Irish folk icons Altan turn to Nashville for their latest release

BY MARY HOULIHAN | FOR THE SUN-TIMES

For a band that’s been around for nearly 35 years, Altan is still full of ideas and willing to accept new challenges. Take for instance the new album, “The Widening Gyre,” a collection of songs that flexes the band’s musical boundaries by looking at the connection between traditional Irish music and Appalachian music.

Altan is credited with introducing Donegal’s Irish language songs and instrumental styles to audiences around the world. But Altan also is no stranger to the traditions of classic country and bluegrass. Twenty years ago, the band performed with Dolly Parton on her album “Heartsongs,” which examined the iconic country star’s roots. And since then, band members have become friends with and performed with the likes of Del McCoury Band, Alison Krauss, Tim O’Brien and many other Nashville players.

“We came to realize there was a lot of common ground between the two traditions,” Altan co-founder Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh says. “We have been recording for years and could have done more Donegal songs, which we love. But instead we wanted to show how our musical background has expanded. We’ve met so many people over the years who have become a part of our everyday music and that’s as important to us as our own roots.”

“The Widening Gyre,” Altan’s first full album recorded in Nashville, pairs the Irish musicians with some of the leading players of American folk and bluegrass. There is plenty of the Irish tradition in the songs (the album is released on Compass Records) but what ignites this songbook is the addition of guest players like O’Brien on mandolin, Alison Brown on banjo and Jerry Douglas on dobro guitar, along with bluegrass fiddlers Darol Anger, Stuart Duncan and Bruce Molsky.

Ni Mhaonaigh feels the gap between the two traditions isn’t very wide; there are many similarities when you begin to explore songs such as “Buffalo Gals,” “The House Carpenter (Gypsy Davey) and “No Ash Will Burn.”

“We realized there are a lot of tunes that have traveled over and the musical accents had changed a little but it was still basically the same song,” Ni Mhaonaigh notes. “It was just lovely to be able to find tunes in common with fiddle players like Darol and Stuart.”

In addition to Ni Mhaonaigh on fiddle and lead vocals, the band also includes Ciaran Tourish (fiddle), Ciaran Curran (bouzouki), Daithi Sproule (guitar, vocals) and Martin Tourish (accordion), plus for the Chicago shows two additional players Alison Brown (banjo) and Garry West (bass).

West, co-founder of Compass, also produced the album and was instrumental in capturing the exact sound both he and the band wanted. Ni Mhaonaigh explains: “Garry was quite in the studio but he added his tuppence worth of concrete ideas when needed. His vision was clear. He knows we love playing live and wanted to bring more of that edge to this album.”

Ni Mhaonaigh and her late husband, Frankie Kennedy (he died from cancer in 1994 at age 38) who played the Irish flute and tin whistle, founded Altan (named after a lake in Gweedore, County Donegal) in the early ‘80s. They played at sessions around Donegal and were both working as teachers, but as their reputation grew, the couple saw there was an audience for their style of traditional Irish music. However, Ni Mhaonaigh readily admits she never thought the gig would last as long as it has.

“That wasn’t part of the plan to go professional,” Ni Mhaonaigh says laughing. “We played music for the love of it and it happened that it became a way of living. One thing led to another and here we still are 30 years later still enjoying it. Music is a great common language; it lifts you up, and we’re privileged to be a part of that through our musical heritage.”

Mary Houlihan is a local freelance writer.