“It’s a chance for the people of Cork to pay tribute to my brother, and a wonderful man.”
Those are the words of Darby Crowley, brother of Cork musician Jimmy, ahead of the concert celebrating his career in the city this week.
More than 40 performers will take part in A Musical Tribute To Jimmy Crowley at Cork City Hall on Wednesday, June 24 - an astonishing response after the call went out to raise funds for the musician.
Singer and songwriter Jimmy was in hospital for five months after suffering a stroke. He was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer last September.
His partner, Eve Telford, issued a GoFundMe appeal to raise funds so he could continue his rehabilitation at their Cobh home, and it quickly passed the €100,000 mark.
As well as donations, a number of concerts in Ireland and around the world were arranged to raise money for the cause, including a trad and folk session in the Randy Leprechaun bar in La Zenia, Spain - a former haunt of Jimmy’s - which raised €1,130.
A group of Cork musicians, including William Hammond, also set out to put on a big tribute event for Jimmy in the city, and among those 40-plus performers next week will be Jimmy’s brother Darby and Leeside musician John Spillane.
Darby, of Kilnamartyra, who is five years younger than Jimmy, and is himself a songwriter, spoke to me the day after Jimmy left hospital and went home to Cobh to continue his rehabilitation.
“It was great for Jimmy to go home, he was delighted - there’s no place like home,” said Darby. “The family have been overwhelmed by the response to the appeal, it is a fantastic tribute to him and his music. We are very proud of Jimmy and his achievements, he is a lovely man.”
Meanwhile, John Spillane spoke of the huge debt he owes to Jimmy for his own successful career in music.
“I was unbelievably lucky that I had a wonderful apprenticeship with Jimmy Crowley,” he said. At 21, he took me on as a bass player with his band, which he called The Quartet at the time. It was an education I could not have got in any university, with Jimmy and the likes of Johnny Murphy and Christy Twomey.
“Jimmy was very kind to me, and it was an honour to perform with him. I had two summers playing with him and his band, it was an amazing education.”
There are a good few contenders for the Bard of Cork, and Crowley and Spillane are surely right up there in the conversation, alongside legends like Jimmy MacCarthy and Seán Ó Sé.
Spillane says Crowley’s first band, Stoker’s Lodge, were “the Cork equivalent of Planxty” and a key part of the folk revival of the 1970s.
That band’s first two albums, The Boys Of Fairhill and Camp House Ballads, will form a large part of the songs performed at the tribute concert to Crowley next week.
Expect renditions of the likes of Johnny Jump Up, Salonika, The Armoured Car, The Groves Of Blackpool, and Do You Want Your Old Lobby Washed Down Con Shine.
It doesn’t get much more Cork than that!
Spillane added: “It promises to be a a great night, with so many performers and so many great songs.”
Line-up in alphabetical order
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