Call it a slightly morbid hobby, but I regularly read the obituaries. Not for any fascination of death but rather I consider it a historical review of sorts.

With that said one of my favorite musicians and fellow Irish American Donald “Duck” Dunn pass away last night.

Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn died at the age of 70; bassist for Booker T. & the MG’s
As a key part of the integrated house band at Memphis’ Stax Records, Dunn set the funky tone for soul hits from Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and Sam & Dave. He later joined John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in the Blues Brothers.

As the bass player on dozens of the most soulful hits in the history of pop music, Donald “Duck” Dunn often found himself out on the road playing to fans who had assumed he was black like the stars he supported, notably Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and Sam & Dave.

When audiences encountered a white bassist in the lineup, “A lot of people thought I was a pick-up bass player — they thought Duck Dunn was a black guy who couldn’t make the tour for some reason,” Dunn told an interviewer in 2005 about his best-known role as bassist for Booker T. & the MG’s, which had a string of instrumental hits apart from its status as the house band at Stax Records in Memphis.

“In Europe they’d ask me, ‘What’s it like to play with a black man?’ I never knew what to say; we didn’t think that way — we just played,” Dunn said. “We got the soul sound by blending our country and blues influences. I grew up with the Grand Ole Opry. When we mixed that feel with the blues, we got something new.”

Dunn was still playing that infectious blend of country, gospel, blues and rock with his longtime partner in the MG’s, guitarist Steve Cropper, in Tokyo last week when he died Sunday in his sleep at age 70. They had just completed 10 shows over five days with their Stax Revue. The shows had been postponed after last year’s earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan.

“Today I lost my best friend, the world has lost the best guy and bass player to ever live,” Cropper wrote on his Facebook page.

MG’s leader and organist Booker T. Jones said Monday, “He was always there — Duck was very dependable and very steady, and that’s a good quality in a bass player. He wasn’t one to jump up and play solos on the bass. He was a background player, but at the same time he stood out.”

Booker T. & the MG’s were on the charts consistently for nearly a decade, putting 18 instrumental hits into the Billboard Top 100, from their first, “Green Onions,” in 1962, through their final appearance in 1971 with “Melting Pot.” Dunn came into the lineup after “Green Onions” established the group as a hit-making entity on its own (Lewis Steinberg was the original bassist), but Dunn cemented the lineup that continued until drummer Al Jackson Jr. was shot to death in 1975.

It wasn’t unusual for Dunn’s bass lines to lead the way when the MG’s went to record. His sinuous, pulsing notes set a foreboding tone in their hit rendition of “Hang ‘Em High,” the theme from the 1968 western starring Clint Eastwood. His funky, hopping rhythmic melody line is featured at the start of the MG’s’ 1967 hit “Hip Hug-Her.” And Dunn nimbly doubled Cropper’s signature guitar lead on the propulsive “Time Is Tight,” adding low-end muscle to the song’s insistent groove.

Donald Dunn was born Nov. 24, 1941, in Memphis and got his nickname early on from the hours he spent watching Donald Duck cartoons with his father. He met future band mate Cropper in high school, where they teamed up with saxophonist Don Nix and played together as the Royal Spades.

Dunn, Cropper and Nix were soon joined by trumpeter Wayne Jackson, keyboardist Jerry Lee “Smoochie” Smith, drummer Terry Johnson and tenor saxophonist Charles Axton, changing the name of the band to the Mar-Keys, which scored a Top 10 hit with their 1961 instrumental “Last Night.”

“We were a little band making a little money, and we thought we were pretty hot,” said Wayne Jackson, who with saxophonist Andrew Love also was a signature part of countless recordings made at Stax. “Duck was a natural musician, and he was a great bass player. He played very melodically, and the rhythm stuff he did, he sort of held the rhythm section up by the lapels.”

After touring for three years without landing a follow-up hit, Dunn went back to Memphis and took Steinberg’s place in the MG’s, which had become the house band at Stax Records, playing on recordings for its growing stable of R&B and soul singers. The records that came out of Stax during the ’60s typically featured a grittier, funkier brand of R&B than the smooth, urbane sound favored in Detroit by Motown Records founder Berry Gordy.

Dunn and the rest of the MG’s figured prominently on Stax hits such as Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour,” Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness” and Sam & Dave’s “Hold On, I’m Coming” and “Soul Man.”

Sneak Previews of Mike Houlihan’s comic documentary “Our Irish Cousins”

Save the date! Mike Houlihan’s long awaited film, “Our Irish Cousins” will have a sneak preview on Thursday May 10th at the Beverly Art Center at 7:30PM, Friday May 11th at The Irish American Heritage Center at 8:00PM, and Saturday night May 12th at Gaelic Park at 8:00PM. Mike will be on hand to discuss the picture and to drink with the audience. The film traces Mike’s adventures as he goes broke hustling his book all over Chicago with his son William, and then takes us to Ireland where he finds his fortune in his Irish heritage.

