From WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in 1964 when the Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.

It was a culturally transformative event in a way that we can hardly imagine happening today.

Rochester's 10th Ward was home to brothers John and Joe Dady, just nine and six years old at the time.

The day after the Beatles took the Sullivan Show by storm, the dailies wandered out to their street, looked at all the kids on the block, and everyone kind of decided, well, we all had to get guitars now.

One of Rochester's fanciest music shops almost immediately changed half its inventory from organs to rock and roll equipment.

Perhaps like the Beatles themselves, the Daddy Brothers would not follow a simple or linear path in music.

John and Joe would learn to play a wide range of instruments, and their own musical desires would evolve with time.

Today, we know them as Rochester music legends and leaders in the Irish music scene.

That's why it might be hard to believe that for years the deities were considered outsiders in Irish music.

Not exactly the most authentic practitioners of the form.

By the mid to late 1980s, that would change thanks to their devotion to learning their Irish roots, loving their culture, and working to perfect some of the most challenging instruments to play.

These stories are part of a new book called singing from the Heart The Dady Brothers Irish Music and Ethnic Endurance in an American City.

We lost Joe, Daddy a few years ago, and the book even captures the moments after his death when his hospital room filled with impromptu song.

John is here with me in studio today.

The family's music lives on and we're going to talk about the book, their story, and some of the things that are happening in our community now.

First of all, John Daly, welcome back to connections.

It's lovely to have you here.

I'm what an introduction.

I'm totally humbled.

Well, I mean, it's just on from the book here.

That's all I did there.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for that introduction.

It's great to have you and welcome to Christopher Shannon, who's on the line with us, the author of singing from the heart.

Hello, Christopher.

Thanks for being with us.

Hi, Evan, and hi to you, John.

Welcome, Christopher.

I should say the book is available now, and it is the story of the Dady Brothers.

But, you know, Chris has said to our colleagues at City Newspaper that originally the book was going to have a section on the 80s, but it's about Rochester's 10th Ward.

It's about, these culturally significant moments and evolution in a part of our city.

But, you know, John and Joe are just became such a big part of it.

Chris, do you want to talk a little bit about how did everything.

I tried to keep my brother, you know, down here.

You know, Chris, how would you describe what you the mission of what you set out to do with this book?

Yeah.

It was.

I, I'm a historian of several things.

One of them, Irish American culture.

And again, as I told the city people, it's first I was thinking like, oh, you know, doo doo kind of a book about the neighborhood.

And so I could break that down into different, components and such, some Irish, some non Irish and, but when I the more I thought about it, you know, there's, it dawned on me that like, like the way this is going is it's going to be just another example of like, there goes the neighborhood that was once great and flourishing and now it's declined.

And so when I was going through what would have been the original chapter is like, okay, what what story doesn't end badly.

You know, what story doesn't end with, well, what used to be is gone.

And that's where John and Joe really rose to the top.

And so I thought that rather than tell the story of the neighborhood with them, just a part of it, it's like, tell their story as the kind of example of the, the life and culture that continued on even when, you know, the neighbor itself obviously did not continue.

And so that, and that also, again, enabled me to just get to know them better because I've known them for most of my adult life.

and, and to get more into the Irish music thing, which I had a long interest in as well.

Well, and so John's got his guitar and, and not pretty soon here we're going to ask him to.

Well, we'll sprinkle in a little music throughout the hour if that's okay.

I should hope so.

All right.

Yeah.

but take me back a little bit, John, because I want to know from from your words here, when you think about the household you grew up in.

Your dad was pretty, I thought, pretty clever with using music at times.

And, you know, that was important to you.

And then then the The Ed Sullivan Band show happens, and everybody in America, every kid wants to be a rock n roll star.

What do you remember first, when you think about your first memories of music?

Is that your dad?

What comes to mind for you?

Well, you mentioned dad and the first time that I ever remembered learning how to.

To sing.

To harmony.

Sing.

It was even before the Beatles that Joe and I were very young and we were up, you know, roughhousing in our bedroom.

There are six of us, six kids.

So we shared a bedroom and we used to play this game called pillow Kit clip.

One kid would jump on a bed and the other would try to clip its legs out from under him with the pillow.

And mom didn't like that.

We probably broke 2 or 3 beds, but dad yelled from from the downstairs and stop all that roughhousing.

And on we went and we heard him bounding up the stairs and he said, I'm bringing a belt.

He never used it, but we knew he meant business, and he popped in the door and said, sit down, I'm going to teach you how to sing harmony.

And we did as song.

He taught us my echo, my shadow and me and all things spats tune my echo, my shadow and me.

And we sang the three parts.

Little did he know what musical monsters he was creating.

But that was my first memory of learning how to sing.

Chris's book captures some of this so, so beautifully.

This idea that this father could be saying to the kids, I'm bringing the belt, right?

Never once used it.

No.

But then I love this.

I'm bringing the belt.

And you know what we're going to do?

We're going to start learning harmony.

You.

