Tommy Makem
| Tommy Makem | |
|---|---|
Makem at the Dublin Irish Festival, 2005
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| Background information | |
| Born |
4 November 1932 Keady, County Armagh, Northern Ireland |
| Died | 1 August 2007 (aged 74) Dover, New Hampshire, United States |
| Genres | Folk, traditional Irish |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter, artist, poet |
| Instruments | Vocals, banjo, tin whistle |
| Years active | 1956–2007 |
| Associated acts |
The Clancy Brothers Makem and Clancy The Makem Brothers Barley Bree Sarah Makem |
| Website | makem |
Thomas "Tommy" Makem (4 November 1932 – 1 August 2007) was an internationally celebrated Irish folk musician, artist, poet and storyteller. He was best known as a member of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. He played the long-necked 5-string banjo, tin whistle, low whistle, guitar, bodhrán and bagpipes, and sang in a distinctive baritone. He was sometimes known as "The Bard of Armagh" (taken from a traditional song of the same name) and "The Godfather of Irish Music".
Makem was born and raised in Keady, County Armagh (the "Hub of the Universe" as Makem always said), in Northern Ireland. His mother, Sarah Makem, was an important source of traditional Irish music, who was visited and recorded by, among others, Diane Guggenheim Hamilton, Jean Ritchie, Peter Kennedy and Sean O'Boyle. His father, Peter Makem, was a fiddler who also played the bass drum in a local pipe band named "Oliver Plunkett", after a Roman Catholic martyr of the reign of Charles II of England. His brother and sister were folk musicians also. Young Tommy Makem, from the age of 8, was member of the St. Patrick's church choir for 15 years where he sang Gregorian chant and motets. He did not learn to read music but he made it in his "own way".
Makem started to work at 14 as a clerk in a garage and later he worked for a while as a barman at Mone's Bar, a local pub, and as a local correspondent for The Armagh Observer.
He emigrated to the United States in 1955, carrying his few possessions and a set of bagpipes (from his time in a pipe band). Arriving in Dover, New Hampshire, Makem worked at Kidder Press, where in 1956 his hand was accidentally crushed by a press. With his arm in a sling, he left Dover for New York to pursue an acting career.
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Wikipedia