Galway singer sean keane returns to ramor theatre

Damian McCarney

Close your eyes and singer Sean Keane’s voice will transport you back centuries. It’s the timeless quality of his voice which guarantees that the Galway-born singer sells out the Ramor each time he comes to Cavan. As textured, as Irish bog oak, it’s what sets him apart.
“I open my mouth and God knows it hasn’t a lot to do with me,” he says when asked about his trademark voice. “I was born with the gift I was given. I don’t think I’d be able to do anything with it really. If people say it sounds unique, I can only take their word for it, because a person doesn’t hear themselves really, but at the same time it’s a nice compliment.”
It shares a certain quality with that of his sister’s, Dolores Keane’s, voice.
“I suppose the vocal tone is within the family alright, my other brothers and sisters would have a similar type of voice,” he agrees.
Does Sean notice a change in its quality with time?
“I do indeed, you can feel the subtle changes. It takes a while to warm up the voice a little bit more. Thank god I don’t think about it too much. But I did take myself a bit of a head cold back a couple of weeks ago which left me a little bit nasally for concerts - but what can you do as they say. You have to go on. Mind you, one of the lads in the band suggested that it may be even an improvement - and maybe he’s right.”

http://youtu.be/UacDnqYfFh0

The Keane vocal chords and musical ear were marinaded in the traditional artform from birth. Their house was centrally-heated with traditional singing and sessions.
“Old traditional singers would come to my grandmother’s house,” recalls Sean. “She was a song-collector; she would collect a song and she would give a song. That was really the source of a lot of material that both Dolores and I would have recorded and a lot of songs that the rest of the family would sing as well.
“She had collected a suitcase full of traditional songs. I became aware of my traditional background when I was about five or six years of age when I witnessed an argument between my grandmother and a neighbour when she was writing down a song he was dictating. He was giving her the song and she was writing away and an argument broke out whether the words of the song were right or wrong - that grabbed my attention.
“For some reason that never left my mind it was the first time I became aware I was a member of a musical family. I just thought it was normal, it was only later on I realised it was unique.” That passion for capturing the essence of the trad song that was displayed in his grandmother, survives in Sean.

Heart
“I still like to sing traditional songs, they are very close to my heart and I never really put many fancy arrangements around the songs that I would have been singing from the traditional genre. I left them as I found them - unaccompanied and so on, so when I want to tamper with music and explore and experiment I went off and did it with more contemporary stuff.”
Are there any more suitcases of traditional songs out there for Sean to discover?
“I suppose there are still songs left to be collected and there are still a lot of songs in people’s heads. When I’m doing concerts and so on, you get people come up and say: ‘Would you ever hear this one? Did you ever hear that one?’ In fairness a lot of people put them on CDs and give them to me and there’s a lot people out their writing songs in the traditional vein as well, which is a good thing.”
Sean has been touring his recent album, ‘Christmas by the Hearth’, released in December. It features some classic festive songs, such as O Holy Night and Silent Night, and three new songs written by Sean, his manager Johnny B Broderick and Johnny’s brother, Iggy. Now that we’re into a new year will he still play a couple of Christmas tunes when he takes to the Ramor stage this Friday?
“If they want them,” says Sean. “There are a couple of songs which would be for any time of the year.”
The last time Sean played the Ramor the venue sold out and he hopes to perform in front of a full house this week again.
“We’ve always had a very enjoyable night in the Ramor,” recalls Sean. “It’s not easy to sell out - a lot of people put entertainment down their priority lists in the economic climate we’ve had to date but, still and all, the Irish people in particular know how important it is to go and socialise, to get out there and meet people and carry on doing as much as you can.”
Sean Keane plays the Ramor on Friday, January 16, accompanied by Pat Coyne on guitar and Fergus Feely on mandocello.
Bookings: (049) 854 7074.