You kids are learning harmony.

Dad was just, you know, the.

I remember the great Mark Twain quote.

My dad.

I thought my dad was the dumbest guy in the world at 70.

And when I turned 21, I was amazed at how much he learned in four years.

You.

Yeah.

And I think we all go through that, you know, I mean, that that's how my dad got his nickname, Hank, in his later years.

I mean, I think Chris put that in the book.

That was in the book, for sure.

Yeah.

The funny story.

Yeah.

He would call Joe and I, honey, in front of our friends when we were 16 years old, and it was embarrassing.

So somehow we said, okay, Hank.

And then our friends started calling them Hank, and then his friends started calling him a Hank, and he.

He died.

Hank.

That's an amazing story.

Christy, are you hearing these stories from John and everybody you talked to?

Thinking like, how am I going to fit everything in a book?

yeah.

It was.

That's why it took so long.

There's like, there's the just getting doing the interviews and then kind of sorting through them all and trying to make sense of all the craziness and sometimes, you know, contradictory accounts and stuff.

And, but the board I'm so thankful for is there is so much to, to work off of this.

I mean, you know, one, you know, just when I first started, mentioning even to my friends, this like, well, I'm going to write a book on the 80s.

Even some of them were like, well, is there enough there to, you know, like, I mean, we know, we know.

And we're like, I mean, we, you know, I like their music, but I didn't write a book about them.

And I, I discovered pretty quickly that there was, way more than I could ever use.

There was a lot of, sometimes a painful editorial process to, to leave things out.

And I apologize in the acknowledgments for all the people who, you know, gave me their time.

And it's like, I just, I couldn't that the that story in there and still have the book make sense.

You know I didn't want it to just be this like, okay, memories of the 10th Ward.

Somebody said, there's somebody who said that.

And so you had to make I had to make decisions in, you know, leaving things out to kind of to craft a story that people could follow.

Well, and the book is, is not just, I think, a love letter to the deities.

it really respects a lot of the people that the deities were learning from these musical figures, who they were respecting and hearing and idolize.

And you get to know those stories as well.

Chris is clearly a historian, and the book is it really reflects that scholarship.

But it's also in my mind, a kind of a love letter to a different time in American cities.

So if you think about the 10th Ward, the 10th Ward is up where, you know, Kodak is 104 all the way down to what's the perimeter you want to mention the perimeter of, of this particular part of the city?

Chris.

Yeah, I the way I drew the lines, just a lot of this from my own kind of, sense of growing up there.

And I'd give, you know, like the West side is the railroad tracks, you know, roughly, or Mount Reed Boulevard.

And then the east side is the, is River.

River provides that kind of natural border.

And then the north side would be about the Ridge Road, you know, kind of 104.

And then the South would be about Lexington or somewhere where Holy Rosary is a little, a little, a little south.

For my upbringing.

We you know, we kind of we stopped at Wegmans and you go that but but given where the deities were, had to have like Lexington Avenue is the, it's a kind of a southern border, if you will, of the 10th Ward.

And John, Chris's book takes us to a time where, you know, there are these bars that, you know, they didn't have to be the sparkling, those beautiful things.

They were community places.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

And there's so many of them, right?

I mean, they were all over the place.

Yeah, they really were.

And people got to know each other often through places like that.

And when Joe and I started getting work in these places, there was this kind of competition between the, the owners.

I got them for Saint Paddy's know, I want to say these.

But they were all I mean, I can remember playing at the loft the first time, which is on Dewey Avenue.

I think it's a Jamaican food place now.

but playing in the front window, it was terrible.

I mean, you're surrounded by glass and the PA system, so, you know, anybody that knows audio knows it's.

You're it's.

The sound was terrible.

And we were stuck up in the window and we, we took our breaks in the window because just getting down and off and getting your plates back in the window took ten minutes.

So we just took our breaks right in the window of the loft.

You know, I mean, those the stories are they just paint this really, interesting picture of a Rochester that.

Yeah, it's still Rochester, but a lot has changed for sure.

Oh my God.

And and so much of the book kind of gives you that sense of what it would have been like in the 60s, 70s, even the 80s and 90s.

Yeah.

And but let me kind of get back here, and I want to just ask for your characterization when you remember seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan.

how much did that make you think?

Well, this is what I'm doing.

It was it I mean, that was that.

I can remember being out at my, grandmother's house in Spencer Port, which was a track back then.

You know, it was before any of the interstates were gone through town.

And both my sisters who were in their teen years, just Beatles.

This Beatles.

Hey, we got to get home, mom and dad.

We got to get home and I remember Joe and I saying, Beatles, Beatles, whatever.

Then, you know, everybody sat around the TV together.

There was only one TV in the house people didn't have there.

And you know, individual screens in front of them.

And the Beatles came on and later on, and Joe used to describe it like, wow, they make really good music.

They look good, and chicks dig them.

you know, Joe, a joke about that.

But instantly we had Artie been exposed to music, you know, through our dad, the big band stuff.

