Dan Walsh plays a blazing virtuoso banjo which encompasses Celtic Folk, Irish jigs and reels, Bluegrass, and approaches nirvana with his take on classical Indian stringed music.
He doesn’t set fire to it physically (I don’t understand people who hate the instrument), and he harnesses feedback from the audience only. The ability to break the traditional mold of the instrument aligns him with Hendrix.
I did see two other virtuosos early last year, Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn at the 2023 WOMAD at the Brooklands Oval.
What players of this calibre can achieve is to take traditional melodic music and play it at lightning speed with improvisation, whilst retaining the root structure. In this sense Bluegrass was analogous with the Be-Bop Jazz movement pioneered by Charlie Parker and his fellow Young Jazz Rebels. They took off at the same time.
Deliberately alienate the older, stuffy musicians with a style that challenges all their fixed ideas.
Come here Sister, Papa’s in the swing/ He ain’t no drag/ Papa’s got a brand new bag!
Walsh tells us his development as a musician was all wrong. Fell in love with traditional Irish music that he heard from his father, as he was growing up in Stafford, England.
Given a five-string banjo and found a teacher, George Davis, who started him on those old tunes. Discovered later that they were played on a four-string tenor banjo.
He was coming In Through the Out Door. Listening to Led Zeppelin III you will hear some tasty banjo licks too.
The first song is a mash up of four trad Irish reels. Bag o’ Spuds is his own though, attached to three from the O’Neill’s Song Book.
Francis O’Neill was an American police officer, born in Ireland, who compiled close to two thousand traditional tunes.
Academics have described him as the greatest individual influence on the evolution of traditional Irish music in the 20th century.
Syncopated rolling and tumbling riffs continually firing off.
The Suilin does sound classic deep Celtic folk, a tribute to one of the many rivers of the land.
We get to hear the tales of a troubadour as the show progresses.
Attended Newcastle University and discovered the unique sound of Shetland Folk Jazz. Created by a local, Billy Mayhew, discovering the sounds of Grappelli and Reinhardt and Gypsy Jazz during wartime Forties.
It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie does sound like an older Pop song with a Jazz swing.
So does At Least Pretend, written by Leo Moran and Davey Carton of Irish Folk Rockers the Saw Doctors.
One of the peaks of the night was Whiplash Reel. A product of the time he spent jamming in India with classical music practitioners of the sitar and sarangi.
Based on jigs and reels but the tone is Eastern with pronounced note-bending. A few quiet bridges followed by fast breakdowns going up the scales. Some of it seems to emanate from Michael Bloomfield’s East-West guitar pyrotechnics. At other times it is Dick Dale Middle Eastern Surf music and without a pick.
A stunning approach to musical nirvana.
The swing Jazz style also aligns him with Bloomfield. A guitarist that Dylan also adored, as he played all over Highway 61 Revisited.
The concert is practically all highlights.
He learnt the clawhammer style of play which is percussive as one of its’ features. He adapted it to Bluegrass and the three-finger classic Earl Scruggs style, but without finger picks.
You can’t really hear the difference, especially at speed. It forward rolls and tumbles in familiar fashion.
Moonshine 68 is a Bluegrass jig that swings like crazy.
Tune For Sara is the slowest of the night, addressed to a former love. Then picks up speed and goes skirling off. Speed Grass!
That could be an interesting drug cocktail. You can also find Rap intertwined with Bluegrass over the last ten years.
Purists may choke on their Guinness with whiskey chasers, or their black velvets. One person who would understand all this is Bill Monroe, who changed his style after hearing Elvis Presley’s version of Blue Moon of Kentucky.
The closing song is Lester Flatt’s Sleep with One Eye Open. The most closely aligned with Blues for the night. Let’s not venture into the double-entendre.
Dan Walsh is a banjo virtuoso who casts a wide net over different styles and genres and can take his music to ecstatic levels. He is playing at the Auckland Folk Festival on Anniversary weekend.
Rev. Orange Peel