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Frank Harte

 
Artist: Frank Harte
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Andy Irvine
  • Born: May 14, 1933, Chapelizod, County Dublin, Irelan
  • Died: June 27, 2005, Dublin, Ireland
  • Active: '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, 2000s
  • Genres: World
  • Instrument: Vocals
  • Representative Albums: "The Hungry Voice

Biography

Frank Harte's family ran a typical Irish pub close to the banks of the Liffey river, and the young boy's introduction to Irish singing was hearing a wandering balladeer who was selling song sheets at a fair in Boyle. From this early inspiration, Harte became a great promoter of the Dublin street ballad. His importance on the Irish music scene cannot be denied, except perhaps amongst the ranks of Irish instrumentalists, who might approve of Harte's preference for these ballads to be performed unaccompanied. His own singing is certainly up to this challenge. While some might find his Dublin accent a bit heavy, or feel that the words he sings are coming out his nose, perhaps these listeners should move onto another style of music where they would feel comfortable, such as singing cowboys. Harte's reputation, however, has also been built on his activities as a collector of songs and the tales behind the songs as well. He has put together a larder of nearly 16,000 recordings, a task that was only accomplished due to his early start as a song hunter. These activities began almost immediately after his initial exposure to this rich style of music, and he frequently would be observed buying ballads from street singers. The song material evolved from all walks of life and the mixture of Catholics and Protestants in the community. There was also massive input from the ranks of ex-soldiers -- the Dublin Fusiliers who had come back from the first World War -- with their tragic songs about soldiers leaving their sweethearts behind to go off to battle. Harte was also drawn to old music hall tradition and Victorian ditties fraught with melodrama, such as "She Was Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage." The type of songcraft he was researching was a world apart from the business practices of so-called professional songwriters who guard their creations with copyright laws and sue each other when someone's riff sounds familiar. The ballad singers and other musicians Harte dealt with were always pleased to pass their songs along, feeling that these ballads were really the property of the people whose courageous and often sad lives were described in the lyrics, and not to whomever happened to be doing the singing. He was fond of poet Brendan Kennelly to clarify this point: "All songs are living ghosts/And long for a living voice."

Two other important points about Irish music were at the crux of Harte's philosophy. First, Irish music should take no side in the heartbreaking hostilities between the country's religious groups. Secondly, traditional singers had to develop a different philosophy than professional entertainers in terms of how they relate to an audience. Harte felt that the traditional singer, unlike the latter type of vocalist, had absolutely no responsibility to entertain or please the crowd that might be listening, because the singer's real purpose is simply to perform the song, the act of the performance being a justification in itself. Harte recorded several albums and made numerous television appearances, entertaining many despite or perhaps even because of this attitude. For many years these activities were not enough to support him, however, and he also trained and worked as an architect as well as taking over his father's pub, The Tap. Harte has maintained his presence as a regular at singers' sessions in Ireland and also performs in clubs, seminars and festivals throughout Europe and North America. He has also been quite active as a teacher of traditional Irish music in both the United States and Canada. One of his most frequent collaborators is the Irish performer Donal Lunny. The pair have collaborated on several superb recordings. My Name Is Napoleon Bonaparte represents a good example of Harte's work, assembled carefully over several years as the partners compiled more songs than anyone might think existed about the French dictator and warmonger, so many in fact that it took two compact discs to fit them all in. In 2000, Harte was invited to take part in special performances for the new millennium held at the prestigious Kennedy Center. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide
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Frank Harte

Background information
Birth name Frank Harte
Born 14 May 1933(1933-05-14)
Chapelizod, County Dublin, Ireland
Died 27 June 2005 (aged 72)
Genres Traditional Irish, Sean Nós
Occupations Architect, Lecturer, Singer
Labels Hummingbird
Associated acts Donal Lunny

Frank Harte (14 May 1933, Chapelizod, County Dublin, Ireland – 27 June 2005) was a traditional Irish singer, song collector, architect and lecturer. He was born and raised in Dublin. His father Peter Harte who had moved from a farming background in Sligo owned 'The Tap' pub in Chapelizod. Frank emigrated to the United States for a short period, but later returned to Ireland where he worked as an architect, lecturer at DIT (Dublin Institute of Technology) in Rathmines, Dublin and in later life fully engaged in songs in many ways.

Contents

Singing

Frank Harte's introduction to Irish traditional singing came, he said, from a chance listening to an itinerant who was selling ballad sheets at a fair in Boyle, County Roscommon.

“

And the banshee cried when Dalton died
In the valley of Knockanure

"This is a far cry from Dublin street songs, but it was the first song I heard, sung by a travelling man, that made me aware that we had a tradition of songs telling about the joys and sorrows, the tragedies and battles of a people in a way that I found irresistible. From that first hearing I have been fascinated by the idea of the story told in song."[1]

 „

Frank became a great exponent of the Dublin street ballad, which he preferred to sing unaccompanied. He was widely known for his distinctive singing, his Dublin accent having a rich nasal quality complimenting his often high register. His voice mellowed considerably by the time of his later recordings, allowing for an expressive interpretation of many love songs such as 'My Bonny Light Horseman' on the album 'My Name is Napoleon Bonaparte'. This is contrasted sublimely by Frank's cogent interpretation of the popular 'Molly Malone'. He also became more accustomed to singing with accompaniment which is not strictly part of the Irish singing tradition and did not come naturally to him.

