Celtic rock

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Celtic rock
Stylistic origins
Cultural origins1960s, Celtic nations
Fusion genres
Other topics
Celtic fusion

Celtic rock is a genre of

pan-Celtic culture. It has also helped to communicate those cultures to external audiences.[1]

Definition

The style of music is the hybrid of traditional

jigs and reels with rock instrumentation; by the addition of traditional Celtic instruments, including the Celtic harp, tin whistle, uilleann pipes (or Irish Bagpipes), fiddle, bodhrán, accordion, concertina, melodeon, and bagpipes (highland) to conventional rock formats; by the use of lyrics in Celtic languages and by the use of traditional rhythms and cadences in otherwise conventional rock music.[3] Just as the validity of the term Celtic in general and as a musical label is disputed, the term Celtic rock cannot be taken to mean there was a unified Celtic musical culture between the Celtic nations
. However, the term has remained useful as a means of describing the spread, adaptation and further development of the musical form in different but related contexts.

History

Ireland

It was in Ireland that Celtic rock was first clearly evident as musicians attempted to apply the use of traditional and electric music to their own cultural context. By the end of the 1960s Ireland already had perhaps the most flourishing folk music tradition and a growing blues and pop scene, which provided a basis for

Whisky in the Jar" in 1972, was a rock version of a traditional Irish song.[4] From this point they began to move towards the hard rock that allowed them to gain a series of hit singles and albums, but retained some occasional elements of Celtic rock on later albums such as Jailbreak
(1976).

Formed in 1970,

Donal Lunny, followed the pattern set by Horslips in combining Irish traditional music with rock, and also added elements of jazz to their sound.[9]

Scotland

There were already strong links between Irish and

This Is The Sea and Fisherman's Blues. They also incorporated folk elements into their music. One of Scotland's most commercially successful and fondly-remembered rock acts, Big Country, also incorporated the influence of traditional Scottish music into their songs. While bagpipes had become an essential element in Scottish folk bands they were much rarer in folk rock outfits, but were successfully integrated into their sound by Wolfstone from 1989, who focused on a combination of highland music and rock.[13]

Brittany

The region of

Heritage des Celtes, who managed to achieve mainstream success in France in the 1990s. Probably the best known and most enduring folk rock band in France were Tri Yann formed in 1971 and still recording and performing today.[15]

Wales

By the end of the 1960s Wales had produced some important individuals and bands that emerged as major British or international artists, this included

Elastic Band and proto-heavy metal trio Budgie. But although folk groupings formed in the early 1970s, including Y Tebot Piws, Ac Eraill, and Mynediad am Ddim, it was not until 1973 that the first significant Welsh language rock band Edward H Dafis, originally a belated rock n' roll outfit, caused a sensation by electrifying and attempting to use rock instrumentation while retaining Welsh language lyrics.[16] As a result, for one generation listening to Welsh language rock music could now become a statement of national identity.[17] This opened the door for a new rock culture but inevitably most Welsh language acts were unable to break through into the Anglophone dominated music industry.[18]

Cornwall and the Isle of Man

Whereas other Celtic nations already had existing folk music cultures before the end of the 1960s this was less true in

pan-Celtic movement, with its musical and cultural festivals helped foster some reflections in Cornwall where a few bands from the 1980s onwards utilised the traditions of Cornish music with rock, including Moondragon and its successor Lordryk. More recently the bands Sacred Turf, Skwardya and Krena, have been performing in the Cornish language.[19]

Subgenres

Celtic punk

Main article: Celtic punk

Ireland proved particularly fertile ground for punk bands in the mid-1970s, including

Neck, Nyah Fearties from Scotland, Australia's Roaring Jack and Norway's Greenland Whalefishers
.

Diaspora Celtic rock

See also: Celtic music in Canada and Celtic music in the United States

One by-product of the Celtic Diaspora was the existence of large communities across the world that looked for their cultural roots and identity to their origins in the Celtic nations. While it seems young musicians from these communities usually chose between their folk culture and mainstream forms of music such as rock or pop, after the advent of Celtic punk relatively large numbers of bands began to emerge styling themselves as Celtic rock. This is particularly noticeable in the US and Canada, where there are large communities descended from Irish and Scottish immigrants. From the United States this includes the Irish bands

The Real Mckenzies and Spirit of the West. These groups were naturally influenced by American forms of music, some containing members with no Celtic ancestry and commonly singing in English. A band in England is the BibleCode Sundays.[20]

Celtic metal

Main article: Celtic metal

Like Celtic rock in the 1970s, Celtic metal resulted from the application of a development in English music, when in the 1990s thrash metal band Skyclad added violins, and with them jigs and folk voicings, to their music on the album The Wayward Sons of Mother Earth (1990). This inspired the Dublin based band Cruachan to mix traditional Irish music with black metal and to create the subgenre of Celtic metal. They were soon followed by bands such as Primordial and Waylander. Like Celtic punk, Celtic metal replicates the fusing the Celtic folk tradition with contemporary forms of music.

