CORKIN’ CORCORAN!

In his interview with Zrazy, in the Christmas issue of Hot Press, Joe Jackson alluded to the band’s suspicion that most of the Irish media had ignored their recently-released debut album because of the duo’s confessed lesbianism. One man who stands totally innocent of such a charge is RTE 2FM presenter Alan Corcoran who, on a busy pre-Christmas edition of his Sunday morning show, not only played some choice cuts from the Zrazy album, but interviewed them as well.

But such open-mindedness has become the hallmark of the Wexfordman’s approach, as he consistently and stubbornly defies the conventional radio ‘wisdom’ by playing a rich diversity of music, with, for example, Therapy?, Garth Brooks and Altan all quite naturally contributing to a rich musical tapestry that also includes intelligent and lively interviews and impromptu live in-studio performances.

ENTER JOHNNY

It’s 8.30 a.m. Sunday morning coming down in the RTE canteen where Producer Pat Morley is having breakfast and recovering after arriving home at 10 p.m. from the previous day’s trip to Cork, on a stint with the 2FM Roadcaster. The show’s broadcast assistant Deirdre Ryan is settling in at her station in the control room in the bowels of RTE, ready for another demanding two and a half hours.

Corcoran himself is in the studio, putting his records and other bits of paraphernalia in order, casually chatting to colleague Simon Young, making sure all the knobs and switches are in functioning mode and starting to log the details of his music content, a familiar task for DJs at the national station which is part of RTE’s agreement with the PRS/IMRO. Because his programme is followed by Ian Dempsey’s more pop-orientated Beat Box, Corcoran deliberately plays very little current chart material and reckons that his selection roughly breaks down into equal quantities of American Country Music, international oldies from the seventies and eighties, and Irish music. If the Irish content turns out to be that high it is above the national average and, unknown to anyone on the programme, I intend monitoring the precise Irish content as the show proceeds.

After a smooth hand-over from Simon Young and the 9 o’clock news, the show slips into gear with tracks from Clint Black, Curtis Stigers, Ray Stevens, Dolly Parton’s ‘Nine To Five’ and what Corcoran believes is the first radio play for The Saw Doctors’ hilarious ‘Michael D. Rockin’ In The Dail’. As a matter of policy he usually keeps the first half-hour guest-free and musically fairly safe and soft, leaving the louder and more adventurous stuff for later. As we swing into Wet Wet Wet’s ‘Sweet Surrender’ to support 2FM’s association with their forthcoming Dublin gig, he tries to sort out some malfunction in his headphones and Deirdre Ryan delivers the first sheaf of phone messages of the day.

Despite having to hit the Wexford-Dublin road quite early, Corcoran admits to a preference for morning broadcasting even though he does another 2FM show on Saturday evenings and he breaks off to recount his enjoyment of a recent trip to New York where he interviewed, among others, two other successful Wexfordmen, Larry Kirwan of Black 47 and Pierce Turner. Then it’s a track by Randy Edelman just before the welcome arrival of Pat Morley and breakfast of a rasher and sausage sandwich and coffee and it’s time for the first guest, Johnny Duhan.

Duhan talks sombrely about his largelyautobiographical new album Just Another Town and in the thirty minutes alloted to him turns in passionate live performances of two original compositions, including one called ‘Northern Ireland’ which Freddie White is considering including on his next album. Corcoran includes two tracks directly from Duhan’s album and it’s time for the 10 o’clock news. Following Duhan with a track by Village People, Corcoran says “This proves that Irish artists and Irish recordings can compete with the best and I make no apology for giving so much time to good Irish product.”

His next choice is another Irish one, a track by The Bushers chosen to highlight an upcoming gig organised to raise funds following the recent death of Paddy Busher and while Mary Black sings ‘Carolina Rua’ his next guest Sean Keane shows up. After the usual handshakes there follows some discussion about how the interview should be done, whether Sean might be persuaded to do a couple of tunes live and, with typical attention to detail – not to mention good manners! – the correct pronunciation of Keane. (Sean, brother of the more famous Dolores, insists on it rhyming with ‘lane’).

House Calls!

