..Just rcvd this from a friend in England. I don’t know if this has been mentioned before. Also a disclaimer at the end. Wouldn’t think it would be priviledged information if published as an Obit…Gm
Don’t know whether you had heard, but Johnny Cunningham died quite suddenly
in America on Monday.
Here is an obit from the Scotsman written by Alastair Clark
THE death of Johnny Cunningham, elder brother of Phil, at an
age when many great fiddlers are just about maturing into their prime,
will have stunned and saddened countless friends and admirers on both
sides of the Atlantic.
Johnny was one of those questing, free-ranging Scots musicians that Hamish
Henderson proudly saluted as “the wild rovers of the tradition”. They didn’t
come much wilder, in more senses than one, than Johnny Cunningham. He lived
life, as they say, to the full. But there was a deeply serious side to him,
as
anyone hearing him play would quickly detect.
From being the fastest fiddle in the West during his teens, when he was he
dynamic powerhouse in Silly Wizard, he became an acclaimed master of the
slow
air, that seemingly simple but in fact devilishly fragile form that
invariably
sorts out the musical men from the boys.
While he played a hugely significant role in spreading the Celtic sound
around the United States and Europe, in his time he roved far beyond the
confines
of traditional Scottish material, dabbling in hard rock and American country
music as well as writing music and lyrics for theatrical productions and
establishing a solid reputation as a record producer.
Born in Portobello, he started playing fiddle at school when he was six
years
old. Phil took up the accordion at an even earlier age, and the two
established a musical rapport, and spectacular velocity, which never
deserted them.
Johnny [?] was only 15 when he joined Gordon Jones and Bob Thomas in the
first
incarnation of Silly Wizard, a band that was to take traditional music by
the
scruff of the neck and hurl it on to a roller-coaster ride that would set
the
pace for so many others to follow.
I recall presenting a performance by Silly Wizard at the BBC’s old
Edinburgh studios in Queen Street when I wasn’t allowed to mention the
fiddler’s
name over the air - young Johnny [?] was playing truant from school to be
at the session. In those days, he tended to be sniffily dismissed by the
purists as a “speed merchant”. He sure was quick, spectacularly so. Imagine
the
kerfuffle when Phil joined the band in 1976. Someone phoned me up and said:
“Have
you heard? Silly Wizard just got faster.”
The music soon caught the ear of a generation that had never been
exposed to such exciting Celtic stuff, and Silly Wizard found
themselves in huge, popular demand; so popular, indeed, that someone tried
to
put a bootleg album of one of their performances out on the market. The band
were known for their comedy capers on stage, but this time they were not
amused, and brought a court action - the first of its kind in Scotland - to
prevent
the album being issued. The lawyers called me in as a witness to the fact
that the recording had been secretly made during an informal, rather messy
show
during the festive season, and that its issue would severely damage their
reputation. At one point on the recording, someone in the audience can be
heard
shouting: “Johnny [?] , you’re a f****** w*****!” In court, I mentioned the
phrase as evidence of the general mayhem, and noticed Lord Ross picking up
his pen
and presumably jotting it down. In the end, Silly Wizard won their case, and
the album never reached the shops.
The band went from strength to strength, and made a particularly big impact
in the United States, one of the highlights of each show being a medley of
ferociously fast tunes, with the Cunningham [?] brothers continually pushing
each
other to more outrageous momentum. Johnny found America much to his liking,
and settled there in 1981, but not before recording an album, Against the
Storm,
with Phil: next month, Phil and Johnny had planned to go into the studios
for their first joint recording since then. Johnny [?] also brought out a
solo
album, Thoughts from Another World, in 1981, which was followed three years
later by Fair Warning.
The Silly Wizardry continued until the late Eighties. Meanwhile, the
Cunninghams played occasionally with two singing members of the
renowned Bothy Band from Ireland, Michael O Dhomhnaill and Triona Ni
Dhomhnaill, and the quartet was officially formed under the name of
Relativity,
producing two fine albums in the mid-Eighties.
As Aly Bain has put it: “Johnny [?] was interested in all aspects of
music - and wasn’t afraid to try them.” He tried all sorts in the
States. He played with the Boston-based rock band Raindogs as well as the
exuberantly jazzy Nightnoise, and toured and recorded with the likes of Hall
&
Oates, Bonnie Raitt and the American country-style Johnston Brothers. Since
the
Nineties, Johnny [?] had been touring extensively with Kevin Burke and
Christian LeMaitre in the popular package called the Celtic Fiddle Festival.
As a
record producer, he was at the controls for such bands as Solas and Cherish
the
Ladies.
He devoted much of his attention in recent years to theatrical work,
writing the music and lyrics for a highly praised adaptation of JM
Barrie’s Peter and Wendy, a puppet production that made Broadway and won
awards in 1997, and he had recently completed a screenplay. Each December,
he took
his little show A Winter’s Talisman, featuring music, songs and poetry, on
tour in the States with the Irish singer Susan McKeown. He had just
completed
this year’s tour when he became ill in New York and was rushed to hospital,
where he died in the arms of his long-time partner, Tricia.
A lovely, amiable guy. A massively influential bearer of the Celtic
message. A restless, multi-talented artist. And, alas, a wild rover no
more.
ALASTAIR CLARK
17 Dec 2003
The Scotsman
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