WHEN DOES a violin become a fiddle? Anytime it is used away from the formality of trained music to spark spontaneous joy in a group of people, is the response from Ian McCamy.
Born in New York and living in Paris, the 40-year-old musician is performing in Monaghan at this weekend’s Féile Oriel.
McCamy is possessed of a sepia charisma: he wears clothes cut from Prohibition-era America and plays “old-time music”.
“This is a strange mixture of Scots, Irish and African music,” he says. “It’s the music of the Appalachian Mountains, of Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia.”
The young McCamy heard lots of Irish music in the pubs of New York in the 1970s and studied music at La Guardia school of arts (the one featured in the Fameseries).
His mother is a third- generation Scot and an artist who plays the pipes; his dad is a Tennessee physicist who sings American country music.
“My oldest memory is of wanting to play the fiddle,” McCamy says.
“I was about three when I started to ask about it. I remember seeing one on TV and knowing that that was what I wanted to do desperately.”
On stage, he exudes artistic energy and a performer’s respect for his material.
“Mainly I play music from 1920s America . . . I am trying to be faithful to the 78rpm records that came out between 1923 and 1930.
“There was a rich musical culture in every US town and the recording industry was just born and seeking ways to sell music.
“An early success was a country record, and so they went deep into the mountains to record everyone with the goal of making more hits.”
Such songs testify to social history – some complain about the sales tax, some make subtle statements about racial issues.
The influence of slavery is omnipresent – the music speaks of “suffering, slavery and emancipation”.
At Féile Oriel, McCamy will be playing a song called And the Cat Came Back. Half of this he describes as an Irish reel and the other part, which is syncopated, as a slave song.
The cat in question refers to an escaped slave being returned.
Having quit the US for Scotland to master his instrument, McCamy travelled as a lone fiddler through England to Berlin, busking at street corners and in metro systems.
His aesthetic was simple: to play from the heart.
This took him to France where he met underground cartoonist Robert Crumb. The two became firm friends.
Crumb not only draws, he plays guitar, banjo and mandolin. Trawling through his vast collection of American folk records, McCamy and Crumb have just recorded 17 songs and are negotiating the release of their CD in the US.
Crumb had once drawn a set of collectors’ cards featuring 1920s blues and jazz musicians.
He created an image of McCamy in the same style: “He drew me as the ‘missing’ card – I am the only musician in that set still alive.
“Robert lives in the south of France and we play together often.”
The Féile Oriel and the Fiddler of Oriel competition run until tomorrow