All of this shows Corcoran at his best, always deferring to the comfort of his guests but also able to go with the flow, with no tension or anxiety. Before long Sean is ensconced in the interview seat and with his accompanist Paul delivers an effortless, assured performance with some delightful harmonies that have no right to be up at this hour on a Sunday morning. The relaxing chat reveals that the ‘Taglione’, which features as the title of a song on Keane’s new album All Heart No Roses, is not a Mediterranean dish but an item of Italian clothing. Their three songs bring the time to 10.30.

Song eighteen on the show comes from Confederate Railroad and it precedes a track from the Blues Brothers and a classic Beatles track, making an extraordinarily varied sequence of Irish folk, American country, soul and pop in that order!

While Corcoran expresses the view that ‘Three guests on one show is just about right for us. I think four makes it too talk-heavy’, his words are confounded by the arrival, with producer Morley, in the control room of Chanting House, whereas they had been expecting Zrazy. But the unflappable Corcoran quickly adapts and the four Chanting Housers are wheeled in to fill the studio with bodies, chatter, a cello, some percussion and a guitar while Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘59th Street Bridge Song’ plays and Corcoran remarks that he passed that famous spot on his afore-mentioned New York sortie.

As Chanting House are settling in we hear tracks from Lionel Ritchie, Vince Gill and Bagatelle but at precisely 10.50 Corcoran’s plan to leave Chanting House to the end of the show are rendered redundant by the arrival of Zrazy amid much jocular banter about misunderstandings over dates and times. But whereas another DJ might have sent either of the two acts away rather than suffer some mild inconvenience, Corcoran decides instead to ditch some of the records he spent much of the previous day selecting . . .

Bryan Adams and Ricky Van Skelton bring us right up to 11 o’clock and after the news headlines it’s straight into Chanting House. Despite the cramped conditions and the lack of a soundcheck, the New York-based American-Irish quartet admirably perform two impressive songs in a vein somewhat reminiscent of Joni Mitchell and Scullion and enthusiastically fill the listeners in on their current visit to these shores.

And then it’s over to Zrazy who are in sparkling form and respond to Corcoran’s request for them to define their musical style by describing it as either ‘pop or pagan-funk, whichever you like’. While two tracks from Zrazy are wafting out over the airwaves and there is an obvious sense that the show is winding to a close, Morley and Corcoran are already locked in discussions about the content of next week’s show. I’m busy, meanwhile, with my fingers analysing this morning’s musical content.

In all, it transpires that a total of thirty pieces of music were played during the two and a half hours. Of those thirty, fifteen were Irish, making a percentage quota of exactly 50%, even higher than Corcoran’s assumed norm and covering an impressive range of styles between the extremes of the Connaught tradition of Sean Keane to the contemporary dance-techno ‘pagan-pop’ of Zrazy.

VARIED DIET

Relaxing in the RTE canteen afterwards, the non-drinking, non-smoking Wexford Work Study Engineer talks about how he got into radio.

“I started with a small pirate station in Rosslare. In the summer you could do your show and then go straight for a swim. I was always a big music fan and the material on this morning’s show would be very much in line with my own taste”, he states. “Both myself and Pat Morley are big fans of country music and Irish music and I think that’s why we have such a solid working relationship.”

He is also a big Thin Lizzy fan and says that Phil Lynott was “one of the biggest musical influences on my life and, by a very strange coincidence, I think the most enjoyable interview I ever did on radio was with Lizzy drummer Brian Downey.” This musical enthusiasm and commitment extends to his wife who was formerly a member of the Irish group Dorchadas and who often travels with him to his shows.

Despite being a comparative newcomer to national radio and never having worked for a prolonged period in a high-profile daytime slot, Corcoran has already picked up some noteworthy awards, including one from the charity CARI, one nomination for a Smithwicks-Hot Press Radio Award and was named DJ of the Year by the Munster Express newspaper.

As the debate about the dismally low percentage of Irish music on Irish radio is likely to continue into the new year, many broadcasters may have the finger of suspicion pointed in their direction, but Alan Corcoran has an impressive track-record in this regard and, perhaps even more importantly, he has also shown that the Irish listening public can handle a varied diet of music presented in an intelligent and innovative fashion.

Now ain’t that peculiar.