The Paul Brock Interview – Part 6: Collaboration with Frankie Gavin

Athlone Miscellany

By Gearoid O’Brien

The Paul Brock Interview – Part 6: Collaboration with Frankie Gavin

Paul Brock is a fount of knowledge about the history of Irish traditional music. He tells me “There was a period up to about 1930 where Irish music was being recorded in the States but not here at home, it wasn’t until people like Seamus Ennis and Ciaran MacMathuna and others went on the road in the late 40s and early 50s recording traditional music that we got to hear the music of our musicians at home. In the 1970s and later we got reissues of recordings by the Flanagan Brothers, Michael Coleman, James Morrison and many others and these recordings influenced a whole lot of Irish musicians of that time including myself”.

While still holding down his job at Shannon Development Paul continued to tour and to play. In the 1970s he met Frankie Gavin with whom he had a long musical relationship that culminated in a recording which they made in 1986. This album on the Gael Linn label is still regarded as one of the modern classics of Irish traditional music, called ‘Omos do Joe Cooley – A Tribute to Joe Cooley’ it is a very genuine tribute to the great Joe Cooley by two of our leading traditional musicians. Paul met Frankie when he came down from Galway to hear Joe Cooley in Gort in the early 70s. Frankie Gavin was a young lad at the time and they wound up playing a session together. There was a musical chemistry straight away and both shared a great admiration for the playing of Cooley. When I ask how he feels about that recording today Paul smiles and tells me that the “recording has stood the test of time. Whatever feeling we managed to capture in that recording was the culmination of a lot of work by Frankie and I. Musicians liked the recording and it’s still selling and I’ve met so many people in so many places who told me they liked the recording. It is really nice when that sort of thing happens”. Paul met the great Joe Cooley on many occasions down through the years, but when Cooley came back to Ireland from San Francisco he was an ill man. Paul continued to see him and indeed he later attended his funeral. A very close friend who they held in common was Kieran Collins the East-Galway whistle player from outside Gort. Paul reminds me that “there is an annual Cooley- Collins Weekend held in Gort to commemorate both men”.

Joe Cooley’s Watch

As we chat about Joe Cooley Paul tells me “Kieran Collins was a great friend of mine, he had emigrated and come back from London and worked in Shannon and later in Dublin”. When Kieran Collins died young, in 1983, Paul Brock played at his funeral Mass in Gort. When Joe Cooley had died, ten years earlier in 1973 his wife, Nancy, had given Kieran Collins a gold watch that had been given to Joe. The watch was inscribed and presented to Joe by his friends in San Francisco before he left to come home to Ireland. Then in 1983, after Kieran Collins was buried, Paul’s God-daughter, Sharon Collins, came up to him in Glynn’s Hotel in Gort and said “Mum said to give you this” and she produced Joe Cooley’s watch. Paul remarks casually “I must say I was bothered about what might happen ten years later but that milestone has long since passed and I am delighted to have the watch as a memento of two great musicians”.

‘Moving Cloud’

In the 1980s apart from playing with Frankie Gavin Paul Brock was also doing his own solo thing but from there he went on to form ‘Moving Cloud’ in 1989 with fiddle player Manus McGuire. Apart from Brock and McGuire the line-up also included: Maeve Donnelly, fiddle player; Kevin Crawford, flute player (who is now with Lunasa) and Carl Hession from Galway. The name for the quintet came from a classic Irish reel. They played together up to 2000 and toured quite a lot and recorded for the Green Linnet record label in the U.S. Their first album ‘Moving Cloud’ was voted traditional album of the year in 1994 by Earle Hitchner, music critic of the Wall Street Journal and The Irish Echo. Hitchner writing of their later album, ‘Foxglove’ described it as “instrumental music at its pinnacle by an Irish band ranking among the best today”.

‘Mo Chairdin’

In 1992 Paul recorded his own solo album ‘Mo Chairdin’ and it was described in The Rough Guide to Irish Music “as a modern masterpiece of accordion playing”. This album was released on the Gael Linn label and includes a variety of reels, jigs and hornpipes as well as the slow air ‘Cailin Deas Cruite na mBo’ and the famous set-dance tune ‘The Blackbird’. This really is an album to be savoured and enjoyed and like ‘Omos do Joe Cooley’ it is, I’m sure, destined to stand the test of time.

