Forgotten Heroes: Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy with "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda"

Today's random song is by Liam Clancy & Tommy Makem, two legends of Irish music. Tommy Makem, who died in 2007, was a folk musician, artist, poet and storyteller known as the Bard of Armagh. Internationally acclaimed, he was a member of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. A baritone, he played a number of instruments including 5 string banjo, tin whistle, low whistle, guitar, bodhrán and bagpipes. Liam Clancy, who died in 2009, was the youngest member of The Clancy Brothers. He was known for his powerful voice. Bob Dylan considered Clancy the greatest ballad singer ever and he was a hero to the young Dylan as he was learning his craft. He was a central figure in the folk revival of Europe and North America. This song, The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, can be found on The Makem and Clancy Collection (1980). Written by Eric Bogle in 1971, the song evokes the horrors of war through a protagonist from Australia who fought in the Gallipoli Campaign in Turkey during World War I, losing both legs in the invasion, and the indifference to veterans who fought.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makem_and_Clancy; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Makem; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liam_Clancy