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem – Biography and Discographies at the Balladeers