Old Cowboys Never Die

THERE’VE been many legendary residencies in the brief history of Rock and Roll: The Beatles at the Cavern, The Stones at the Crawdaddy, Them at the Maritime, The Blades at the Baggot Inn. But in the late ’80s Dublin went hillbilly nuts and The Fleadh Cowboys reigned supreme on Saturday nights at the Olympia, aided and abetted by star guests such as Shane McGowan, Mike Scott, Nanci Griffith and Joe Ely, as well as a host of homegrown luminaries like Mary Black and Ronnie Drew.

Pete Cummins, an original member of the Fleadhs, looks back on those halcyon days with fond memories.

“We were hot at the time, there’s no doubt about that,” he reflects. “People wanted to listen to good country music and there was plenty of venues willing to put it on – we were doing about four gigs a week at one point. Then there was a bit of a recession and dance music came along. Frankie [Lane] left the band in ’91 and I kept it going for a while but eventually I got fed up with the whole thing.”

But now, following this extended hiatus, The Fleadh Cowboys are back with a revitalised line-up and a new album, Time of Your Life. However, Cummins is quick to point out that this time around it’ll be a lot more low-key.

“We’re not trying to return to the glory days,” he stresses. “That would be pointless. We’re gone a bit beyond the fashion stage anyway. We’re doing it because we love music and we like playing together – it’s as simple as that.

“We weren’t really intending to do a full album,” he continues. “We went in to put down four tracks and it went quite well, so we kept on recording. I had a fair amount of tunes written over the years and the others started bringing in songs too. There are no record companies involved – it’s an independent release. Somebody put up the money to do the record and we did it.”

The current line-up of the Fleadhs includes Frankie Lane, Paul Kelly, Tommy Moore, Gerard Kiley and Robbie Casserly, with keyboard wizard Trevor Knight adding a new dimension to the sound. The album includes bluegrass flavoured country tunes such as ‘Looking For The Magic’ and Bill Monroe’s ‘Ohio Revisited’, with more mainstream rock songs like ‘Idle Time’ and ‘Long Time Dead & Gone’. One of the more interesting numbers on the album is ‘Breakfast With Leonard’, written by Cummins and inspired by a meeting he had with the great Leonard Cohen in the Gresham Hotel back in 1972.

“I was playing with Donovan at the time and it was actually his meeting with Cohen,” he explains. “I was a huge fan and I just tagged along. One of the first things he asked Donovan was ‘Do you use drugs when you write songs?’ I thought that was a very interesting question for one artist to ask another and I used that line in the song.”

And can Cummins recall what the answer to that particular question was?

“I think it was ‘yes’. But even if you take a pint or smoke a cigarette, you’re using drugs, so it doesn’t incriminate anyone. I firmly believe that drugs have played a huge part in the development of music over the years. The music changes with the kind of drugs people take. In the early sixties during the beat boom it was pills and amphetamines, then came weed and acid and things became more laid back. In the last ten years Ecstasy has fuelled the dance music scene.”

Despite the release of the new album it’s unlikely that the Fleadhs will return to the live scene with the same fervour as they demonstrated in the past.

“It’s a question of getting all of the people in the band together,” Cummins explains. “Most of them are involved in other projects particularly Trevor Knight who does a lot of theatre work.”

Meanwhile, Cummins has long-term plans to put out a solo album.

“I’d really like to do an album of Texan songs,” he explains. “I like that whole Texas scene; people like Guy Clarke, Joe Ely, and Jimmy Dale Gilmore. One of the last conversations I had with the late Bill Graham was about Texas music, which he had a great love for. I actually wrote a song about Bill based on that conversation though I don’t know if I’ll ever record it or perform it live – I don’t want to get into a Diana vibe. I thought Bill was a great man and after he died the song just came to me.”

• Time of Your Life is out now on Sidekick Record. The Fleadh Cowboys web-site can be found at: www.fleadhcowboys.com