With a banjo on my knee

“If you walk around Nashville with a Johnny Keenan Banjo Festival t-shirt on, people will stop to talk to you about it. It’s better known in the USA than it is here. In America they regard it as the capital of the banjo in Europe.”
This is Chris Keenan, widow of the late, great folk musician Johnny Keenan, and, along with Kathy Casey of Shannonside Radio, the driving force behind the four-day festival which, with modest resources, has become one of the most impressive events in the music calender.
The festival, in its sixth year, takes place in Longford, the town Johnny and Chris retired to after the birth of their daughter in accordance with Johnny’s preference for a more rural upbringing for her.
Not that it was easy at the start. As Keenan recalls: “The initial response to the idea of a banjo festival in Longford was great hilarity! People just laughed at the idea. So we got very little support at the beginning. Myself and Kathy had to cover all the costs for the first year. Now we get some much-appreciated support from the locals – like the town council and the county council. But it’s still mainly the two of us running it with the help of a very dedicated committee. Kathy introduced a rule a while ago that for a full week after each festival we’re not allowed to talk about it at all. But for the other 51 weeks it takes up a huge amount of our time. I travel to the US a few times a year to meet artists and agents and so on.”
Despite its relative youth, The Johnny Keenan Banjo festival has already chalked up an impressive list of guest artists from the USA and the home front. There are some that stand out for Keenan more than others. “We had Earl Scruggs here when he was 80 years old. It was his first time to play in Ireland. He played to 1,500 people who rose in unison when he came on. I saw grown men in tears. It was a dream fulfilled to get him here and that was probably my most memorable moment of them all. Then last year we had a terrific solo performance from Barney McKenna, and another stand-out was a guy called Leroy Troy. He’s a genuine hillbilly from Tennessee, and he came on wearing a pair of dungarees and stuff. People at first thought he was put-on, but he’s the real deal, and they loved him.”
She also mentions Hayseed Dixie, the Appalachian hell-raisers who came to Longford and were more than surprised to find themselves playing, possibly for the first time ever, to a festival audience that was totally seated and intent on listing to every note.
Cast as a “celebration of Irish traditional and American bluegrass music” the profile of the festival on the international circuit is now such that top artist agencies regularly pursue Keenan to get their acts on the bill.
But there are still a number of acts Keenan has on her wish list and whom she hopes to attract to Longford in time. “I’d love to get Doc Watson, but he’s getting on in years now and he won’t travel. Others I want to bring to Longford include Ralph Stanley, Gillian Welsh and Alison Krauss. I’ll get there here yet, don’t you worry!”
Keenan’s own background was with record companies like Sony and Chrysalis in the USA, as well as time working with agencies and in tour management. So she’s well equipped to cover all bases when it comes to overseeing a festival on this scale. But she is conscious that the event is primarily about honouring the memory of a man who inspired many with his work with various acts, including The Pavees, Davy Spillane, Ted and Paul Furey, and Tipsy Sailor, and this year’s line-up will do his memory proud, with star names of the calibre of Guy Clark, Dervish, the Nashville Bluegrass Band, Niall Toner and Arty McGlynn all lined up.
But what memories does Chris have now of Johnny? “He was in some ways a little old-fashioned. That’s why he wanted to move from Dublin to the country to bring up our daughter. He used to say he was a musician first and then a man, but after she was born he’d say he was a father first, then a musician, then a man. He loved American folk music because he saw that a lot of that music originally grew out of Irish music. When he talked about living in America he would talk about rural places that were rich in folk music. He always wanted to be surrounded by the music he loved. But I’m glad to say he was happy and contented in his later years.”

The Johnny Keenan Banjo Festival takes place in Longford from Thursday 13 –Sunday 16 September, and includes concerts, workshops, and pub and street sessions. For full details go to www.johnnykeenan.com