Over recent months I have spoken to a number of young musicians about Paul Brock’s solo album. One tells me that what makes the album special for him is the eclectic selection of tunes: “he seems to veer away from the real classic tunes and instead picks tunes which are particularly suited to the accordion”. In the sleeve notes for ‘Mo Chairdin’ Brock says “I have always felt a particular affinity with the Irish fiddle-playing tradition and especially enjoy the close compatibility which I believe is possible between box and fiddle”. And at a local session here in Athlone I spoke to a young box player from County Mayo and when I commented on the quality of his playing and asked him did he know of Paul Brock I quickly realised that he did “Oh my God, Brock is savage” he replied using a modern superlative to convey his great admiration for the box playing of Paul Brock who is a legend among Irish box players.

The American Experience

I have been aware for many years that Paul Brock is a regular visitor to the United States and I wondered what kind of audiences he plays to. “I’ve done a lot of work overseas, particularly in America where I have performed in concert halls, colleges, art centres and museums, at music festivals – you name it – I’ve played all over America and Canada and I’ve done all sorts of prestigious venues. They love Irish music everywhere and appreciate the fact that we have a living folk-music tradition and that so many of our young people are attracted to it. There is a real appreciation out there because they realise the great influence that Irish music has had on American music. Our music has worked its way in all over the place, it has strongly influenced for example: country music, bluegrass, French Canadian music and Cape Breton music. I have met all sorts of people, all over North America, and they know about and greatly appreciate the influence of Irish music, I’m sure you have read ‘Bringing it All Back Home” by Nuala O’Connor which deals with the journey of Irish music to and from America. Well no matter where you go in places such as Kentucky, Carolina or Tennessee the Irish music influence is huge. I have a great interest in the journey of the music and how it worked its way around North America”.

We have played to all sorts of audiences but generally it wouldn’t be just to the Irish diaspora. America is a fantastic place to perform because the Americans are musically very well educated. They were brought up with music, they know their music and they have a total focus on the appreciation of the music. So you might be playing in a nice arts centre and they might have a coffee or a glass of wine at the break but after the show they are ready to go home. It’s not like it is here – it’s a different scene – here there is an expectation a lot of the time that Irish music has to be played in an atmosphere of drink but I think that too is changing.

The Paul Brock Interview – Part 5: Working with Shannon Development

Athlone Miscellany

By Gearoid O’Brien

The Paul Brock Interview – Part 5: Working with Shannon Development

The late 1950s and early 60s were exciting times for Paul Brock. He was getting plenty of engagements to perform both at home and abroad but he also had his eye on the things which were happening in Ireland. One of the big developments was “The [First] Programme for Economic Expansion” the brain child of T.K. Whittaker which was introduced as an attempt to modernise the Irish economy. This was also the era of Sean Lemass as Taoiseach, and his readiness to support Whitaker’s White Paper proposal on ‘Economic Development’ in November 1958 brought about the beginnings of a turn around in the Irish economy.

Whitaker’s aim was to “accelerate progress by strengthening public confidence after the stagnation of the 1950s, indicating the opportunities for development and encouraging a progressive and expansionist outlook”. Whitaker told the Government “we must be prepared to take risks under all headings – social, commercial and financial – if we are to succeed”. As a result of the adoption of his plan the value of exports in 1960 was the highest for thirty years. We could do with this same breadth of vision today.

Shannon Development

While Paul Brock was being kept busy with the music he realised that there was no money in music and certainly not enough to live on. So when Ireland was riding on the crest of the wave Paul left Athlone, but he did not leave the Shannon behind him. He journeyed to Shannon and joined Shannon Development in 1963. The company, an Irish Government economic development agency, was still in its infancy and Paul considered himself very lucky to be working for an exciting new company which had government support and which was being run at that time by Brendan O’Regan, whom he refers to as “a visionary”. Paul describes the dynamism of O’Regan who he says “had the vision to do a lot of things across a wide spectrum: economic development, tourism, attraction of inward development; building of local communities; infrastructural developments and maintaining the importance of Shannon as an international airport. Remember that from the late 1950s Shannon had been over-flown with the arrival of the modern jet aircraft. Up to that time, from the post-war years until the late 50s, all the air traffic between Europe and America had to stop at Shannon to refuel. So I joined the company with O’Regan as the driving force he had an attitude of ‘let’s do it’ and he didn’t want to know about bureaucracy or red tape. He managed to motivate a huge team of people who would do anything for him. There were no lines of demarcation these kinds of road-blocks just didn’t exist in his mind with the result that the company was responsible for an extraordinary number of innovations at that time. Shannon Development became the green-house for economic development not just in Ireland but in a lot of other countries who were seeing how things were beginning to turn around in Ireland”. Over the years Paul worked across lots of the company’s business activities: in tourism, in industrial development, in enterprise development and as Publicity Communications Manager. Eventually he was responsible for all of the company’s overseas operations. His work involved a great deal of overseas travel and so for over forty years he has been based in the Shannon region both in Limerick and in Ennis where he has lived for the past twenty-five years.

