SIT BACK AND REMINISCE AND LISTEN TO ;

KEVIN McDERMOTT

                              One of Irelands great  Storytellers             

Phil and Bridget with Noreen and Kevin McDermott the Storyteller

It has been my pleasure to have known Kevin and his lovely wife Noreen for many, many years. Kevin was drummer in our band the Untouchables in the 70s at a time when Irish / Country music was at its peak and the London music scene was alive and buzzing,most bands like ourselves would play at least four nights a week and very often the full seven nights.great times were had by all.Kevin at that time was living in London moving later to Welling in Kent.In the late 80s Kevin and Noreen made the decision to move back to Ireland , settling in Crossabeg,Wexford where they continue to live with their two sons James and Ronan who like kevin are very talented in their own right.Kevin as well as being a top flight Drummer is also an accomplished button Key accordionist and regularly performs around Wexford and farther afield.I remember Kevin well for his brilliant storytelling,and it is my pleasure to present some of these stories on my website .The one playing is called The OLD DANCE BAND taken from the CD Many Miles of Potholed Road. I hope you enjoy this story and i look forward to bringing you many more from Kevin over the coming months

Regards to all  Phil Mack

  RECEIVED FROM KEVIN

Hello Phil and hello everybody - Thanks a million Phil for including me on your excellent website, and especially for your lovely introduction. I have to say that some of the songs you sing on the site really bring back memories of the heady days of the Untouchables. Nostalgic memories indeed. Since returning to live in Ireland I have concentrated on writing stories, poetry and recitations, and have had a number of my articles published in various magazines and periodicals. I also wrote a book called 'The Time of the Corncrake (An Irishman's memories of his life in the 1940s and 1950s) Details of the book, including some extracts, can be seen at the following link :-

www.trafford.com/robots/03-2053.html

Apart from my own compositions I have also collected many of the older recitations from all over the world and thankfully I can recite many of them from memory. Over the past number of years I've actually won small awards for performing my recitations and in 2008 I won the Guinness Sponsored Comedy Award for performing one of the funnier ones in our yearly Pub Talent Competition. The Old Dance Band is one of my own compositions and is based on my memories of some of the first dance bands I played the drums with in the 1950s. Of course I still play my beloved Shand Marino 3 Row Accordion and my love of all things accordion has not waned. I am kept busy teaching both accordion and drums, and still play accordion with a singer in the local pubs. I also play accordion with our local Wexford Folk Orchestra. The Orchestra, which on a good day can field as many as twenty five musicians, consists mostly of older players who just love to play a few tunes. We play mostly for charity concerts and have recently released a CD of Traditional Music which was recorded live at one of those concerts. I am also the proud father of two very talented sons, one who has followed in my footsteps as a drummer, and one who is a very fine singer and actor with one of our local musical societies. He actually won the All Ireland Best Actor award in 2008 for his singing and acting in the previous years musical.

For info on any of the above my email is mcdermottkev@eircom.net