Just plain wow. Such life in his playing … something to aspire to for sure!
Thanks to Mr. Gumby, I’m starting my day with some great tunes to listen to, again. 
Yes, the tunes are wonderful. Enjoying all of them. 
This is a great thread. Thanks Mr. Gumby. I downloaded all of the tracks and am listening now. It’s been a very busy week, but I’m glad to read about your experiences (and others’, too).
Thank you!
My experiences aren’t that important, just some memories that came to mind served as an opening gambit for the thread. It’s about the man himself and his music. And the shock that it’s twenty years already.
I don’t know the hows or whys, but many times I’ll hear him play and my mood immediately improves. There’s a joy his music causes that is unique to him, at least from who I’ve heard so far.
You should read John Doorty’s play, based on talks with Micho himself. In it Micho talks about the hardships of life, not having much, loosing relatives and loved ones, getting wet out, working all day on the bog. That’s where music comes from he says, ‘out of the heavens in showers’.
While on a good day it has a fierce beauty, Doolin is a harsh, windswept place and certainly during the earlier parts of the 20th century a remote, isolated place. Music was always, and still is, a way of keeping the darkness away, share companionship and create a light and joy where there was otherwise little.
I noticed that there is a festival annually. http://www.michorussellweekend.ie/index.html
Is the festival focused on the Russells or Micho Russell in particular? Or is the memorial occasion just another opportunity to have a festival? From the website it looks interesting.
The festival was set up to commemorate Micho initially. At some point, probably after Gussie died, they decided to dedicate to all three brothers, which was probably a more fair approach. One of the great features of the festival is the free food and wine after the saturday afternoon concert. Hmmm. Anyway, the (concert) program varies quite wildly, some years it’s more attractive than others. There’s also the usual festival sessions thing to fill the pubs.
Hi Peter
Certainly hard to believe that it has been twenty years.
My first meeting with Micho was in the early eighties in O’Connors, Doolin. I had learned the concertina reel in G from Pat Mitchell’s LP the previous year. I heard Micho plaing it in D in the session in O’Connors. I fell in love with the apparant simplicity of Micho’s rendition. I asked him about the tune and that night, at about 1.30am, leaning against a granite windowsill near O’Connors, he gave me the tune.
I treasured the tune, only playing it for a select few, until I heard it on a recording by, I think, Patrick Street. Everybody started playing it the way it was recorded and I stopped playing it. I still treasure the tune and meeting Micho though.
I play a bit now with Gabriel Casey and Tom O’Driscoll up in North Clare. They learnt a lot of their music from Micho and the Killourhy Brothers and still play their tunes.
Thanks for bringing him back to mind.
John
I play a bit now with Gabriel Casey and Tom O’Driscoll up in North Clare. They learnt a lot of their music from Micho and the Killourhy Brothers and still play their tunes.
Lovely, that should be nice. Saw Gabriel recently, checking out the destruction of Lahinch prom after the storms, like we were. I used to go out to Bridget’s well sometimes when Gabriel and the others started playing in Murphy’s, some memorable nights with Paddy Killourhy and Gussie Russell there.
I’ll check that out if I can find it.
I know it has helped me through a lot.
Hi Peter
Your right, the music is lovely. It was Davy Levine (another fine musician) who introduced me to them. Davy has been in and around North Clare for a long time now and he would have played a lot with Micho et al.
For me a huge part of who Micho was, was the lack of pretence and artefact. Micho loved playing. He had no problem playing in front of people. They could have been the hottest hot-shot of the day or even some brilliant musician from another code and Micho would have no problem playing.
In the early eighties I used to visit the Meeting Place, a pub which on Saturday nights ran a folk club, where Micho played one night. A friend agreed to put him up for the night. Micho woke my friend up at 7.30am on Sunday morning wanting to go to Mass. They got 8 o’clock Mass in Phibsboro church. My friend said that “with anybody else I would have told him to get lost but, with Micho, it just seemed the right thing to do, to get up and to bring him to Mass”. Micho had that effect on you.
I was at a pipers tional in the Falls Hotel in Ennistymon and, on the Saturday evening, Eamon McGivney brought Micho over. Even though there was a lot of great piping that night being played in the bar of the hotel I drifted over to where Micho was sitting and listened to him playing. Micho was particularly delighted that night that Sean Potts was in attendance and was listening to him. Micho played for hours that night.
Just some more memories.
John
Micho did appear to sort of live in his own reality, one that was slightly different from the one everybody else was moving in. No fear of the outside world and always landing on his feet, no matter where he went. He’d pull the whistle out anywhere and disappear into his playing bubble. He did that several times on the Dutch commuter train when we were traveling from Dordrecht (where we had played some days before) to Eindhoven (to get a connection to Maastricht where we would be collected and taken into Belgium by car by the organisers of the next gig to do a lunchtime slot on local radio). That got him some strange looks form the early morning travelers.
The song posted by Davy above (I just saw the start of it) reminded me of another occasion, probably 1989. We were staying with Geoff Wooff for a bit after the Willie week. Geoff was renting the house that was once Patrick Flanagan’s, the concertina player who was a neighbour of the Russells and gave them much of their music. The house is in Doonagore, just about mid-way between the old Russell homestead and the new one they built near the main road during the sixties. It was a lovely summer and there were loads of tourists around. Gussie decided they could tap into the market by renting out the old house.
The scan of this pic is an old one and strange things happened to the image, you’ll get the idea though.
Did Micho Russell have a favorite whistle? Or did he play several? Any wooden whistles?
Just bringing up this thread to mention TG4 has scheduled a new edition of Siar an Bothar next tuesday which features footage of Micho. TG4 Player
TG4player (linked above)>Music>Siar an Bóthar 1-07-14> Micho’s segment at 6.50
Some lovely fiddleplaying by Breandan McGlinchey at the start and the end of the episode, while you’re there.
Received a copy of “Traditional Music of County Clare” yesterday, and I’ve been enjoying it hugely.
Cheers
Marc E
That’s the one that got me hooked on his playing. Ireland’s Whistling Ambassador is another must have album.