Though Irish Republican in his politics, he believed that the Irish song tradition need not be a sectarian or nationalist preserve: "The Orange song is just as valid an expression as the Fenian". He believed that songs were a key to understanding the past often saying :"those in power write the history, while those who suffer write the songs, and, given our history, we have an awful lot of songs."[2]. Though considered a stalwart of traditional Irish singing and well aware of it, Frank did not consider himself to be a sean-nós singer[2].

He claimed he liked to sing out of his love for a song rather than a desire to please an audience: "A traditional singer is not singing for a commercial audience so he doesn't have to please an audience." His repertoire included, amongst many others, songs of the 1798 rebellion, Napoleonic ballads and the street ballads of Zozimus. As well as traditional songs, he also sang numerous music hall songs such 'The Charladies' Ball' and 'Biddy Mulligan' as popularised by Jimmy O'Dea.

Frank won the All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil singing competition on a number of occasions and in 2003, he received the Traditional Singer of the Year award from the Irish-language television channel TG4.
The Spanish Lady - excerpt' performed by Frank Harte]
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Song Collecting

Frank began collecting early in life and he remembered buying ballads from a man who sold them by the sheet at the side of the Adelphi Cinema and by the end of his life had assembled a database of over 15,500 recordings.

As a young man, Frank encountered many songs in his father's pub, 'The Tap', in Chapelizod saying:

"It was a great mixture of people in Chapelizod - Catholics and Protestants. There was also a fair few of the old crowd knocking around - the Dublin Fusiliers who had come back from the First World War and they all had their input too. They had these songs about soldiers going away to war and leaving the sweetheart behind and they were all tearjerkers. I would also hear a lot of the old music-hall songs and Victorian melodrama songs such as She Was Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage or . . . things that would tear your heart out, bring tears to your eyes."[3]

He once wrote about his song collecting:

"I have been gathering songs around the country for a good number of years now, and seldom have I come across singers who are unwilling to part with their songs. Probably they realise as I do, that the songs do not belong to them, just as they did not belong to the people they got them from."[1]

This was a philosophy that Frank went on to espouse greatly himself, having given countless songs and encouragement to singers in Ireland and abroad for over fifty years. Recipients of songs and information about them include Christy Moore, Andy Irvine, Karan Casey, The Voice Squad, and musicians alike.

Despite his extensive collecting, he firmly believed that songs only existed when sung and to augment the point, he often quoted the poem 'Living Ghosts' by Brendan Kennelly:

All songs are living ghosts
And long for a living voice[4]

Frank is referred to by members of Planxty in the biography of the band by Leagues O'Toole, 'The Humours of Planxty' as a source of songs.

"The Little Drummer" was a song passed on by the late, great Dublin singer and collector, Frank Harte. 'He is perhaps the single most important collector of songs,' says Christy.

'I remember Christy and myself going up to Frank Harte for songs,' adds Andy. 'I'd known Frank since very early in my career. He was an architect living in Chapelizod and I first met him in about 1963. He was always slightly to one side. It would be Johnny Moynihan and myself and our clique, and Ronnie Drew and The Dubliners, all more or less of the same age, and Frank was probably seven or eight years older than I was. I liked him a lot.'[5]

Recordings

Frank recorded several albums and made numerous television and radio appearances, most nobably the Singing Voices [6] series he wrote and presented for RTÉ Radio, which was produced by Peter Browne in 1987. Frank's first two LPs, though released with six years between them, were recorded in one session in England by Bill Leader with concertina accompaniment on some songs by Alf Edwards. From 1998 he recorded four albums for the Hummingbird record label on which he was accompanied by Donal Lunny on bazouki and guitar. These last four albums covered the huge topics of the 1798 Rebellion, the Great Irish Famine, Napoleon Bonaparte and the Irish navvies abroad. Each album is characteristically accompanied by comprehensive liner notes of meticulous research into each song and the subject in question, though his accuracy and impartiality as a historian is not as unanimously praised as his singing. In 2004, Frank's first two albums were re-released on CD, though the first track of his first album 'Traveller All Over The World' was omitted.[7]

Performance

Frank was a regular at the Sunday morning sessions at The Brazen Head pub, along with the late Liam Weldon who ran the session. He was also an enthusiastic supporter of An Góilín Traditional Singer's Club. A regular at singers' sessions in Ireland, he appeared at clubs, seminars and festivals in France, Britain and America as well as touring the festivals at Fleadhanna in Ireland. Frank also performed in London in Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger's 'Singers Club' in 1971 and at the [8] on two occasions.