But it was an instant thing.

That's what I wanted to do when I grew up.

I knew I didn't want to be the Beatles, but I wanted to make music, you know?

And Chris's book shares this the way that your father.

Yeah, he was like, okay, Beatles are kind of cool.

Like, we could do that.

And then the Beatles start changing and they got to go through their late 60s phase.

Oh, yeah.

You know, Lucy in the sky with diamonds.

Oh, yeah.

And the daddy.

Dad is like, you know, I don't know, he he put up with Rubber Soul and and revolver.

But by the time Sergeant Peppers came out, dad was like, nope.

It's getting a little weird now, you know, it's a pretty cool dad, though.

I mean, he hung with it for a while.

He did hang ham with it for a while.

And then, as Chris mentions in the book, numerous times, he would get up on stage with this and some pretty rough joints up, you know, packed houses down at the brewhouse, while two old hippies and bikers and dad would hop up on stage and to see my dad, he he wasn't a big guy.

He was maybe five, nine a he had very thick glasses.

His vision was so poor that he he couldn't go in the army in World War two.

So he just was kind of an odd looking guy.

And as Chris describes in it, he had like a mr. Rogers, sweater on, would step up on stage and sing a couple songs with Joe and I always brought the house down.

Within a minute, he would have the crowd in his hand.

He just had.

He had that neck.

It's beautiful.

Yeah.

I really appreciate how this book explores the question of what it means to be an Irish band, what it means to know your roots.

we learned that Joe took multiple trips to Ireland to learn an instrument that I can't even pronounce.

Dylan.

I'm sorry.

What is it?

It sounds so much easier.

And it than.

Well, it's Irish.

The Gaelic, you know.

Yeah, it's Ellen, like, chilling.

Dylan, I think.

I think Irish spelling is just to mess with us.

It is like the Irish.

The Irish drum is a bar and it's pronounced or it's spelled body hra n. So people are saying, you playing that bod Herren?

Yeah.

Ellen pipes but but Chris, clearly, Joe and John understood that, that to be accepted and loved as playing Irish music, that had to be kind of earned.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's one thing, I mean, that I, that I learned, about that, somebody who was familiar with Irish music, but, you know, mostly from the outside through recordings.

And I think what really struck me is just how from the inside, John and Joe came to it, especially in a time by the 70s, you know, it's not like now where you can just point and click, but, you know, traditional Irish music was available through recordings.

my father would get like the Clancy Brothers and The Chieftains or stuff, but John and Joe were learning it from Irish people at the Irish in, first with the ballads, with the the immigrants and stuff.

But, it was that, that personal connection.

And then, the when they turned to the instrumental music with someone like Marty, okay.

For something and, and and the scene down at the Friendship Tavern, they were getting it.

It was being transmitted in the old way in the, in the oral tradition, which was just amazing.

Like one of the most shocking thing was it's the late 70s, and they just discovered Tommy making and, Clancy at the, at a at Syracuse Fairgrounds or something because, like, I think even I knew about the Clancy Brothers, but since so much of what we do, we knew about the Clancy's, but we didn't know about Makemake.

Clancy.

Oh, really?

Oh, yeah.

But we weren't really exposed to it until that time.

Yeah.

And that said to me, you know, like, now everybody gets it.

I think just about everybody, unless you're in a real, traditional community, it's like they all get it through the CDs and and the internet and stuff.

And so in some sense, that's good because, you know, it does that, keeps the music alive and has more people playing it, but there's no substitute for the the personal connection.

That's what I tried to stress throughout the, the book is the kind of the, the you guys learn the music through people.

You play the music for people.

This wasn't just, well, this is a profession.

We play this kind of music and we get paid to do it.

It was always about, connections and community.

Absolutely.

How you guys were able to last so long.

Yeah.

And to Christopher's point, and, you know, you couldn't just point and click and discover everything you want to discover about instrumentation unless, I mean, I might say like, well, well, who is your kids today?

I would say, well who is your social network?

I mean, your social network was the Irish in it was the friendship.

Those were social networks.

Absolutely.

That's a different thing.

And it's human to human.

And that's my fear.

That is we're going to lose in our culture.

Is that human, human connection?

Great.

I, I think I learned my art so much better by actually feeling it out.

Someone sitting in front of me.

Yeah.

As opposed to looking at a screen, you know, that's where we are, isn't it?

And it well, it it is in many ways.

And by the way, before I ask you to play a little bit of music, Sharon, can you just elaborate on the story?

I think Chris was talking about it, but there's a point where you and your brother both go to Syracuse.

Did you end up seeing a show not knowing that the other one was there and you both got home to Rochester and you're like, we've got you got to see.

Yeah, that's that's a true story.

It's an absolutely true story.

So my, my wife Carol, who at the time was my girlfriend, and her older sister Rose, went to Ireland on a tour with their their aunt who used to do cultural tours.

And they came back and they're the ones that said, let's go down the Irish in.

And that's when I first met The Emigrants.

