Guest
The Bonnie Blue Flag - from the film “Gods and Generals.” In the summer of 2001, I received a call from David Franco, this film’s music producer, inquiring about Irish songs from the American Civil War, along with an invitation to get involved with both consulting and performing some of the music. I was happy to oblige, and although it didn’t pay much, the experience was well worth it. While there were some who argued that this early-war Confederate anthem wasn’t an Irish tune, I was quick to point out that the melody was in fact an old Irish tune known as “The Irish Jaunting Car“ or the “The Dublin Jaunting Car,” that an Irish immigrant music hall performer, one Harry McCarthy - known as the “Arkansas Comedian” - had taken and written this new lyric for. In the early part of the war Harry toured the South performing a sort of a USO show for the Confederate soldiers along with his lady friend. The song initially soared in popularity in the South, being published by Confederate firebrand music publisher A. E. Blackmar & Bro. (New Orleans, 1861), and was eventually replaced by northern minstrel performer Dan Emmet’s “Dixie” as the Southern anthem. A couple of years later, as things started to go badly for the South in the war, McCarthy was known to have moved to Philadelphia. And as many of you know, the melody was sort of recaptured by McCarthy’s Irish music hall performer counterpart in New York City, one Joe English, with the lyric “The Irish Volunteer,” which is also the title track of my first album of this material. I believe it was in late September that the musicians on this recording were all assembled at a studio in New York City to record the instrumental part of this track, they being superstar Irish trad. player John Whelan (button accordion), our friends from the 2nd South Carolina String Band on their various instruments, and myself on period banjo. Later, in late October or early November (and I’m a little fuzzy on the timeframe), John Whelan and I drove down together to meet with the other musicians who’d played on the track for the filming of this scene of the Confederate minstrel show. The music producer brought in Broadway performer Damon Kirsche to sing and dance to the tune as Harry McCarthy. In one of the more surprising moments in my musical career, when were all in costume and on the stage ready to shoot the scene, the music producer climbed up on a ladder with his conductor’s baton, and started waving his arms around like he was conducting an orchestra as we played the tune and acted out the scene. John and I shared a furtive glance, as did all the musicians on the stage, and just chalked it up to “Hollywood.”.. This scene also featured Robert Duvall in his role as Gen. Robert E. Lee, Stephen Lang as Lt. Gen. Stonewall Jackson, and Ted Turner who financed the film in one of his several cameos. Mr. Duvall, who is a musician himself, was kind enough to allow us to snap pictures with him following the shoot, and Stephen Lang, one of the nicest guys around, posed for some pics with us as well, and hung with us for a while inquiring about the music. All in all, this was a great experience, and one that I’m proud to have been part of, and am very happy to finally be able to present it for you here.
