With overtones of Celtic myth, lore and poetic nostalgia, Coolatee is the perfect name for Mary Dunne s first solo album. Donegal-born, Dunne has lived in Tokyo for more than six years, guesting with bands, doing studio work, and playing live trad gigs with her band Paddy s Cure. Coolatee is the result of a very fruitful collaboration with American musician/producer Casey Rankin, who also lives in Tokyo.
Coolatee is the name of the townland which my mother grew up in as a child, in Donegal, explains Mary. The family left when she was a teenager, but she always talked about this wonderful house where people gathered around this roaring fire a lovely picture. And I thought I could use that idea as Mary Dunne missing Ireland, so that s how the song Coolatee came about, and then it was a very natural decision to give that the title of the album as well. One reason is because a lot of the songs have that feeling in them, and people like the name and it was easy for the Japanese to pronounce too. Which is always a good thing.
Mary and Casey are delighted that the headway they re making in Japan is translating into European success.
Y see, we re not under the influence, says Mary. We don t know what s happening over here in Ireland, so we just made the album up as we went along. We decided that this is the album we re gonna release in Japan; we had no idea it was going to get over this far. But having it released in Ireland is absolutely brilliant. You sit back and dream about things; when we were making the album, I d think, God, imagine if this was being played on my local radio station back in Letterkenny. And now it is! It s incredible.
Was it difficult recording a very Irish-flavoured, Celtic-influenced album in the middle of Tokyo?
No, not at all. The important thing as far as I m concerned about making an album is that it s partly a diary of yourself. Therefore the songs that are on the album are very Mary Dunne. I m very lucky knowing someone like Casey, who s been in Tokyo for 26 years, so I was able to find people who are excellent musicians, and who are very well established, and who said, Yeah, I m willing to do something different!
For example, on the first track on the album, Song of de Danann , we have a Japanese violinist. Her name is Abe Mio and she came in to do one track, and she loved it she went wild! So we used her on Spancil Hill and she had a great time. We were surrounded by brilliant people like that so it was amazing. It wasn t difficult it was a surprise every day.
As well as her own original work, Dunne chose to record several well-known trad standards on Coolatee.
Someone said to me that it was very cheeky to take songs like Star Of The County Down and The Cliffs Of Dooneen songs that everyone does and actually do them on my album. I could ve got a lot of criticism for doing that, but I reckon it worked. That s what s great about Irish traditional music it s always reinventing itself. It s never the same and that s why Irish music is so popular today, because it s always fresh.
Also, she continues, a lot of the songs are very relevant to today. Spancil Hill is about being away in America and having this dream about being at home and then waking up and realising you re still away. That s happened to me in Tokyo I d be having a great time, sitting down having a cup of tea with my granny and then I d wake up still in Tokyo. Then some of the songs that I ve written are modern emigration songs.
How does Mary feel about returning to Ireland to promote her new album?
Hmmm . . . she breathes, choosing her words carefully. It s not that Irish people are hard to please, it s just that Irish people are used to very good music. They re used to the best they re surrounded by so many good musicians. I don t know how many brilliant fiddlers have come out of Donegal, and singers and songwriters, and that s Donegal alone. So when you come to Ireland and present yourself as a musician, you ve gotta be damn good before they accept you. n