This weekend (actually it’s after the weekend, on the 19th) it’s twenty years since Micho Russell died.
I remember when the phonecall came on the sunday afternoon, it was a friend from Miltown and the news was sad. Micho had gone out to a session in Connemara with a few local people. While there he decided to get a lift back with an American woman. On the way back he wanted to make a phonecall to a Korean musicologist who had been filming the old guys around North Clare. After the call was made the car had to turn to get to the turn for Kinvarra at Kilcolgan. The driver, not used to Irish roads, failed to make the turn and while the car was stalled in the middle of the road another car coming from the Gort direction hit it full on the passenger side. Micho was badly injured and died of a heartattck shortly after arriving in Galway university hospital.
It was as if a shiver ran through the world of Irish music. Micho, in his own way, was such an iconic figure and despite his age full of life. Everybody thought he had years more in him. I decide not to go to the funeral. I have regretted it since but the weather was not really good for travel and I don’t like big crowds much.
Micho’s music first caught my attention by the late seventies. I loved the clarity of it and it’s natural flow and sense of simplicity. It wasn’t until 1980, when I attended the Willie Clancy Summer School for the first time, that I met the man in the flesh. I had drifted into a session on the sunday afternoon and was playing what tunes I had at the time when Micho came in and sat across from me. I was in awe but nobody seemed to think much of it so I went with the flow.
A few years later I was in Lisdoonvarna before another Willie week. I was making a call in a public phonebox, at the time it was still the old West Clare phome network : you took the receiver and turned a handle to alert the operator once you told her the number you wanted to connect to she’d tell you the amount due. You then had to drop the coins in a slot where they fell on a bell, the operator would hear the bell and know you had paid before you were connected (once your alotted time was used up she’d break in to the conversation and the whole operation of dropping a further payment would have to be executed again). I got through, despite the alleged contrariness of the particular operator in the area and made my call. When I left the phone both a couple was waiting outside, I knew them, the man was a piper who started around the same time as myself. I said ‘hello’ for effect, I had recently shed the hair and beard that were de rigeur during the seventies and knew they wouldn’t immediately recognise me. They recognised the voice though and there were smiles and handshakes and the announcement they were meeting Micho. The man himself arrived duly, I got the pipes and a C whistle to go with them and music was played all night, first in the Savoy hotel but Micho preferred the Roadside Tavern so we moved there after a while.
Micho liked the particular C whistle and he tried to get it off me but I wouldn’t budge. He continued borrowing it for the next few years though. Later the same friends organised a tour for Micho across the Netherlands and Belgium and suggested I accompany Micho on some of it. Which I did.
There were many more occasions over the years, of chance meeting and tunes in unexpected places. One that stands out was one afternoon I drifted into O’Connor’s to see what the story was. Micho was inside and Joe Ryan just walked in through the other door for a few tunes. The three of us played for maybe an hour until Micho drifted off towards a German girl at the bar. Joe Ryan and myself continued on for another two hours and I was flying. It must have been half decent too as Susan O Connor, listening all the while from behind the bar, stood us a lovely free meal (which I was assured later, wasn’t common practice chez O Connor).
There is ofcourse a whole canon of shaggy dog stories centered around Micho and I have been in situations with him that would make a good yarn. That was not the essence of the man though. When playing certain tunes my mind hears the distinct tap of the feet, the halting rhythms of his voice and sees the the twinkle of the eyes, the head slanted to one side as he lost himself in a tune.
I hope anyone with impressions or memories of Micho will add to this thread.
I meant to add a few bits of music to this post but power outages due to ferocious storms have hindered dipping into some of the tapes in recent days. I will try and add some bits over the coming days when time allows
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