But it was a last minute thing.

Carol called me and said, we're going to The Emigrants, the band, the band, the emigrants.

Excuse me.

No, no, no, no, I want to make sure people who are not right.

Yeah, yeah.

and she called and said, we're going to Syracuse to see make of Clancy.

And I had heard of some, some at Tommy's songs, but I, I never put it they it because like, we're just saying you, you just hear a song and that's my only connection to them.

I can't go and just click on it and listen to his name.

That's right into our music.

Exactly.

So we went to the show and I remember sitting not too far back, it was in at the fairgrounds, so the sound was just horrendous for folk music.

And I actually went up to the sound man was in his face like his guitar is way to trap.

I mean, Liam's guitar sounded like was a transistor radio was just terrible.

So and then afterwards, I had been just been to Ireland and I had a, a street sale.

I found this little ocarina, little clay whistle that hung on my neck, and I just, I barreled backstage.

I just wanted to meet Tommy, you know?

And I put up this little whistle and played him a little tune.

He got his attention, and he came over to me, and he said, Brazil, you know, like that's where it came from.

He knew the instrument.

It was a south South American instrument.

Came home and I was all set to tell Joe.

And not only did Joe see the show, but he got backstage and met him both as well.

Unbelievable.

You never saw.

We never saw each other, never saw each other.

So it's just this formative moment.

It's just funny that you were both there, not realizing and not really chomping at the bit to tell the other, yeah, I won't.

There's a story in the book that will be really delightful for people who pick up the book in what you end up later playing with them, and you know, maybe upstaging them a little bit, when we're young and just didn't know.

Do you want that story?

Oh, yeah.

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

Well, yeah.

We.

Kevin Townes Earle, he's prominently in the book and owner of the Shannon Pub in in Buffalo Joe and I did, four nights stints there over the course of probably ten years or so.

And Tommy make them and Liam Clancy were, he hired them to come and do four shows over the course of two nights.

We did two shows a night in the in the banquet room in the in the basement of the hotel, maybe 100 to 150 people every night was sold out.

We're so excited here we were opening up for two of our heroes, and we got down there and we blew the roof off.

We really did a great show.

We had the people on their feet, high energy, high energy, and then Tommy and and Liam come down and, you know, they're 15 plus years older than us and just kind of at the twilight of their careers and, little more mellow set a little much more mellow set.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

No.

And at the end, I remember very excited going up to Kevin, the promoter of the show, and saying, it was a great night, wasn't it?

And he looked me, said, I'll never have you open up for them again.

I said, what do you mean?

He says, no, you were just too much.

You blew.

You blew them out of the water, you know.

So we learned and yet you developed friendships.

You didn't lose friendships over this, in fact.

Not at all.

Yeah.

That was the start of a lifelong friendship with Tommy.

Tommy, you know, I not to pat myself on the back, but one of the big.

Well, the biggest honor of my life was getting there.

Tommy, make them scroll of Honor award.

And in the Europa and Belfast.

Totally surprised.

But the Tommy loved our spin and his songs here.

These two Yanks playing my Irish folk songs and ballads, but with like a bluegrass twist.

He liked that we became really good friends with his kids, his three boys.

They had a group, the Make Them Brothers remained very close with Rory, who I actually brought to Rochester for a show last year.

and they would say the same thing.

You know, the old man likes the twist you guys put on and music.

And it's just that always warm my heart because here is our hero.

You know, Chris, this is another thing that feels like we're losing, as as everything becomes digital, everything is on screens.

We spend less time in person.

There were so many people that the deities met or idolized or worked with.

And the book indicates that, there were a lot of real close friendships and relationships that developed that, that didn't just become rivalries.

I mean, there's a lot of really lovely stuff about how their lives impacted each other.

Yeah, I think on that front, I was particularly, surprised and impressed by the relationships developed in Ireland, particularly with Tommy Cousin, the tenor banjo player, player and maker and that that, it's little variations on the Tommy make him story.

But what I like about that was there you know, he Tommy cousin is a real like the tried and true traditional musician through and through.

He played in a ceilidh band, shucking ceilidh band for many years and 60 or 60 years they've been playing together.

So, like, that's that's the thing.

And he, you know, when, he realized and I think John and Joe realized that they do something different, but they were complementary.

It's like, you know, you guys, you know, you may not be the purist of traditional musicians, but what you do, you do better than we could do.

We can't do it because we're Irish people playing traditional music in Ireland.

You do something as Irish Americans that incorporates a lot of the traditional music, but doesn't just try to imitate it or something.

And and that's, I think that's what they really respected about, John and Joe.

So and on another note, one thing that I was surprised to get and again, even for these Irish people, their first musical experience, because I always asked them that would be the Stephen Foster songs.

Yeah.

The the Irish-American, kind of minstrel, composer from the 19th century, which John and Joe did, a stage, show with, several years ago and that even these people in Ireland that are growing up in the 50s and 60s, you know, it's not like everybody's anybody's playing traditional music.