He has served on a variety of national and regional economic development committees including: the National Aerospace Task Force; The Mid-West Resource Committee; The National Grants Committee of the Youth Employment Agency. Paul is a former Chairman of the National Publicity Co-ordinating Committee that operated under the aegis of The Department of Foreign Affairs and which co-ordinated the worldwide publicity work of all the Irish State promotional agencies. In recent years he has worked as a Senior Consultant for IDI Ireland advising on investment promotion programmes in various countries in Africa, South America and Eastern Europe.

A Career Choice

In going to Shannon Paul Brock had made an important career choice. The options facing him were either to pursue the music or concentrate on the job. He didn’t think the music was a real option as it might be today, and in truth it wasn’t so he opted on getting a secure job that was both permanent and pensionable. As he says himself “it was important to get your foot in the door and keep it there. The notion of mobility within jobs didn’t exist then so I took the decision to concentrate on my career in Shannon but of course I continued to be involved in various ways with the music”.

Once he established himself in Shannon he realised that his primary focus had to be on his day job but he continued to play music. He even developed an interest in the guitar and studied the classical guitar for a while. He continued to broaden his musical tastes by listening to as much music as possible. By the early 70s he was aware that the attitude to Irish music was changing The Chieftains, a group which had been founded in the early 60s, was getting very well established and was increasingly playing Irish music worldwide. This was in great contrast to the majority of Irish musicians who played simply for the love of it and seldom if ever got paid for their efforts. Paul recalls that when the big break came and Irish musicians started to seize the opportunity to travel they had to learn the hard way about the art of performance to live international audiences. He remembers one music critic in the States asking ‘Why do Irish musicians spend so much time admiring their own shoe laces?”

The traditional Irish musicians of the time were on a steep learning curve. Prior to this they weren’t into the business of communicating, performing in front of large audiences, engaging with their audience or introducing their own material. However as they acquired new skills and reached out to new audiences there was growing acceptance both at home and abroad of Irish traditional music and significantly more and more young people being were being drawn into it in a way that hadn’t happened previously. The whole Fleadh Cheoil business was flourishing and attracting more and more people and the recording industry was taking off in Ireland.

Going Back to his Roots

While we were talking about the changing scene in the 70s Paul tells me “I was continuing to play with various musicians but more and more I was going back to the Irish traditional material, going back to my roots as it were. I dispensed with the five-row accordion; I actually sold it and returned to my roots to the melodeon and the two-row accordion. Around that time there was a great reawakening of interest in what had gone before. There was a lot of research being done, through the 1970s in particular, on the early development of traditional music. There was interest in the early recordings and in what had happened in America especially through the nineteenth century the time of mass emigration from Ireland. There was an interest in how the music transported, what had happened to it when it got out there and particularly the development of the recording industry because that had happened in America”.

Lecture on the Golden Age of Irish Music

I learned a great deal about the Golden Age of Irish music from Paul Brock. One character he told me about was the Loughrea born piper, Patsy Tuohy, who in the early days of the recording business in the States set up a mail-order company. He invited his customers to nominate the pieces of music they wanted, say two favourite tunes such as ‘Bonnie Kate’ and ‘The Salamanca Reel’ – Patsy would then record them on to a wax cylinder on a one-off basis, autograph them and dispatch them by post.

Irish traditional music became a commercial commodity in the States. Various factors, including the recording industry, the dance halls and the birth of broadcasting all helped its growing popularity. Paul explains the importance of the early recordings “The American Library of Congress compiled a discography of all the ethnic recordings of Irish music from the beginnings until 1950 and we then knew for the first time what was there, what had been recorded, who was on the recordings, when they were recorded and where they were recorded – this amounted to an absolute goldmine shedding light on both the repertoire and style of these pioneer musicians”. Paul Brock has delivered an illustrated lecture in the States entitled “Irish Traditional Music in America – The Golden Age” of which Paul F Wells, the Director of the Centre for Popular Music at the Middle Tennessee State University said it was “concise, authoritative, and engagingly presented. It was a wonderful survey of a vastly important period in the history of Irish music”.

