THIS is a story that actually begins with Junji Shirota coming to San Francisco . He had lived in Japan all of his life and as a young man became interested in Bluegrass music (see Junji's bio). Junji had a very succesful career as a musician for about twenty years in Japan's most famous Bluegrass band, "The Natashar Seven," and when his group disbanded he packed up his family and moved to the USA to further his career.
One day he happened across the "Plough & Stars" Irish pub and heard some very interesting music lilting out the front door. He looked inside and saw about twenty musicians playing away on fiddles, flutes, concertinas, bouzoukis, guitars, whistles, bodhrans and other assorted implements of Irish music making. He fell in love with the melodies he was hearing and wanted to make them his own. |
As you might imagine Junji became a regular at the pub showing up to see whoever came to play, and joining in with the "seisiún" on banjo and guitar. One night in the early 90s he saw Dale Russ play and had recognized him from a instructional video called "How To Play The Irish Fiddle." He was so impressed with Dales fiddle playing that he declared "Some day I will take Dale Russ to Japan."
One of the friends Junji had made at the "Plough" was Jack Gilder. Jack had been very impressed with Junji's rapid improvement and musical sensitivities so he invited Junji to play in his Tradition Irish music group, "Tipsy House." One day Junji approched Jack about going to Japan with him and Jack's reaction was something like, "...(gasp) WOW!!." Then Junji announced that he wanted Dale Russ to go with them and Jack was in disbelief. Jack had known |
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Dale since 1982 when they met at the "Lark In The Morning" music camp. He had allways admired Dales fiddling and couldn't believe that he would actually be touring Japan with him.
The next order of buisness was to make a CD to take with them. Junji had alot of experience with "The Natashar Seven", having recorded over thirty recordings on the Toshiba, EMI lable and had no problem with the idea of producing a CD with Dale and Jack. AFTER making the CD they had to come up with a name (for the CD) and struggled for some time with it. The problem was that the name had to say something about the fact that the band was made up of two Yanks and a Japanese National playing Traditional Irish Music (how odd), and it had to be something that Japanese people could pronounce. Failing to come up with anything |
decent, they decided to look at the tune list. Jack noticed one of the tunes was called "Jody's Heaven" and said to Dale "Where did this tune come from? I don't remember this one." And Dale replied, "Oh...that's what it sounded like when Junji said "Jolly Seven" (the name of the tune). Jack quickly pointed out that this might be the perfect name for the CD, and besides... Japanese people will have no problem pronouncing it.
The rest is history so to speak, and it doesn't look like they're going to quit any time soon. (Besides... Jack & Dale really love sushi). So the lads decided to keep playing together and they would name the band after the title of the first CD They're looking forward to playing wherever they can find people who love Traditional Irish Music and are willing to listen to them. Maybe somewhere near you...you never know. |
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