Houlihan claims the film was “143 years in the making!” and captures the spirit of the Irish Diaspora.

Filled with Irish music and laughter the film features many of our most beloved Irish characters including P.J. O’Dea, Kelly Doherty, Turk Muller, Frank West, Denny Kearns, Sean Ginnelly, Bernie Markle, Maureen O’Looney, Paddy Homan, Maurice Lennon, Dennis Cahill, Dan Igoe, Barney Farelly, Jack & Gayle Baker, Shay Clarke, Rick Rundle, Francis Bryan, Nora Houlihan, Michael McNeal, Jack O’Keefe, Eleanor Tiernan, Robert Kielty, Jaymo Doyle, Eithne Fitzpatrick, Johnny Latner, Tony Golden, Charlie Carey, Assessor Jim Houlihan, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, The Yiddish Sons of Erin, Billy Lawless, Boz O’Brien, Julie Popp, Madeleine Taylor Quinn, Des Bishop and a cast of thousands.

Scenes were shot at the Irish American Heritage Center, Gaelic Park, almost every Irish saloon in Chicago, the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Fitzpatrick Castle in Dublin, The Ennis Book Festival in County Clare, Mike Houlihan’s pub in Kilmallock, County Limerick, Galway Bay FM Studios, Coole Park and Thoor Ballylee, and the depths of the Shannon River.

Tickets are only $10 and refreshments will be available at each screening. Get a group of friends together for this evening of “great craic” at the movies with Mike Houlihan.

Don’t miss it!

For more information go to http://ouririshcousins.com and watch the trailer for the film.
The Beverly Art Center is located at 2407 W. 111th Street in Chicago, 773-445-3838.The Irish American Heritage Center is located at 4626 North Knox in Chicago, 773-282-7035. Gaelic Park is located at 6119 West 147th Street in Oak Forest. Plenty of free parking at all venues.

The IABN’s own Jean Tubridy (Writer and Poetic Extraordinaire) reflects upon Ireland’s rich history of poetic genius.

Poetry of Ireland

     I have no idea why, but Ireland is at the top of the Premier League when it comes to producing poets. What’s even more remarkable is that we don’t ever get relegated as this poetic gene just flows down through the generations.  One of my recent purchases was The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry (2010) which was edited by Patrick Crotty.  It’s a weighty tome, and it wasn’t very sensible to buy it at DublinAirport to read on holiday, but it really brought home to me what a long poetic tradition there is in this country of ours.

There are so, so many poets, poems and lines from which to choose when it comes to writing about Irish poetry. However, I think it is fair to say that W.B Yeats is probably the poet whose work stands out in the Irish psyche more than any other.  The Exhibition about the Life and Work of Yeats which has been running at the National Library of Ireland since 2006 has been a huge success and the online version is also outstanding in terms of bringing Yeats’ to the world   http://www.nli.ie/yeats/.

The poem by Yeats that tends to be cited as the best-loved is The Lake Isle of Innisfree, which is immensely soothing:

THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE

By William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

The mere thought of ‘Poetry of Ireland’ brings Patrick Kavanagh  to my mind. An absolute master at changing perspectives!  His poem Epic, so local to Co. Managhan and of its time, yet reaching the universal and timelessness:

EPIC

By Patrick Kavanagh

I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided : who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man’s land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.

I heard the Duffys shouting “Damn your soul”
And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen
Step the plot defying blue cast-steel -
“Here is the march along these iron stones.”

That was the year of the Munich bother. Which
Was most important ? I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer’s ghost came whispering to my mind.
He said : I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance.

One of my greatest pleasures in recent years has been hearing a number of great Irish poets read their work at the Kilkenny Arts Festival.  Seamus Heaney in St. Canice’s Cathedral on a balmy August evening – sheer heaven!  Here was a Nobel Prize Winner reading poems he must have read hundreds of times as if this was his first rendition.  Digging  is one of Heaney’s most evocative poems and  I particularly like this reading with a montage from different stages of his life. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIzJgbNANzk

The poets of Irelandhave an openness which some might say is not necessarily reflected in our society generally. One delicious book which is a ‘must’ for all romantics is Remembered Kisses: An Illustrated Anthology of Irish Love Poetry (1996) which is edited by Fleur Robinson.  This powerful short poem by Rita Ann Higgins is included:

IT’S PLATONIC

By Rita Ann Higgins

Platonic my eye,

I yearn

for the fullness

of your tongue

making me

burst forth

pleasure after pleasure

after dark,

soaking all my dreams

Leafing through The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry, I wish I could just keep on writing but I know that everyone will have their own favourite poets, poems, lines, half lines … What are they? I’m longing to know!