The Paul Brock Interview – Part 4: Performing in Britain and the U.S.

Athlone Miscellany

By Gearoid O’Brien

The Paul Brock Interview – Part 4: Performing in Britain and the U.S.

Speaking to Paul Brock about his early career reminds me that the late 1950s was a great era for Variety Concerts. Our own Dean Crowe Hall was a regular venue for concerts at that time. All sorts of people came to perform there and the concerts were very well attended and popular with the locals. People such as Joe Lynch, Jack Cruise and Bridie Gallagher were among the big names at that time and Paul Brock played with all of them. He also recalls that another big name on the circuit was Jimmy Shand from Scotland in his kilt with his three-row customised Hohner accordion “Do you know that his recording of ‘The Bluebell Polka’ went into the charts in 1955 and he appeared on Top of the Pops?” he asks me “The recording was produced by a guy called George Martin who subsequently went on to produce records for the Beatles”.

Paul appeared in many Variety Shows and did a lot of concerts in England and Scotland at that time. In 1959 during one of his many visits to Manchester for performances there Paul was a guest of Manchester United F.C. It was the year following the Munich Air Disaster. While there he met Sir Matt Busby, Harry Gregg, Bobby Charlton, Albert Quixall and other famous players who had survived the air disaster. He also met some of the Irish apprentice footballers who were at Manchester United at that time including: Johnnie Giles, Jackie Mooney and Joe Carolan. Paul met Johnnie Giles recently and was able to share with him some of the pictures taken during that visit. On a separate occasion, Paul was a guest performer with the cast of “Cornation Street” at a special concert held in Manchester.

But, of course, this was also the era of the ballrooms. In Britain John Byrne the Kerry-born millionaire property-developer bought sites and built dance halls around the country. “The most notable being the famous Galtymore Ballroom in Cricklewood which was demolished about two years ago. John Byrne built the Galtymore and as he developed his empire he brought over his brothers from Kerry to run the different ballrooms. Byrne had Ballrooms in London, Manchester, Coventry and Birmingham and I used to go over and do his circuit and I would be billed as a guest star during a dance”.

The Galtymore in Cricklewood was one of the legendary London-Irish dance halls. It was built in a time of a big emigration boom, a time when the huge numbers of Irish living in Britain yearned for a taste of home and a time when the Irish in London had an appetite for a social life because for the first time in their lives they had a few pounds coming in. Paul Brock travelled extensively in the U.K. as a solo artist at concerts and clubs and also playing in variety concerts with Jack Cruise, Bridie Gallagher and others. Andthen he was invited to America in 1960.

First U.S. Trip

“I was young, I celebrated my sixteenth birthday in the States, and that trip was an amazing experience… I flew on an Aer Lingus Super Constellation because this was the pre-jet era. The flight took sixteen hours from Shannon to New York with a stop in Gander and a stop in Boston but we stayed on the plane for the sixteen hours”. Paul arrived in New York in the winter as a youngster from Athlone, not yet sixteen years of age, and he was exposed to a truly amazing world different to anything he had ever experienced at home. When he was in New York he was taken to the New York Athletic Club where his host was going to buy him a new state-of-the-art tennis racket. When they went inside there was a boxing-ring and Ernest Hemingway was there sparring with his boxing partner. Paul was introduced to Hemingway but he was just one of the many celebrities he met. He also appeared at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Chicago where he travelled in a car with Mayor Daley. While in New York he was brought to Broadway and taken to meet the great American boxer Jack Dempsey who owned a restaurant on Broadway and Paul remembers him as “magnificently dressed and presented. He was a big man, with a big cigar and he was sitting in a corner of the restaurant” and he adds somewhat wistfully “unfortunately I didn’t get any photographs”.

During his US stay, Paul was honoured by the world-famous Roseland Dance City. He performed with the Glenn Millar Orchestra and was presented with a Special Commemorative plaque to mark the occasion. He was the first-ever overseas musician to receive this award. The plaque is proudly displayed in Paul’s music room at his home in Ennis.

