As luck would have it, for years and years, I am either about to drive or in the midst of the drive home around 3 PM, after a wonderful Saturday surf session and/or paddle. My radio is invariably tuned into Brian O’Donovan’s “A Celtic Sojourn” program that explored connection of Celtic music to other folk music traditions.
The program was always a perfect musical context to reflect on and appreciate the paddle and the other gifts of and/or issues in living this life. Brian O’Donovan, the iconic Boston based curator of world wide Celtic music, passed away last weekend, after being diagnosed with brain cancer earlier in the year. He continued on as long as he could. Today’s show was the first without him and thus in honor of him. I consider his passion, knowledge and promotion of Celtic music as a gift to Boston, and to me.
I have never heard the show of the late Mr. Donovan’s, but I can certainly understand, Sing, the gift to which you speak. Per many different venues, but I suppose mainly through radio and a show such as A Celtic Sojourn (for me perhaps Fiona Ritchie’s The Thistle and Shamrock), Celtic music has entwined itself within my very soul for many years now. And an artist such as Loreena McKennitt, who has shown interrelationships of diverse and yet similar cultural music forms in her many works, especially intertwining Middle Eastern and Celtic instruments and rhythms. The hollow-room sounding penny whistle, along with her own mesmerizing soprano voice and harp playing, in her evocation of Archibald Lampman’s poem Snow., Her own mournful remembrance of a loved one lost at sea, Dante’s Prayer (using a Russian Orthodox Choir). These songs, they…haunt me.
Somewhat bittersweet, ironic, and slightly related, in this matter of losing Boston area fomented radio shows, I was chatting with some friends a couple weekends back about how much I miss Car Talk. Come a Saturday morning , maybe a tad hungover, perhaps just glumly blah’d by the preceding work week, I could always count on tuning into NPR’s hour of Car Talk to achieve chuckles, outright laughter, and uplifted mood. You didn;t even have to give a damn about some random mechanical issue with a '74 Volvo sedan, that sibling and caller banter was going to make you feel better. Even if…“THERE! Ya’ve gahn 'en squanndud anuthuh pehfectly good ow-ah with me and my bruthuh.”
I love Loreena Mckennitt. Brought her “Book of Secrets” LP when it first came out. I still have the LP but no longer a LP player. Most folks would recognize her song, The Mummer’s Dance. But, if you and I would offer McKennitt’s “Dante’s Prayer” as a tribute to Brian O’Donovan, I think he would not object (as he had featured McKennit’s music in his past shows):
Dante’s Prayer - Lyrics:
When the dark wood fell before me
And all the paths were overgrown
When the priests of pride say there is no other way
I tilled the sorrows of stone
I did not believe because I could not see
Though you came to me in the night
When the dawn seemed forever lost
You showed me your love in the light of the stars
Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me
Then the mountain rose before me
By the deep well of desire
From the fountain of forgiveness
Beyond the ice and the fire
Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Though we share this humble path, alone
How fragile is the heart
Oh give these clay feet wings to fly
To touch the face of the stars
Breathe life into this feeble heart
Lift this mortal veil of fear
Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears
We’ll rise above these earthly cares
Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me
Please remember me
Please remember me
Please remember me
Please remember me
Please remember me
Please remember me
Please remember me
Appreciating the gift of life, as well as for a life that is a gift to others.
I started listening to Brian O’Donovan almost 30 years ago and loved his “Celtic Sojourn” with music from all the Celtic Nations. More recently I tuned in on Saturday afternoons, sitting in my car while my wife was attending Mass.
I wonder which direction the show will go in the future… Today’s show was still a period of reminicing by the array of artists who worked with Brian O’Donovan, particularly in the development of the annual concert, A Christmas Celtic Sojourn. The concert brings a variety of music together that recognizes and offers cheer against the incoming winter bleakness (universal) and also celebrates the birth of Christ (religious).
What beautiful music, I shared the video with my friends. His radio broadcast was as informative as it was entertaining, too bad he had to leave too soon. I hope someone can continue his legacy.