Influence

Whereas in England folk rock, after initial mainstream recognition, subsided into the status of a sub-cultural soundtrack, in many Celtic communities and nations it has remained at the forefront of musical production. The initial wave of Celtic rock in Ireland, although ultimately feeding into Anglo-American dominated progressive rock and hard rock provided a basis for Irish bands that would enjoy international success, including the

Pogues and U2: one making use of the tradition of Celtic music in a new context and the other eschewing it for a distinctive but mainstream sound. Similar circumstances can be seen in Scotland albeit with a delay in time while Celtic rock culture developed, before bands like Runrig could achieve international recognition. Widely acknowledged as one of the outstanding voices in Celtic/rock is Brian McCombe (born Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom) of The Brian McCombe Band, a pan Celtic group based in Brittany.[citation needed
]

In other Celtic communities, and particularly where Celtic speakers or descendants are a minority, the function of Celtic rock has been less to create mainstream success, than to bolster cultural identity. A consequence of this has been the reinforcement of pan-Celtic culture and of particular national or regional identities between those with a shared heritage, but who are widely dispersed. However, perhaps the most significant consequence of Celtic rock has simply been as a general spur to immense musical and cultural creativity.

Celtic rock has also influenced musicians from countries and regions without Celtic communities, with some of them, like the

Yugoslav rock scene were the pub/garage rock band Roze Poze in the mid-1980s.[22] In the 1990s, bands like Orthodox Celts from Serbia[23] and Belfast Food from Croatia popularized Celtic rock further, influencing a number of younger acts, like Irish Stew of Sindidun
.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ J. S. Sawyers, Celtic Music: A Complete Guide (Da Capo Press, 2001), pp. 1-12.
  2. ^ N. McLaughlin and Martin McLoone, 'Hybridity and National Musics: The case of Irish rock music' Popular Music, 9, (April, 2000), pp. 181-99.
  3. ^ Johnston, Thomas F. 'The Social Context of Irish Folk Instruments ', International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 26 (1) (1995) pp. 35-59.
  4. ISBN 9780946719815
    .
  5. ^ J. Cleary, Outrageous Fortune: Capital and Culture in Modern Ireland, (Field Day Publications, 2007), pp. 272-3.
  6. ^ J. S. Sawyers, Celtic Music: A Complete Guide (Da Capo Press, 2001), p. 267.
  7. ^ T. Brown, Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, 1922-79,(Fontana, 1981), p. 276.
  8. ^ M. Scanlan, Culture and Customs of Ireland (Greenwood, 2006), pp. 169-170.
  9. ^ J. Cleary, Outrageous Fortune: Capital and Culture in Modern Ireland (Field Day Publications, 2007), pp. 265.
  10. ^ C. Larkin, The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music (Guinness, 1992), p. 869.
  11. ^ J. S. Sawyers, Celtic Music: A Complete Guide (Da Capo Press, 2001), p. 366.
  12. ^ B. Sweers, Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music (Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 259.
  13. ^ Heywood, Pete (May–June 2001). "Wolfstone - honest endeavour". The Living Tradition. No. 43.
  14. ^ M. McDonald, "'We are Not French!': Language, Culture, and Identity in Brittany" (Routledge, 1989), p. 145.
  15. ^ J. T. Koch, "Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia", (ABC-CLIO, 2006), p. 280.
  16. ^ S. Hill, "Blerwytirhwng?: The Place of Welsh Pop Music" (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2007), p. 72.
  17. ^ R. Wallis and K. Malm, "Big Sounds From Small Peoples: the Music Industry in Small Countries" (London, Constable, 1984), p. 139-53
  18. ^ S. Hill, "Blerwytirhwng?: The Place of Welsh Pop Music" (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2007), p. 78.
  19. ^ D. Harvey, Celtic Geographies: Old Culture, New Times (Routledge, 2002), pp. 223-4.
  20. ^ J. Herman, 'British Folk-Rock; Celtic Rock', The Journal of American Folklore, 107, (425), (1994) pp. 54-8.
  21. ^ "Irska muzika među Srbima", Glas javnosti
  22. ^ Janjatović, Petar (2024). Ex YU rock enciklopedija 1960–2023. Belgrade: self-released. p. 265.
  23. ^ Janjatović, Petar (2024). Ex YU rock enciklopedija 1960–2023. Belgrade: self-released. p. 372.

Further reading

  • Colin Harper. Irish Folk, Trad and Blues: A Secret History (2005) covers Horslips, the Pogues, Planxty and others.
  • Tony Clayton-Lea. Irish Rock: Where It's Comes From - Where It's At - Where It's Going (1992)
  • Larry Kirwan. Green Suede Shoes (2005)
  • Gerry Smyth. Noisy Island: A Short History of Irish Popular Music
  • Sean Campbell and Gerry Smyth. Beautiful Day: 40 Years Of Irish Rock (2005)

External links

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