Gael Linn Cabaret

In 1959 the late Donal O’Morain came up with the idea of Cabaret Gael Linn, a touring ensemble to promote Irish music and culture and Paul Brock became a member. This was the first cabaret group to present an Irish music line-up. The group included musicians, singers and dancers – such names as Kathleen Watkins (harpist); Grainne McCormack (dancer) who later married Martin Fay of the Chieftains; Liam Devally and Brendan O’Duill (singers) but one of the most famous people involved in the group, as far as Paul was concerned, was the fiddler Sean McGuire. “It was through the Gael Linn Cabaret that I met him for the first time. He was an extraordinary musician, a real virtuoso, who in any situation whether his audience was Irish or foreign always managed to switch them on. I saw him at close quarters and I played with him many, many times – McGuire was an amazing musician”.

Paul continues “I think that around the late 50s and early 60s attitudes to Irish music started to change because you had Sean O’Riada doing absolutely ground-breaking work while making use of our traditional folk music. His scores for the films ‘Mise Eire’ (1959) and Saoirse?(1960) brought about a considerable change in attitudes. The fact that O’Riada was an academic and that he was making use of traditional music caused people to sit up and take notice. He was putting his stamp of approval on the music. This really was a defining moment and it brought with it a major shift in public opinion. The message permeated through and people began to believe that there really might be something important about Irish music”. These films were shown in schools, and O’Riada had gained even greater credibility when he was appointed as musical director of the Abbey Theatre a post which he held for five years.

In the eyes of Paul Brock Sean O’Riada was hugely influential in managing to sway general opinion in favour of Irish music. During the Dublin Theatre Festival, in September 1960, O’Riada launched his Irish traditional band which he called Ceoltoiri Chualann with musicians Paddy Moloney; Sean Potts; Sony Brogan and John Kelly. Later members included Peadar Mercier and Sean Keane. Ceoltoiri Chualann, with its interesting blend of instruments: harpsichord; bodhrán; fiddle; piano; accordion; whistle; flute and pipes did much to revitalise the works of the blind harpist, Turlough O Carolan. People reacted very favourably to these hand-picked musicians playing music which O’Riada arranged – this was a break from the Ceili Band tradition and people welcomed it with open arms. The material itself had a wider appeal and attracted those who would not otherwise have been turned-on by Irish music to say ‘Wow! There really is something here”. Then out of Ceoltoiri Chualann came The Chieftains and the rest, as they say is history. This was the beginning of groups and bands and of the real internationalisation of Irish music. Paul Brock has performed as a special guest on stage with The Chieftains on many occasions.

Next Week: Paul Brock: his time with Shannon Development.

The Paul Brock Interview – Part 3: The Attraction of the Fleadh Cheoil

Athlone Miscellany

By Gearoid O’Brien

The Paul Brock Interview – Part 3: The Attraction of the Fleadh Cheoil

When we get to talk of the whole Fleadh Cheoil experience Paul tells me that the first Fleadh he competed in was held in Loughrea in 1955. This was the year that Kieran Kelly won his senior All-Ireland title. By that time Paul was hooked on Irish music and simply couldn’t get enough of it. He would come home from the Fleadh and the music would be going around in his head for days afterwards. With typical modesty Paul didn’t tell me that he won his first junior All Ireland title when he was just eleven years old.

His father, the late Arty Brock, used to bring him to the Fleadhs and Frank Dolphin often went with them. In 1956 they went to Ennis and he competed there again and this time he met up with lots of people from the world of music who were household names at that time, including the legendary Mrs Crotty from Kilrush. “I was being exposed, through the Fleadhs, to what was happening around the country. I was becoming aware of style: regional styles, players, repertoire and that kind of thing” he tells me. The following year, 1957, he went down to Dungarvan and competed in the Fleadh there. He recalls that these Fleadhs were great places to meet musicians and fellow traditional music enthusiasts.

The mid 1950s was an exciting time in Irish music and an exciting time to be attending the Fleadh. One of the most keenly fought competitions was between the Ceili Bands. There was great rivalry between two major bands from County Clare at that time – the Kilfenora and Tulla Ceili Bands - and this probably increased the public interest in the competitions which were growing more and more in popularity by this time.

Why the Accordion

“I had started on the melodeon and then I was playing the two-row accordion and, of course, the big influence in the era was the likes of Paddy O’Brien. Paddy O’Brien’s recordings from the 50s, which I used to buy in Walsh’s Newsagents in Connaught Street, had a profound effect and accordion playing became phenomenally popular at that time. The two main dealers were in Dublin: Walker’s and Walton’s –Walker’s were the agents for the Hohner (which came from Germany) and Walton’s for the Italian-made Paolo Soprani accordions. It would be interesting if one could track down details of the numbers of instruments sold in that era. The instruments weren’t as sophisticated as they are now. In some cases they weren’t exactly welcomed into the music sessions, because the tuning wasn’t as refined as it is now – but all that changed over a period of time”.