So it was pretty marginal in their childhoods as well.

And their first experiences of music or awareness of music was through Irish American music.

The of Stephen Foster.

And so there is that kind of transatlantic connection, going on.

And it's not like it's all becomes one thing, the same thing, but it develops in different ways in Ireland and in America, you know.

And another perfect example of that, Chris, is when we recorded the, Erie Canal CD for the Landmark Society.

And we, we had, you know, all the standard Erie Canal tunes.

We had to go fishing around for some more tunes, and we found Tommy Markham's version of the Erie Was Risin.

You know, here's this, this guy from Katie Armagh in Ireland, and we lifted a song from him to put on an Erie Canal CD.

Yeah.

You know, okay, that's what that was.

I didn't realize that that's where you were.

That's right.

We in the second edition also, listeners, you're hearing on the line Christopher Shannon, who's the author of singing from the Heart The Deity Brothers Irish Music and Ethnic Endurance in American City.

John Daly is with me in studio.

He's a Rochester Music Hall of Famer, a singer and instrumentalist, a musician with the 80 Brothers.

and one more question for John before we take our break and come back and listen to some of John's music, I when people ask you what it what it means to play Irish music or what authentic Irish music is, what how do you answer that now?

What authentic Irish music is when they say, well, you played Irish music, but what is Irish music?

You know, Joe would agree with me if he is sitting here with me, I, I still don't consider myself an Irish musician.

I sit in a room full of people playing the old fiddle tunes, and I don't know many of my to do some backup.

I consider myself more just a folk singer that happens to do Irish music.

You know, I the mute, the music that moves us.

That's what that's what I our criteria was for either writing tunes or learning song.

If it moves us, if it moves us, if it moves an audience, you know, and there's there's something that Tom cousin mentions.

and I have to say to Chris, not only is he a great for a string player, but he's probably the best for string banjo maker in Europe.

He really he's the guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but Tom cousin said something about John.

I too, like, they'll never have that.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like an Irish slang for somebody that's got the traditional that has that thing.

Whatever it is, then.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Then.

Yeah.

They don't say, they wouldn't say good crack.

They'd say, yeah, well crack is crack is a word that means to have a good time.

Okay.

Yeah.

You know the story.

It's the booze was flowing.

The stories were flowing.

This good crack, good crack, good crack.

The crack was 90 last night, you know.

Yeah.

Is is having that that magical something.

You know I play like it's it's it's like I, it's an Irish so.

Yeah that I know that I'll, I'll never have I don't know if everybody agrees about that but that is that that humility is well taken.

Yeah.

listen, are some things to look out for here.

our colleague Patrick Hoskin has written a profile of John Daly, which you can read in the March issue of City magazine.

It'll be on stands at the end of this month.

and I've had a chance to take an advanced look at it.

It's really Patrick does such great work.

And what a gentleman to Ian, the photographer.

What, who came with.

Oh, Berto.

Probably it was a Berto.

I think it was.

It was Berto.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we had a wonderful a great team together.

yeah.

Patrick, Patrick and Berto are absolute superstars.

It's a great piece.

So that's going to be coming your way in City Magazine.

And this Sunday, 2 p.m. at the Pittsford Barnes and Noble, Chris is going to sign copies of the book singing from the heart.

John, you're going to play music on Sunday there.

I'll play a couple tunes.

Okay, so when we come back from this break here, what are you going to play for us in studio today?

Well, this first song that came to my mind was, the song Sing It from the heart.

That's got to be singing from the heart got me singing from the heart.

And that's kind of our life story in music.

All right, well, we'll.

After we take this only break.

John Daly has got the guitar, and we're coming back.

I'm having Dawson Thursday on the next connections.

President Trump has blamed Volodymyr Zelensky for the war in Ukraine.

President Zelensky, the Ukrainian president.

President Trump says Zelensky is a dictator, that Ukraine should be forced to hold new elections.

And Trump has defended Vladimir Putin.

We'll talk about it on Thursday.

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On the next morning Edition from NPR news.

Tomorrow morning at five.

Hold on now we're back on the air.

But keep saying this stuff, John.

Saying nice things about Connecticut because I. I'm serious.

You are an asset to this community.

And, and Megan, who I finally have a face in the face on all of your crew in there.

This is a wonderful show.

Do you know Megan has a dog named Kaley named after the Irish dance?

I think Chris, you mentioned the phrase ceilidh band.

Kalypso is an Irish dance.

There you go.

It's it's not a dance.

It's just when people get together and have, like, a square dance, it's a square ceilidh, and they kind of look like dogs bouncing around.

That's right.

They dance like dog.

It's very much like you also have a ceilidh.

And the crackle be fierce.

Yeah, the will be fierce.

and and by the way, again crack Irish term and you can see.

Okay I see.

Yeah I see you always just have to make sure we're clarifying.

Yeah.

John, you did call me kid during the break too.

You can call me kid anytime I like that.

Yeah I you are.

The older you get, the more you like it when people call you a kid.

