When you re in possession of a grandfather known as the Maestro of the uilleann pipes, and your family pedigree spans no less than five generations, chances are that your eardrums might, just might, lean in the direction of traditional music.Kevin Rowsome, grandson of Leo, son of Leon and nephew of Liam is partial to the pipes alright. A former first prizewinner at the Oireachtas, he s been careful to give the music time to seep through his veins before committing himself to the recording studio.
The Rowsome Tradition is an onion of a recording. Layer upon layer of tradition can be peeled away with each successive set of tunes. Rowsome s own musical identity gradually emerges from between the layers, his versatility and quiet confidence underpinning the collective like well-built scaffolding. Alongside his own tunes, he s chosen to seat another half-dozen archive recordings of his father, uncle and grandfather.
From as far back as I can remember, there was music in the house, Kevin recalls, and I started to learn the pipes at the age of six from my grandfather. It was a scaled-down chanter that both my father and grandfather had learned on before me. My first memory of playing in public was when my grandfather played a concert, and all I can remember is being petrified. There I was in short trousers walking out on stage. It was my first experience of playing in public, but it didn t put me off, I suppose!
As any male teenager with an eye to credibility ratings will attest, the pipes don t score too highly with either women or peers. During his teens, Rowsome turned to the clarinet and the saxophone, and even served time with the Artane Boys Band before re-focusing his energies back on the pipes. He then had to put in a couple of years catching up.
paying homage
My style developed gradually, he avers, because I wasn t disciplined in my playing in the way that a lot of pipers are exposed to a certain way of playing which channels or focuses them, in a way. I just listened to a lot of different pipers: Johnny and Felix Doran, and Paddy Keenan, Mick O Brien and Liam S Floinn, along with my grandfather and father s styles. But even though I can play like most of the pipers I would have listened to, including some of Seamus Ennis earlier pieces, my own natural style isn t easily definable. So my playing evolved and matured slowly.
Notwithstanding his desire to assert his own musical identity, Rowsome is quick to pay homage to the legacy of his grandfather too, as he does on The Wexford Hornpipe .
I play in different styles, and in that set of tunes, I play very much like the style my grandfather liked, he says. Now, he would have played more on the beat, I put in triplets on the regulators, which was an influence from Johnny Doran s playing, say. But, I suppose ultimately, it s my own style. Some of the tracks have guitar backing, for example, and I m sure my father and grandfather would ve liked that too. I m sure they would embrace new developments too. Traditional music was a lot stricter then than it is now.
Rowsome s decision to include the archival recordings was an easy one, and didn t require much soul-searching on his part.
I suppose I thought it would be unique to have three different generations of music on the one CD, he offers tentatively, and I thought it would also be a nice way to pay my respects to them. Their recordings hadn t ever been released before so it s nice to let people hear them, especially the two airs of my uncle Liam ( An Raibh Ta Ag An gCarraig and The Coolin ).
Rowsome s recording has already garnered laurels from purists and young turks alike. A mighty fine tribute to past and present, it s a collection that no self-respecting trad lover should be without. After all, The Rowsome Tradition is Dublin s piping tradition in microcosm.
Kevin Rowsome s The Rowsome Tradition is now available nationwide, on Kelero Records, distributed by Gael Linn Records.