But Paul was always interested generally in music, his interest wasn’t just confined to traditional Irish music, because there were a lot of other things going on in his head. He was listening to, for example, the Voice of America radio programme so he was hearing a lot of jazz. He shared a common interest in jazz with his cousin, Des Egan, and again through his Egan cousins he was also listening to Classical music.

To emphasise his wide tastes in music Paul tells me “I went over to England to hear people like Thelonious Monk, the great American jazz piano player, who remains to this day a huge figure as far as I’m concerned. And another one from that time, who I remember hearing for the first time on radio, on the Voice of America, was Bill Evans the great American jazz piano player. I went to see him in Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London. I used to go quite regularly to hear people of that order. So because my musical tastes were broadening all the time this influenced my approach to the accordion. I started to question what was happening out there in the accordion world beyond just the Irish thing”.

In terms of being drawn towards the accordion Paul remembers being introduced to the music of a very famous Norwegian accordion player from that era, a man called Toralf Tollefsen. He describes Tollefsen as being “like the Larry Adler of the accordion”. Tollefsen used to play with orchestras and he was hugely popular worldwide. Paul’s father took him to see Tollefsen in the Theatre Royal in Dublin and he describes the impact of this concert. “When he came out on stage he was a tall, young, blonde Norwegian playing a five-row accordion with scenes painted down the front of it. When I saw that, and when I heard him playing ‘The Flight of the Bumblebees’ and other Classical pieces, and when I saw the scope of what was possible I said ‘I want to have a go at that’, and so over a period of time I persuaded my father to but me a chromatic continental accordion”.

Coming to Grips with the New Accordion

Paul had explained to me earlier that the first accordion that he owned was a second-hand melodeon acquired by his father for £1, but having proven his dedication to his music Paul’s father later made sacrifices to ensure that Paul had a more suitable instrument. But before he had acquired his first new accordion he tells me that when he was competing in the Fleadh Cheoils, or perhaps making a broadcast, or appearing in a concert that he never wanted for the use of a good instrument: “Frank Dolphin and my father knew a man who worked in Athlone at that time, he worked with the ESB and he was from Kilkenny. His name was Seamus Breathnach (or Seamus Walsh) and he later married Anne Lenihan a sister of Mary O’Rourke’s. He is now retired and living in Dublin but at that time he lived down beside Lyster’s Saw Mills, in Excise Street, he was in digs there and he owned a lovely accordion and he used to loan it to me regularly…If I needed an accordion for a special occasion Seamus was always there and always loaned it to me with a heart and a half. I lost contact with him because he had moved – he went to Galway and other places, but I often thought back on his unstinting generosity. It was great for an aspiring musician such as myself to have such generosity shown to me. I was delighted to make contact with him in recent times after all these years and to share some memories of Athlone in the 1950’s with him.”

Paul recalls the joy of going to Dublin to buy his early accordions “It was always a great treat when my father brought me to Walton’s where we bought a number of accordions, and where Martin Walton was the owner at the time. I think perhaps it was in 1956 or ’57 that I was bought my first brand new accordion which at that time cost about £26”.

Having come to grips with the basic accordion Paul wanted to explore the scope of the instrument further. He was beginning to hear French musette music, a gypsy and Jazz influenced music which was composed mainly for accordion. He heard the music of guitarist Django Reinhardt, the musette players from that Golden age and also American jazz players playing jazz on the accordion – and these were all influential. Paul explains how his tastes developed “I got the three-row and then I got the five-row accordion and that enabled me to try things that I would otherwise have been unable to attempt, but having said that I know that some of the Irish musicians of the era wouldn’t have liked that. They wouldn’t have approved because their focus was on Irish music but I wanted to have a go and I did, and I got it out of my system”.

In the late 1950s Paul Brock was busy making a name for himself, he was entering a lot of competitions and winning a lot of competitions as well as making guest appearances at concerts “I played all over Ireland and the U.K., and of course many times in the Dean Crowe Hall in Athlone. Variety shows and the dance halls were the order of the day and all sorts of people came through that system. It was an era when generally people playing Irish traditional music weren’t paid. It was probably only from the 70s onwards that Irish music really started to travel overseas. You had the emergence of groups and bands – you had the commercialisation and professionalization and the beginning of the globalization of Irish music”.