It’s an especially high-traffic St. Patrick’s Day season, with bands from Ireland dotting the landscape like clover gone out of control. There are plenty of Celtic-flavored contenders who hail from our shores, too, but few can boast the local and national cred of perennial Valley club-fillers Bo Fitzgerald and the YankCelt Band. That moniker is the calling card of a very fine group of players, and in order for the band to coalesce for its annual Valley tour, members have to come from as far afield as Ireland and Los Angeles.
In the L.A. camp, you’ll find the group’s fiddler, Craig Eastman, who grew up in the Valley. Whether you know it or not, chances are extremely high that you’ve heard Eastman’s music—he’s appeared on (and/or composed for) soundtracks for a long list of films that includes box office successes like Brokeback Mountain, Blackhawk Down and Pirates of the Caribbean. He’s also recorded with the likes of Ray Charles and Willie Nelson. More recently, he appeared on actor Hugh Laurie’s album of New Orleans-style music (Laurie is, as he’s demonstrated in Jeeves and Wooster and House, an accomplished pianist).
When he comes to the Valley every March, Eastman’s concerns are far away from recording. The YankCelt Band tears up stages from Springfield to Amherst in a live show based on spontaneity: “We never rehearse,” says Eastman. “Like, ever.”
When your roster includes such solid players and gifted improvisers as Eastman and bassist Guy DeVito, you can get away with that. “It’s a vacation for us in terms of musical freedom,” says Eastman. “For me personally, a lot of music that I play—I play with all kinds of people in L.A. and recording and composing—it’s very much for a purpose almost all of the time. Doing this stuff with these guys, it’s for a purpose, too: to have fun and bring people along for the adventure.”
That adventure got started two decades ago, Eastman explains. “[Robert Emmet ‘Bo’ Fitzgerald] lost his voice after treatment for a brain tumor. Eventually, he got it back. It was really quite astonishing. It would bring people to tears, including myself. Guy and I wanted to put a band together around him.”
The musicians who joined them in the effort form a seasoned and virtuosic unit: Billy Klock (drums), Mixie Clarke (vocals, button accordion, pennywhistle), and Jeff Sullivan (guitar, banjo, button accordion).
The Irish tradition has gone pretty far from its roots these days, especially in the wake of the punk-tinged styling of The Pogues and The Dropkick Murphys and efforts to combine all sorts of genres with the usual repertoire. With the widely varied experience of its members, the YankCelt Band can roam from purely traditional to most anywhere else. “The band covers all of that spectrum—from a cappella story-singing to some pretty outside fiddle jams,” says Eastman. “We did a version of ‘The Growling Old Man and the Cackling Old Woman’ last night that lasted about 40 minutes. We really stretch it out and turn it into a funk tune. We all really listen carefully when we play and treat it like jazz. We can really take it anywhere, and do. It’s really an adventure.”
When Eastman returns to the Valley, he also plays solo shows. In them he explores a wide range of material. In his movie work, Eastman also employs a large number of instruments, from a one-of-a-kind octave fiddle to guitar and erhu, and explains that his solo shows offer a chance to bring some of his L.A. stories and experiences back to the Valley. More on that next time.
This year, there are just a couple of stops left on the annual YankCelt excursion. On March 16, the band hits the Holyoke Elks (413-538-8895), and on St. Patrick’s Day, you can catch YankCelt at Theodores’ in Springfield (413-736-6000).?
