Davey Arthur - A Story

These stories were told by Davey Arthur at his concert on Saturday, the 26th of February 1994 at Jacksons Lane.

The accordion player was reading the music they were playing all night. All others played by ear, old songs they have played for decades! They often take a new musician with them on tour to give them the oppportunity of learning the old songs and being part of the group in a concert setting.

Davey asked for a drink and the base player gave him a quarter inch of water in a glass. No-one laughed! The fiddle player played so hard he broke a string - he played his heart out that night - and every night. Davey said he and the guitar player swore they would never chase the same woman because their friendship meant so much. His friend gave up touring to get married! 

Davey said he proposed to a woman in Cavan and she said ‘perhaps’. He chased her from America and back to Ireland, and four years later, she said ‘no’, now they have 8 children. 

He lived with Ralph McTell, evidently he never went to Mass but he was the only person paying the rent. Every song had a story, mostly in jokes where the audience could only imagine a punchline of “It’s a long long way from Claire to here, and it gets further day by day!” Then Davey says “this song was written coming out of Cork on a straight road the band saw dogs eating the head off each other and round the bend, two men were beating the heads off each other”.  This led to Paddy in Paris, he asked the audience to sing and dance. No-one did!

"If you drink as much as possible during the break the second half will be all the better!" The fiddle player requested a coffee as they went off to put the kettle on. After the break they said they all had a lovely cup of tea. An old song about the war! The audience clapped and called for more, it was ending, so the band came back for one number. He said it was totally unexpected. When they asked people to dance and no one did, none of the group looked at the audience from that time on. 

Sweet 16 was introduced. The poet wrote it after his lover died of consumption on the boat over to America. He never wrote another poem. She was buried at one of the stop over islands. 

The night was very amazing as always Davey’s gigs were. When they were playing,  my partner and I were clapping along to the songs, when they suddenly stopped playing - and we both stopped clapping naturally. There was a total silence in that moment! How he conveyed to us to stop clapping I have no idea but we did as if by magic.

He called out “anyone from Cork?” Could he have remembered us from the Eccles in Glengarriff? He was very intuitive, sensitive and responding totally in a brilliant mystical-telepathic-therapeutic way. Go see them! Amazing musicians and incredible storytellers. 

Wendy Stokes Recommended!