Tommy Makem
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Thomas "Tommy" Makem (4 November 1932 – 1 August 2007) was an internationally celebrated Irish folk musician, artist, poet and storyteller. He was best known as a member of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. He played the long-necked 5-string banjo, tin whistle, low whistle, guitar, bodhrán and bagpipes, and sang in a distinctive baritone. He was sometimes known as "The Bard of Armagh" (taken from a traditional song of the same name) and "The Godfather of Irish Music".
Life and work
Makem was born and raised in Keady, County Armagh (the "Hub of the Universe" as Makem always said), in Northern Ireland. His mother, Sarah Makem, was an important source of traditional Irish music, who was visited and recorded by, among others, Diane Guggenheim Hamilton, Jean Ritchie, Peter Kennedy and Sean O'Boyle. His father, Peter Makem, was a fiddler who also played the bass drum in a local pipe band named "Oliver Plunkett", after a Roman Catholic martyr of the reign of Charles II of England. His brother and sister were folk musicians also. Young Tommy Makem, from the age of 8, was member of the St. Patrick's church choir for 15 years where he sang Gregorian chant and motets. He didn't learn to read music but he made it in his "own way".
Podcasts:
Tommy Makem
ALBUMS
- The Legendary Tommy Makem Collection released: 2007
- The Song Tradition released: 1998
- Tommy Makem's Christmas released: 1995
- From the Archives released: 1995
- Live at the Irish Pavilion released: 1993
- The Tommy Makem Songbag released: 1990
- Rolling Home released: 1989
- An Evening With Tommy Makem released: 1985
- Lonesome Waters released: 1985
- Tommy Makem Sings Tommy Makem released: 1968
- Songs of Tommy Makem released: 1961
The Legendary Tommy Makem Collection
Released 2007- Galway City
- Gentle Annie
- Farewell to Nova Scotia
- Four Green Fields
- As I Roved Out
- Red Is the Rose
- Roddy McCorley
- Those Factory Girls
- The Black Velvet Band
- Newry Town
- Captain Farrell (Whiskey in the Jar)
- A Son of the Soil (Inishowen)
- The Cobbler (With Mother Sarah Makem)
- Farewell to Carlingford
- The Battle of Benburb
- The Irish Rover
- The Winds of Morning
- Man From God Knows Where
- Lolly Toodum
- Minstrel Boy (Let Erin Remember)
Tommy Makem's Christmas
Released 1995- Singing in the Streets
- Wishes
- Adeste Fideles
- Carol of the Birds
- My Leg Is Aching Worse
- The Prickle Holly Bush
- The Cherry Tree Carol
- Children Go Where I Send Thee
- Angels We Have Heard on High
- The Holly Bears a Berry
- Scarlet Ribbons
- The Huron Carol
- The Gift of the Tree
- Sing We the Virgin Mary
- Auld Lang Syne
From the Archives
Released 1995- Henry Joy
- Leatherwing Bat
- The Bard of Armagh
- Erie Canal
- The Butcher Boy
- Farewell to Nova Scotia
- Winds of Morning
- The Little Beggerman
- Four Green Fields
- Sally O
- True Love and Time
- Galloway Hills
- Better Times
- Song of the Wandering Aengus
- Killyburn Brae
- Bonny Love
- Venezuela
- Vancouver
- New York Girls
- My Lagan Love
- Lolly Toodum
- Going Home to Mary
- As I Roved Out
Live at the Irish Pavilion
Released 1993- Winds of Morning
- Kitty Bawn O'Brien
- A Little Road and a Stone to Roll
- Kids on the Range
- The Minstrel Boy / Let Erin Remember
- The Winds Are Singing Freedom
- The Boys of Killybegs
- Tanqueray Martini O
- My Dark Rosaleen
- Wee Willie
- The Garten Mother's Lullaby
- If I Was a Dog
- A Son of the Soil (Inishowen)
- Farewell My Friends
The Tommy Makem Songbag
Released 1990- The Wild Colonial Boy
- The Little Beggarman
- Johnny I Hardly Knew You
- Canada My Own Land
- Gentle Annie
- Roddy McCorley
- The Old Orange Flute
- Johnny McEldoo
- The Black Velvet Band
- The Irish Rover
- The Rambles of Spring
- Farewell to Carlingford
- The Wild Rover
- Red Is the Rose
- Tim Finnegan's Wake
- The Moonshiner
- The Butcher Boy
- I'll Tell My Ma
- Bold O'Donahue
- Four Green Fields
Born: 1932-11-04
Died: 2007-08-01
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The Good Ship Calibar
by: Tommy MakemCome all ye dry land sail-i-ars and listen to my song
It's only forty verses and I won't detain you's long
It's all about the adventures of this old Lisburn tar
Who sailed as man before the mast on the good ship
Calibar
Now the Calibar was a spanking craft, pitch bottomed
for and aft
Her helm, it stuck out far behind and her wheel was a
great big shaft
With half a gale to fill her sail, she'd do a knot an
hour
She's the fastest craft on the Lagan Canal and she's
only one horse power
Now, the captain was a strapping lad and he stood just
four foot two
His eyes was red and his nose was green and his cheeks
was a prussian blue
He wore a leather medal that he won in the Crimea War
And the captain's wife was the passenger cook on the
good ship Calibar
Now, the captain say to me 'Me lad, look here, me lad'
says he
'Would you's like to be a sail-i-ar and sail the raging
sea?
Would you's like to be a sail-i-ar on foreign seas to
roll
For we're under orders from Portadown with a half a ton
of coal'
It was early next morning, the weather, it being
sublime
When passing under the old Queen's Bridge, we heard the
Albert's chime
When going along the gaswork straits, a very dangerous
part
We ran ahole on a lump of coal that wasn't marked down
on the chart
Then all became cunfuse-i-en and the stormy winds did
blow
The bos'n slipped on an orange peel, fell into the hold
below
'Put on more speed', the captain cried 'for we are
sorely pressed'
But the engineer from the bank replied 'The horse is
doing his best'
Then we all fell into the water and we all let out a
roar
There was a farmer standing there and he threw us the
end of his galloses
And he pulled us all ashore
No more I'll be a sail-i-ar or sail the raging main
And the next time I go to Portadown, I'll go by the
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