Yeah, you know how it is.

Yeah.

I got that.

As you get older, people that shouldn't call me Mr..

I hate being Mr.. Daddy.

Just say that's my dad and my kids friends.

You know, people in their like 50s.

Mr.. David, please.

You you'd rather they called you Hank.

Hey.

Yeah.

You know, all my kids call me Johnny Boy.

It's like anything but, mister, I'm with you there.

All right?

So we're going to listen to singing from the heart, and then we'll come back and talk about it.

How about this, guys, if I can.

Ever since we can remember.

There's been music in our lives.

When dad played on his horn for us, we're about the age of five.

From the band to the Beatles.

You know, those tunes?

It.

Everyone knew.

Making music around the living room when we were in school or through.

Where he taught us harmonize and made it fun for all.

He said, if you don't enjoy yourselves, you don't have to play it all.

So he set out on a suit.

You for that minstrels part of go, which we'd find myself still looking for in songs both young and old.

Now the money ain't great, and that rule can get old.

But the loving goods that we put in you give us back to.

For it's a crazy way to make a buck.

Strumming these guitar is we're just Irish-American city boys singing straight from the heart.

Not from Mississippi.

John.

An old blind Blake.

We learned that old time blues.

Elvis and Carol Perkins.

Get this up.

Those blue suede you just let the words got more important.

When we hear a different call.

Oh, the times they are changing in heart means then a foul.

Night.

The tunes tomorrow.

Country.

Yeah.

The pipers may take trans the Celtic carpenter home.

Sure.

They'll get your licks today.

It's ballads of rebellion.

Other songs about love and war were unlovely and roll like them is hand.

It's border to.

Now we can't forget that old bluegrass Bill Scruggs and Bill Monroe.

Rapping Carter, Stanley playing five string banjo.

If you put this old together, friends up to give you what you've got now a brother who's making music in giving it our mash up.

Still, the money ain't great in that row.

Can you get all but the loving goods?

Then we put in you give us back to folk.

It's a crazy way to make a buck.

Strumming these guitars.

We're just Irish American city boys singing straight from the heart.

We're just Irish American city parades.

Singing straight from the heart.

Thank you John.

Daddy John, daddy.

Singing from the heart a Daddy Brothers classic.

Christopher Shannon you I mean, you've heard that song many times now, but how does it hit you?

Oh, still, most beautiful song, I think that they've ever done.

I remember, years ago when I was back home visiting, requesting it, and it was a bar and was a bar in Webster that was a wannabe Irish bar that didn't last very long.

And they said, oh, no, we can't sing that here because it's just kind of too intimate a song to play out in a rowdy bar when you're trying to get, you know, people, jazzed up and, the bartender's busy and stuff.

but it's it's a beautiful song.

Thank you.

Chris.

yeah.

John, you know, I mean, the song is self-explanatory.

It really wears its heart on its sleeve.

but when you play it now, what do you think about.

It's hard to hard to play.

That's.

I think, I played it at the show for Joe.

We did a tribute show for Joe, and, I played it last week.

That's the first.

I played it last week.

I was playing at Valley Manor for seniors, and Mitzi Collins was in the audience, who is a dear old friend.

I just nominated her and I will again for the Rochester Music Hall of Fame.

She deserves to be in there.

And I mention that, and I said, I'm going to do a song for you, Mitzi, that when you heard this record, you said it.

That song made me cry.

I'm getting there now.

Mitzi was, has an important role in helping the Daddy Brothers music and, huge, you know, it's reflected in the book there, you know, again, on this journey of multiple genres, folk are a big part of it.

yeah.

Joe and I always we are always outside looking in to all the different musical.

We'd we've never read it in fit in.

We were, when we played the bar.

It's weird.

Too small.

We didn't have a drummer.

So the bar scene, we weren't loud enough and electric enough for them.

The folkies thought that we were a bar band, so, you know, we were kind of stuck in the middle there.

And Mitzi was the first really in the roster folk community, to reach out to us and open up a whole new audience to us.

Really?

they were sold out shows at Hochstein, and, it really was a jumpstart in our career.

I don't like the word career because we just went out the kinks.

I know that's a career, John.

It's a it's a it's a career.

It's and it's it's a fascinating evolution.

That's why the book is the stories are good.

In fact, a story from the book.

Was it you or Joe that Mitzi wanted to give sheet music to?

And you said, we don't really do sheet music?

No.

We're both terrible readers.

I mean, we we can hear.

We'll bring Joan with this.

There's a, Yeah, we're both terrible.

Joe's a better reader than I am.

But Joe, Joe would always make the joke that those just like, like golf clubs to me.

The notes looked like a glove.

You know, I remember we did, we've done a few productions achieve a book.

One had 162 page score, and Mark Cuddy brought Joe.

And I ended this, this play.

It was quilters.

And the first meeting we said, you know, we're not readers because I know you're not readers.

I could get Eastman kids to come play this, but you guys play folk music.

