Your Paddy Keenan story.

[Mike Hulme]

There are memories from early Willie Clancy weeks where himself and Tommy Peoples nicked a bike off a nun, the two cycling up mainstreet with the nun chasing after them shouting and roaring


Name for a tune? "The Roaring Nun" Would that be a jig or a reel then?

[rorybbellows]

Speaking of nuns,when I was about fifteen I was going fishing on Greystones beach Co Wicklow ,as I walked along the beach I came across three girls in swimming .They were in black one piece swimsuits,with nice figures I remember thinking ,well impure thoughts.
When I got a little way past them I looked back to see them getting dressed,I couldn't believe it, they were nuns.Man I thought I would go straight to hell for that one,maybe I still will!

RORY

[bcpipes]

Paddy sometimes references my Paddy Keenan story on stage. I am afraid that if I related it here, he will stop referencing it.

He was quite taken with (what was then) the world's largest free standing wooden chair (24 feet tall, I think) in Gardner, MA. He mentioned getting up there with the pipes for an album photo. Never happened though. He called it the "Seamus Ennis Chair".

[The Sporting Pitchfork]

I have a few memories of Paddy...

The first time I saw him was at a house concert in Santa Cruz in '96. I was in high school at the time. My friend Theo was playing fiddle with him, and I came up at the end and started bashing away on a cheap bodhran (I was young...Forgive me). The bodhran didn't seem to like the rather low humidity (neither did Paddy's pipes, but he persevered admirably), and the skin snapped right off the brass tacks, putting a quick though merciful end to my brief brush with fame...

At the same show, I talked with a young woman who is now a fine fiddle player (and her brother is arguably the best banjo player on the West Coast). I didn't play uilleann pipes then--only Scottish pipes. She was really twisting my arm and trying to convince me that I needed to take up uilleann pipes. "No way", I said. "That would just be crazy."

A few years later, I was at a concert of his in Portland that he did with Seán Tyrell. Seán noticed I had a flute with me and got me to come up on stage for a couple of numbers at the end, which made me feel like a million bucks. I had a nice chat with Paddy afterwards. (Incidentally, though Seán Tyrell is a fine singer, he seems to have a nasty habit of not tuning that mandocello of his...I heard from a friend that at a show of theirs in Northern California on the same tour, Seán had left his mandocello on stage during the break while he went and got another pint, and a disgruntled audience member came up and secretly tuned it behind his back. Paddy smirked, but said nothing.)

A couple of years ago, Paddy was playing again in Portland, this time at the Alberta St. Pub with Tommy O'Sullivan. After the show, there was a session and Paddy sat in. He plopped down in a chair right next to me just as I was getting my pipes out of the case. "Go on then, give us a tune!", he said, "Lash out!" No pressure or anything...I played a couple of tunes--he was looking right at me, really paying attention to what I was doing, and I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Afterwards, he said that he really enjoyed my playing and told me to keep it up...I could've died right then and there...

[sean an piobaire]

Paddy "The K" stories.........O man O man........
When It Comes to Paddy Keenan,
I've had so much laughter with him,
and so many enjoyable hours hearing him play his Pipes
(1975 to 2007 didn't catch him on his visit here in 2008),
that it all blends together.
However, since this started with a toilet reference,
I have to refer you gentle readers to one of his recent experiences,
he related to me.
It's called "Locked in the Loo, in Tim-buck-too"
which happened to him "LIVE" at the "Festival of the Desert" in Mali.
I think it's already here on C&F, so search it in that blank box overhead.
Even better... ask for it from the MAN himself, next time you see him
on stage, and tell Paddy that Sean Folsom put you up to it, and furthermore.....
has he composed a tune to that title.....YET?
(as suggested by a friend of his, in Ireland).
Your California Correspondent
Sean THE piper Folsom

[Ceann Cromtha]

Mark Hillmann once told me that Paddy Keenan was visiting him down at his farm in Virginia and they were sitting out on the porch playing their pipes and drinking beer. After Paddy finished his beer he got up in the middle of a tune, opened the screen door, walked to the refrigerator, got out a couple more beers and returned to the porch WITHOUT STOPPING PLAYING HIS PIPES!!!

If Mark's out there, maybe he can confirm, correct, or amend this story?

[Key_of_D]

Mark Hillmann once told me that Paddy Keenan was visiting him down at his farm in Virginia and they were sitting out on the porch playing their pipes and drinking beer. After Paddy finished his beer he got up in the middle of a tune, opened the screen door, walked to the refrigerator, got out a couple more beers and returned to the porch WITHOUT STOPPING PLAYING HIS PIPES!!!

If Mark's out there, maybe he can confirm, correct, or amend this story?

Sounds like an Irish fairytale friend. At least the non-stop playing of his pipes while getting beers from the fridge...

[uillmann]

This was no fairy tale, Key of D. He did exactly that. We used to have big trad parties there in Virginia, and a lot of the Washington DC crowd would come for two or three days of music and such. That particular party, Paddy kept playing the chanter with his top hand, and the regulators with his wrist, and when needed, he used the right hand to flip open the screen door, open the fridge, grab two beers, put them on the table, sat back down and continued on as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He kept the tune going the whole time. I used to see Paddy pretty regularly back then, as my shop was in Jeri Keenan's basement in Takoma Park MD. (Jeri is a great whistle player, and was Paddy's sister-in-law.) I remember Paddy once brought home a homeless one legged man for the night, bought him a bottle of gin, and made dinner for him. That kind of random generosity is one of the things I will always think of about Paddy. My reedmaking style was the result of copying the great reeds he gave me. He never wanted any money for them.

[Key_of_D]

Well I don't doubt his dexterity. During the concert here, he was playing a lively reel, and somewhere in the middle he took his right hand off the chanter and made some quick adjustment to one of his regulators. Kept on playing with the top hand as though there was nothing to it, kept in time and everything. I said to my cousin sitting next me, something along the likes of... "That was some random-arse variation..."

[Uilliam]

I remember Paddy once brought home a homeless one legged man for the night, bought him a bottle of gin, and made dinner for him.

That wasnae a man that was his girlfriend
Slán Go Foill
Uilliam