ARTS
The Michigan Daily Friday, March 15, 1985 Page 6
White's folk to warm up Ark
By Doug Enders
Josh White Jr. is a man committed to
humanity and its well being. When
he steps on stage to perform, he doesn't
just sign to an audience, he tries to
touch their souls. Like his father before
him, he is determined to draw mankind
together with his songs that preach
brotherly love.
When he comes to the Ark this Friday
RUN',
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SUM ME
and Saturday, White will bring with
him a strong heritage of folk and blues
music that extends from his father's
career to his own. Like his father, the
late Josh White, who was the first black
artist ever to sell over a million copies
of a single recording in the U.S., the
younger White has also tasted success.
With well-known songs like "Kings
Highway" and "Last Night I Thought I
Had a Dream," Eric Anderson once
called White "the most refined and
graceful folksinger in the business."
Besides performing on stage, White's
involvement in charitable
organizations is another way in which
he reaches out to his fellow man. And if
you've ever heard the theme songs of
VISTA or the Peace Corps, then you've
heard White's inspirational voice.
Fortunately, his humanitarian efforts
haven't gone unnoticed. Several years
ago the Michigan state government
proclaimed April 20th to be Josh
White/Josh White Jr. Day, in honor of
White's and his father's services to the
state. White also received the Harry
Chapin Award for Humanity in 1984 for
his work with the needy.
When on stage, White's talents aren't
limited just to singing and playing
guitar; he is also an accomplished ac-
tor. Acting since the age of four, when
he made his stage debut, White has had
a long and extensive training as a per-
former. While living in New York, he
played Broadway five times, including
one starring role. Between his suc-
cessful acting and singing careers,
White made quite a name for himself
and developed into a total performer.
It was the marriage of his stage skills
and his singing-songwriting abilities
last summer, that enabled White to
write the play Josh as a tribute to his
father's life. It was a one man show in
which the younger White recounted the
highs and lows of the elder's life
through brilliant use of monologue and
song. Last summer the production went
out on the road and made a successful
tour throughout Michigan and the Mid-,
west; including a stop at the Ark.
Although he'll be leaving Josh
behind, look for White's three perfor-
mances at the Ark to be filled with good
feeling, love, and a variety for all folk
tastes; If for no other reason, come in
hopes that a little of his success might
rub off on you.
Friday's show starts at 8:00 pm with
tickets sold at the door. For Saturday's
shows at 7:30 and 9:30 pm, tickets are
being sold in advance as well as at the
door.
Heartwarming and sincere Josh White brings his music to the Ark tonight and
Saturday.
Everybody loves The Chieftans
a-
By Dennis Harvey
E very ethnic music form has its
peculiar charms, but if I were ever
attacked by a savage beast, I'd place
my bets for soothing it fastest on
traditional Irish. The Chieftans played
Hill Auditorium Wednesday night, and
anyone not beaming after the second or
third tune must have been there to
study the architecture, and deaf
besides.
Long acknowledged as the leading
players and popularizers of Irish trad
music in the world, The Chieftans have
achieved the kind of international
crossover success usually reserved for
just a few classical artists per
generation. They've done film scores
(The Grey Fox, Barry Lyndon); have
been the opening act for everyone from
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the Rolling Stones to Pope John Paul II;
have recorded with types like Mike Old-
field and Art Garfunkel; and have been
joined onstage by Eric Clapton, Van
Morrison, Jackson Browne, James
Galway, Dan Fogelburg, and probably
your mother, for all I know. They've
appeared on the Great Wall of China, in
the U.S. Capitol Building, and on Satur-
day Night Live. Jerry Garcia and Sting
might mutually implode on contact
but they've both gone on record as
being Chieftans fans.
Lest this should begin to sound like
the text for a photo spread in People, be
assured that the trials of having
everyone love them over roughly 21
years and 13 albums have left The
Chieftans seemingly unaffected, or at
worst a little bemused. The Hill show
was surprisingly intimate, and the at-
titude of the band dryly humorous.
Then, of course, there was all that
gorgeous music.
The nature of Celtic music invites vir-
tuostic playing, and there were almost
too many stunning solos during the
evening not to mention. My personal
fave was Sean Keane's incredible first-
set fiddle reel, which was so
remarkably fast and complex thatsit
seemed almost independent of the
towering, seemingly terminally shy
man behind the bow. (It's hard to
believe Keane and one or two of the
other six band members could really be
so audience-skittish at this point in
time, especially given the outright
clowning of Paddy Maloney anti Derek
Bell. On the other hand, the horrible
suffering Keane endured as the audien-
ce refused to stop applauding was a
show of humility too good to be faded.)
And that's no slight to Matt Malloy's
equally startling, fluid turn alone on the
Daily Photo by DARRIAN SMITh
The Chieftans brought their delightful Irish folk to Hill Auditorium Wed-
nesday night and left everyone satisfied with their concert.
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JUNE 24 THROUGH AUGUST 17
All students in good standing are invited to attend.
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flute, to Martin Fay's lyrical fiddle air
from the Grey Fox soundtrack, or to
Derek Bell's mournfully pretty harp
solo. All these instruments-and leader
Maloney's tin whistle and bagpipe-like
uilleann pipes, and most dramatically
bodhran player Kevin Conneff's
ravishing tenor voice-have the ten-
dency toward sinuous arpeggios and lit-
tle trills that send those shivers cour-
sing down the spine in both jaunty dan-
ce numbers and sweetly sentimental
laments.
A guest from the New York Chinese
Music Ensemble (whose name, with all
due apologies, I will not venture to
spell) played a 17-century Chinese
chordophone with a single string,
bowed like a small cello, on a few tunes:
Place an. ad in
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from the new Chieftans in China LP. To
say that The Chieftans made even
traditional Chinese compositions soun
a hell of a lot like more trotting through
the Celtic music backlog (indeed, the
foreign instrument in this context soun-
ded remarkably like a fiddle, with a few
moments of strikingly whiny differe-
ces) is less a statement of their limits
than a way of saying that they can
make the world's music their ow
Played with a 2,000-year-old Chines
gong, the swingin' Oriental classic
"Full of Joy" seemed like a standard
reel with an almost parodistic element
of eastern exoticism; but whatever the
cross-cultural sacrifice in purity of
form, the result was delightful.
More in character, but equally sur-
prising, was the guest appearance of
Michael Flatley, "world champion step
dancer," who had mouths general
agape with his occasionally visual ac-
companiment to the music. Step dan-
cing is the grandfather of tap, deman-
ding remarkable dexterity from the
waist down and' absolute rigidity
above; James Cagney in his few few
dancing roles might have given you a
hint at the fascinating control the form
involves. Flatley was a little, daunting
at first-the combinatin of his
marionette-like movements and a
rather unfortunate formal outfit made
him look like a bellhop with happ -
feet-but his amazingly springy jum
and algebraically complex footwork
soon became the audience favorite of
the evening. It often seemed as though
only a polite condescension to gravity
kept him earthbound at all.
If there's any limit to the number of
traditional Irish tunes to be tapped,
several pieces during the con-
cert-especially a suite composed by
the group for an upcoming Nation
Georgraphic documentary, The Ball
of the Irish Horse-indicated that The
Chieftans are well prepared to pick up
where their ancestors left off. The
Chieftans are an unending joy; the only
deflating thing about their Hill concert
was that, eventually, it did end.
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FRIDAY
MARCH 15th
11 a.m.-4:00 p.m.
$40 OFF 18K GOLD RINGS
$25 REBATE ON 10K & 14K GOLD RINGS
See a Josten's representative on Monday, March 11-
Friday, March 15 from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.