And it was a it was a folk music.

And, he brought in, Greg Coffin was his name great, incredible musician.

and, and an actor brought him in is musical director.

And he sat down with Joe and I own a record art parts and a piano, and we'd record them, take them home.

And the night before opening night, he goes, oh, yeah, I forgot the the finale at the end.

You know, the bourbon folks got the curtain call, you got a hole.

And he hands me this thing for the man to play.

And the mandolin, you know, just this incredibly difficult piece in E-flat, which is almost impossible on the mandolin.

And I went home and literally was up all night long to get that.

And you got it, I got it, yeah, but it was.

Any kids out there listening that are musicians?

Listen, learn how to read.

You're much better off, you know, let me ask you, John.

When I was, when I was growing up, my my older brother, who was almost eight years older, he had one of those subscriptions to was a Columbia.

It was like pay a dollar and you get like 20 records and then like a month later, that's when they actually bill you and all the all the 18 year olds thought, this is great.

I get all these CDs, this new thing called a CD, right.

And we get a bunch of them and it's a buck.

And of course you end up paying through the nose later.

Yeah.

The one of the, the one of the first CD is that was sent that they suggested, based on the music that my family was listening to, was a guy named John Gorka, who is, you know, I know John, largely a folk singer who I've, I really loved.

I mean, he's a wonderful song.

He met John at a festival in Canada.

He did a version of all that hammering that I thought was beautiful.

Yeah.

And I, I was growing up, even in my teen years thinking, this guy's great.

How come nobody's ever heard of him?

So I wonder now how you view this genre.

I mean, it's always there's always going to be niches, but are you worried about folk not being appreciated enough?

You know, Evan, I don't you don't worry about that.

That's good, I haven't I'll tell you why.

You know, I have kids that are into music.

I really don't.

Carol and I had six kids, and.

And they're all into music.

my son Connor is out in Denver, and he has a roots band.

Cottonwood Drifters.

He's a nifty little song.

Red.

I'm very proud of them.

But they just as my older siblings growing up were teaching me, my kids are teaching me about all this incredible roots music that's out there and how people in their 20s and 30s are fine.

I think right now the Irish traditional community in Rochester is stronger than it's been in 50 years.

Right now, 20 year old young kids playing.

I have a grandson, a 13 year old grandson who plays traditional Irish fiddle.

Fantastic.

He doesn't have that yet yet.

but yeah, it's very strong.

I mean, there's, just so many young people out there playing great music, you know, there's a lot of crap out there.

But if you look with the internet now, you can just find great music, great music from young people.

I think folk music is probably stronger now than it was since the 60s.

I really believe that.

Well, I think we've had a few other.

Maybe we can play.

Can we listen?

Can we do that?

How about then we do The Man with the banjo?

Can we start with that one?

Is that all right with you, John?

I would hope so, yeah.

All right.

Let's listen to a little bit of the man with the banjo tribute to Pete Seeger.

The.

When I saw him on the TV, he looked so proud and strong.

He sang out for peace and justice how to ride around my brothers.

And it won't be long or they take him off.

Yeah, so he's singing it.

Our song just seems so unfair.

He's the man with the banjo.

Can't you hear it?

Rain with freedom in his heart.

He makes the mountain sing.

He taught the whole world to sing.

We shall overcome.

When there's peace and justice.

That's what he.

His work is done.

But.

He sang songs with the weavers.

No better agree with you.

Fine.

And don't forget over you.

Oh, wasn't there the time?

Then came young Bob Dylan and Arlo Guthrie.

So you want to be a folk singer?

Got to do a thousand concerts, free is.

He's the man with the banjo.

Can't you hear every.

With freedom in his heart.

He makes the mountain sing.

He taught the whole world to sing.

We shall overcome.

When there's injustice, that's when his work is done John loves that.

You can hear Tommy make him singing in that song there in that second chorus.

Absolutely.

There it is.

Yeah.

so everybody's connected, but that's a tribute to Pete Seeger, Yes, it is.

Yes it is, Joe.

It's one of the few songs Joe wrote.

I did most of the writing, Joe, I maybe only wrote.

I 5 or 6 songs, but he wrote good ones.

Yeah, yeah.

And who's playing the banjo right there?

Of course.

Joe, that's Joe.

Yeah, yeah, the man with the banjo.

The banjo?

It's the man with the man.

But it's a tribute to Pete Seeger, who we we listened to from the time we were very young.

Our oldest brother, Bill, was a big Pete Seeger fan.

So we heard Pete Seeger long before the Beatles.

and just not only Pete's music, but his activism was also very inspiring to us.

And then to finally meet him.

You know, Joe sent him a copy of that record CD, and it was less than a week later, we got a handwritten note back from Pete saying, I'm humbled by this song.

Thank you very much.

And I don't know, but somehow, somewhere we're going to meet and about ten years later, it happened.

You know, we ended up meeting him in his hometown in beacon and doing a show with them.

We're just going to open up.

And then he said, looks at us.