"Harte felt that the traditional singer, unlike the latter type of vocalist, had absolutely no responsibility to entertain or please the crowd that might be listening, because the singer's real purpose is simply to perform the song, the act of the performance being a justification in itself."[9]

He appeared at many American festivals including The Blarney Star in New York, Gaelic Roots in Boston College, The Catskills Irish Arts Week, The Greater Washington Ceili Club Festival in Maryland and Irish Fest in Milwaukee and for seventeen years he was a veritable staple at the Irish Week every July in the Augusta Heritage Festival in Elkins in the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia where he often performed with Mick Moloney. He was also in demand as a teacher and gave many talks about traditional song including a lecture entitled "My name is Napoleon Bonaparte - the significance of Napoleon Bonaparte in the Irish Song Tradition" at the Willy Clancy Summer school on the 12th July, 2001.

Legacy

Frank Harte died of a heart attack, aged 72, on the 27th of June, 2005 and is survived by his wife Stella (née Maguire), daughters, Sinead and Orla, and his sons Darragh and Cian. His influence is still evident in singers such as Karan Casey.[10] Frank continues to be remembered fondly in sessions and folk clubs on both sides of the Irish sea.

At the 2005 Whitby Folk Week a tribute to Frank Harte entitled "Through Streets Broad and Narrow" was held at the Resolution Hotel Function Room, on Monday August 22 2005 at 6:00pm. It featured Ken Hall and Peta Webb, Jim McFarland, Niamh Parsons, Jerry O'Reilly, Jim Mageean, George Unthank, Alan Fitzsimons, Pete Wood, Grace Toland, Brian Doyle, Patricia Flynn, Geordie McIntyre and Alison MacMoreland, The Wilsons, Eamonn O'Broithe, Roisin White, Bruce Scott, Rosie Stewart and others.

In September 2006, the first Frank Harte Festival was organised and held in Dublin by Jerry O'Reilly and other members of An Góilín Traditional Singer's Club. The second and third festivals were held in September 2007 and 2008, again organised by An Góilín, and the festival is intended to be an annual event taking place on the last weekend of September each year.[11]

In May 2008, the third Frank Harte Memorial Prize was given at DIT, Bolton Street, in association with the DIT faculty of the built environment, RTÉ and the Teacher's Union of Ireland. The prize is awarded to students in their second year of their studies in Construction Technology and Design.

Discography

Frank also appears on many other compilations, including:

  • 'Top of the Morning', Pickwick: Dublin, 1979, singing 'Biddy Mulligan'
  • 'Irish Folk Favourites', Harp/Pickwick, 1990, singing 'Dicey Reilly'
  • 'Irish Voices', Topic: London, 1996, singing 'The Traveller All Over the World'
  • 'Irish Songs From Old New England', Folk Legacy: USA, 2003, singing 'Napoleon's Defeat'

Bibliography

  • 'Songs of Dublin', (ed.), 1978, Gilbert Dalton, Dublin and 1993, Ossian Publications, Cork. ISBN 0 946005 51 6

Broadcast

  • 'Singing Voices', five part series for RTÉ Radio 1 first broadcast in May 1987 each on a different aspect of the Irish singing tradition.[6]
  • Appearance on 'Come West Along the Road' series one singing 'Napoleon Bonaparte' originally from the RTÉ series 'Fonn'
  • Main subject of the television documentary 'Se Mo Laoch - Frank Harte' for TG4, directed by Philip King
  • Main subject of the memorial radio documentary 'And Listen to my Song' by Peter Browne (Irish musician) for RTÉ Radio. Listen to it here.
  • Main subject of a radio documentary called 'Frank Harte Remembered' by Mick Moloney on RTÉ Radio a year after his death. Listen to it here.

References

  1. ^ a b Harte, Frank. Songs of Dublin, 1978 p.6. Gilbert Dalton. ISBN 0-946005-51-6
  2. ^ a b Interview with Frank Harte for Prairie Home Companion
  3. ^ Kelly, John, 'Interview with Frank Harte', Irish Times
  4. ^ Kennelly, Brendan, 'Living Ghosts: 23 Poems by Brendan Kennelly, Audio Cassette, Dublin, Livia Records, 1982
  5. ^ O'Toole, Leagues, The Humours of Planxty, Hachette, 2006, p197 ISBN 9780340837979
  6. ^ a b RTÉ Radio 1: Franke Harte - Singing Voices
  7. ^ Listen to it on YouTube here
  8. ^ Musical Traditions Club
  9. ^ Biography of Frank Harte on Billboard.com
  10. ^ Casey, Karan (2007). "Thanks to Mick Moloney/Frank Harte". Karan Casey. http://www.karancasey.com/articles.htm. Retrieved 2008-09-29. 
  11. ^ An Góilín - Traditional Singer's Club, Dublin Ireland

Obituaries

  • O’Reilly, Jerry, ‘Frank Harte (1933–2005)’, Folk Music Journal: The Journal of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library vol. 9, no 3 (2008), pp. 479–80
  • Ní Fhloinn, Bairbre, ‘In Memoriam. Frank Harte – Singer and Song-Collector 1933-2005’ in Béaloideas vol. 74 (2006), pp. 236-8
  • Independent, The (London), Jul 1, 2005 by P. J. Gillan [1]

See also

External links


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