Any bird expert will tell you, there is no such thing as a cuckoo's nest. The cuckoo is one of the few birds that lays its eggs in another bird's nest and leaves its young to be raised by someone else. Grey Larsen learned the old traditional Irish tune called "The Cuckoo's Nest" when he himself had fallen into a surrogate nest rich in Irish tradition. Larsen learned the tune in Ohio and transcribed it for his unprecedented 450-plus-page tome The Essential Guide to Irish Flute and Tin Whistle.
Beginning in the '50s, a dozen blue-collar immigrants met weekly in Cleveland to play Irish music. Once farmers or coalminers, they came to America for a better life. The Cleveland Irish Musicians' Club was not a public affair, so it was a bit of a surprise in 1974 when a few longhaired Oberlin students appeared.
"When we walked in, there was this stone cold silence," remembers Larsen. "Politically we were miles apart, but once we started playing together, we became great friends." The weekly 40-mile trip to Cleveland was when Larsen (whose CD with Paddy League, Dark of the Moon) first began his musical migration to the Irish flute. The cuckoo's nest is like a metaphor for Larsen's own musical rearing, as if dropped into a nest of Irish immigrants and given the task of preserving old melodies and playing techniques.
Larsen learned one tune on Dark of the Moon in 1979 at the home of County Sligo flute player Josie McDermott. "That was my first trip to Ireland and I wanted to learn everything the same way traditional musicians had in the old days," recalls Larsen. "So I didn't bring a tape recorder. I thought I could be so focused I would remember it all. Josie McDermott played me these great tunes. But, in the end, I only remembered one. I hummed it to myself over and over as I got a lift on the back of a tractor." For years Larsen called the tune "Ride on the Tractor." On the new CD, it is listed as "Josie McDermott's Reel."
Larsen learned other tunes on the new CD from melodeon player Michael J. Kennedy (1900-1978), a former Irish farmer who settled in Larsen's hometown of Cincinnati. He gave Larsen his first taste of "crooked tunes" or melodies with extra beats added to their structure. "Crooked tunes are very uncommon in Ireland today," Larsen explains. "Some of the older players had a lot of tunes like that. I think there was a lot more crooked Irish music 100 years ago. Somehow the music got kind of tamed."
"The flute is really magical," Larsen exclaims. "Your breath is producing the sound. Not wood. Not a metal string. You can't see what is making the sound. It is very ethereal. It's such a direct route into your soul."
Grey was a longtime member of the renowned group Metamora with Malcolm Dalglish and Pete Sutherland, with whom he recorded three albums and toured extensively. His collaboration with French Canadian singer/guitarist/foot percussionist Andre Marchand resulted in their award winning album The Orange Tree.
Grey is at home on half a dozen instruments (Irish flute, tin whistles, Anglo concertina, harmonium, field organ, and piano) and in several musical styles. He currently records, produces, and masters recordings, scores films, and edits music for various books and magazines.
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