He goes, you know, all my songs.

Come on, we did it.

We did the whole show with them.

It was great.

Yeah, these great stories of meeting your idols, and it always goes so beautifully.

It was just it couldn't have been nicer.

I walked down to the parking lot with him.

He came and we talked for an hour or so before the show, and he looked at me.

So I better go get my banjo and I knew it was a steep walk down a little alleyway, because that's where we had parked.

And he was 92 at the time, so I walked with them.

I put my arm out just for him to take.

I didn't take his arm, but I put mine there for him.

About halfway down the alleyway, he grabbed my arm.

We got to his car.

It was a Lincoln Navigator.

A hybrid Lincoln Navigator opens up the back and pulls out two banjos, no cases, and all his banjos had inscribed in the head.

This machine surrounds hate and makes it surrender.

And he hands me a banjo and he puts one on.

He goes, John, can I sing his song?

And I'm like.

And you sing me a song.

I stand in a parking lot with Pete Seeger and I'm.

He's going to sing a song just personally to me.

And he did.

He sang this beautiful tune.

I didn't know it, but I found out later it was actually a poem written by a Japanese woman after World War Two.

Kind of, kind of touched on how it's terrible.

Is the war was for the Japanese people.

A new liberation started for the women.

Women became a little bit more, active, you know, and it it blew me away.

And then we did the whole show.

It.

I remember riding home with Joe.

You was driving.

I and the bills beat the Patriots that day in New England, and I got it from on the radio.

We're listening to him close and I said we played with Pete.

The Beatles beat New England and and New England.

I think besides my marriage and the birth of my kid, this is the best day of my life.

And as you know, we're down to our last couple of minutes.

And I just want to say, Chris, this book captures a lot of moments like that.

Oh my gosh.

And the book also, you know, as the book concludes, you lose Joe, not far from the time that Rochester in our region and our world lost Pat McGrath.

Oh, yeah.

You know, and, that was a good friend.

I remember being at house concerts with that and just thinking what a truly gentle soul and a loving person he was.

We spent a week down at bats House.

working on songs with them before he was diagnosed, before he was ill. A couple years before.

Yeah.

Wonderful guy.

I would take long walks.

He had a beautiful German Shepherd, Wyatt.

Wyatt and I would hear woods behind his house.

We'd go for these two hour walks.

Just wonderful.

I mean, those are the memories that that really stay and.

And I think books like this singing from the heart are going to be important.

Historical documents when we are all gone, you know, I mean, I the first thing I thought of was my grandkids, whenever they want to read about grandpa, what a gift story to give to my grandpa.

It's an incredible.

Absolutely.

You know, Conan O'Brien was joking a few years ago on his podcast that, you know, eventually all graves go unattended.

Yeah.

and it's a way to kind of take your problems and bring them down when you think the whole world's too big for you.

But at the same time, it's not true that all going attended books like this remind us that music like this will live forever, I thought, right, I remember when Tommy made them passed away.

Bono, U2 singer, said 100 years from now, nobody's going to know.

Still haven't found.

I'm looking for it.

But they'll still be singing.

Tommy May come, you know it.

Amazing.

Yeah.

Chris, congratulations on this book.

where do you want people to find it?

Chris?

So the, anywhere it exists, the, it's, available where we're hoping to get it into bookstores, but for now, it's certainly available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, of course, Barnes and Noble, online.

But even more importantly, Barnes and Noble in person like to keep that in person.

There you go.

Tradition alive.

Sunday at, at Barnes and Noble.

You can come and, and buy as many copies as they want.

Sunday, 2:00, Barnes and Noble in Pittsford.

Chris will be there.

John will be there.

Yeah.

And, I want to mention as we go here, Connie said, who is an Irish music groupie.

I remember the story that I heard from Walter Borowitz, aka Brian Boru from the old Irish group Parnell and Boru about how generous the daddy brothers were.

One time, when Parnell and Borrower's equipment broke, the daddies lent them everything they needed for the gig.

They played mostly at McGinty's, Parnell, and borrowed did.

The band included Kevin Parnell, Wally Borowitz, and Tommy Hernandez.

Tommy O'Hearn is that the daddies were so generous.

Well, no surprise.

And we're going to close the show with a little Morrison's jig from Soul Lilt.

If, if our guests don't mind, I want to thank Christopher Shannon, the author of Singing From the Heart.

Congratulations again.

Thank you, Chris, for being with us.

This wonderful conversation.

And, John Daly, you've given this community so many gifts.

Your kind.

You truly have.

Can I do one little quick?

You got to do it fast.

You gotta do it fast.

Okay.

Little theater cafe on Wednesday the fifth.

The other hand brewing Company on Saturday the 15th and Saint Patrick's Day show at 75 starts and street on the 16th.

All right, Stetson Street.

That's my neighborhood up in Charlotte.

Thank you very much.

My phone.

Thank you.

And from all of us.

Thanks for listening.

We're back with you tomorrow.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the connections link at WXXI News Talk.