The Clara men remain modest after 60 years of music

Laura Ryder Music maestros Paddy and Jimmy Rabbitte are taking things easy these days. After combining music gigs with day jobs since 1948, the two octogenarians have handed the reins on to the younger generation. ?We still play, but just for charity,? Paddy Rabbitte, the older of the two at 82, explains. Born two miles outside Clara on the Horseleap road, the Rabbitte brothers have both spent their lives in Clara. The eldest boy in the family, Paddy went on to farm after school. Jimmy started off his working life as a barman in McGlynn?s in Clara and has ended it in Rabbitte?s Hardware in Clara, though he says he still helps out when he?s needed in the family business. Though Jimmy and Paddy are, in a way, fathers of music in Clara, the brothers say they don?t come from a particularly musical family. The Rabbitte parents were not especially musical according to the brothers, though they say they did have an uncle, also called Paddy, who was ?a genius? on the fiddle. Their mother, the two say, liked singing but not playing, and their father never played a musical instrument in his lifetime, though he was good with his hands and did craft a fiddle for his genius fiddle playing brother. Both Paddy and Jimmy Rabbitte started playing music early in life, teaching themselves first how to play piano accordion, and then moving on to the saxophone, clarinet, guitar and more. Their gigging life started in 1948, when the two boys were at the start of their twenties. ?The Silver Star?, consisting of Jimmy and Paddy Rabbitte, their sister Mary, Paddy Fahy, Cyril Cooper, Frank Scanlon and Frank Newman, burst onto the music scene in Clara?s Rosemount Hall on Easter Sunday night ? 60 years ago next month. ?We played for nothing that night?, Paddy explains. ?Fr Dunne ? Dr Dunne he was called ? said: ?Ye play for me the first night for nothing and I?ll give ye the hall to run a dance the next time?.? It worked out well for them Paddy says, with a packed hall greeting them for their first time on the stage. ?We were the first band around to have amplification,? he says, explaining that they had a 40 watt system when all the professional bands had just slightly stronger 70 watt systems. Of course there were drawbacks to having advanced technology. As a lot of the halls the boys played in didn?t have electricity they had to charge the equipment up with a car battery and hope it lasted the night. Fortunately, Paddy says, it never let them down. That was the start of a musical career spanning 60 years and counting for the two Rabbitte brothers. At the beginning there was a lot of competition in the town from other bands, but they managed to carve out a name for themselves in both Offaly and further afield. ?It wasn?t great money,? the brothers lament. ?When we started we played for a pound a head and when it picked up we got two pound, but we never went professional.? For Paddy in particular, going professional was never an option. The farm always had to be tended, and no matter where the band was playing he had to be home before morning. This stopped them playing gigs anywhere other than Ireland, but they have travelled the length and breadth of Ireland in their busy gigging days they say. ?We were never home on a Sunday from the time we started and we travelled over the 32 counties,? Jimmy says. ?We travelled miles,? Paddy adds. ?We?ve done the whole country, but we?d never stay. I?d have to be home anyhow.? In all their years, Jimmy says his favourite memory is playing the opening night of a new hall in Waterford, bigger at the time than the dancehall in Rooskey, and in particular ?Clarinet Cadenza?, a chart hit at the time for Sid Phillips, being requested. ?I said sure I?ll try it,? Jimmy says. ?It was a beautiful piece of music.? Paddy for his part says he can?t pick out a favourite memory of his time on stage, but says he has no regrets and enjoyed it all. After beginning as ?The Silver Star?, the band changed into ?The Jimmy Rabbitte Band? after a change in personnel, and later had another name change when Jimmy stopped gigging in 1960 after getting married to Mary, whom he met in a grocery shop in Clara. Paddy and Jimmy say playing in a band was, surprisingly, not a good way to meet the ladies. ?You wouldn?t even have time to look down,? Paddy insists. ?At that time we were playing orchestrations and you?d have to keep your eye on the music.? Paddy kept playing after Jimmy left the band, and met his wife Anne at a carnival in Kilbeggan after few years later. Anne came to be a member of the ?If you can?t beat them, join them? school, and in time started to play with the band after Paddy taught her how to play guitar. Jimmy came back into the fold in the early 80s, to a jazz band called ?The Gollywogs?. The Rabbitte brothers don?t have such a busy gigging schedule now. In fact their last gig was September 2007, when they recorded four songs for charity. The music has flown on to the next generation however, with most of Paddy?s ten children and Jimmy?s six playing or singing. Jimmy?s son Nigel is in the band ?Loaded?, while two of Paddy?s sons play in ?Mercury?. Paddy, who is slightly deaf, says he still plays music every evening. ?I couldn?t sit down and look at television at night. I go down to my band room and stay two hours playing,? he says. It?s just playing he does now. He used to have a good voice, he says, but now goes hoarse after one song. ?I?ve never smoked, but I still have a bad chest,? he says. He maintains this is a result of passive smoking in pubs when gigging, and says he was very happy when the smoking ban came in. It?s neither the deafness nor the loss of his voice that is the biggest obstacle for him these days however. ?The hardest bit is getting on the stage now - I?ve a bad knee!? he jokes. This also hampers him as a dancer, something he fancies himself as. The family even have a horse with a registered name of ?Pat the Dancer? in honour of Paddy?s nimble feet. Now it?s more listening than playing, but both Jimmy and Paddy say they?re not very impressed with pop music today and prefer to listen to the golden oldies. Wily with over 160 years of life experience between Jimmy and Paddy, Jimmy knows exactly what to say when asked if there is anything else in particular he?d like included in this piece. ?I have the biggest furniture store in the Midlands!? he says, handing out cups of coffee and biscuits while describing his furniture and hardware business. And with that bit of advertising cunningly squeezed in, Jimmy and Paddy happily sit back to listen to the music they?ve grown up on and never grown out of.