Kathy marks 35 years of music with triple CD release

As one of the leading ladies of Country many think that Kathy Durkin started during the same time as Philomena Begley, Margo or Susan McCann in carnivals and dance halls. But carnivals were long gone when Kathy had the best-selling Irish single of 1991 and ’92 with The Working Man.

She currently has a 45-track album just released titled 35 years in Music encompassing songs popular for her as a leading lady of Country and it’s available either as a three-CD box set or on USB.

It was shortly after she returned from not one, but two trips entertaining on cruise ships recently, that Kathy talked to us following her first ever live performance in Tuam at a Country concert in Tuam’s Ard Ri House Hotel.

She had the audience in the palm of her hand that night and apart from her excellent singing she got many kudos for the way she interacted with the crowd by coming down among them for some of her songs.

“I enjoy doing so and my own thoughts are that more singers should do that too. People like to be entertained and not just sit there looking up at somebody standing on the stage all the time.

“Audiences like to be talked to as well as hearing your songs and I think it’s good to get down among the crowd and have a bit of craic with them to help them enjoy it a bit more. Sure, if people like it then they might have me back and if not then they won’t,” she laughed.

“I never played in a hotel or hall in Tuam before or in marquees here either, because the carnivals were over by the time I started out. But of course, I played with my band in many dance halls around the country in the earlier years.

“Now, as I don’t have a band anymore, it's mostly solo spots that I do on concerts as well as music holidays in the sun plus entertaining on cruise ships,” she told The Tuam Herald.

“I'm only back from singing on the Mike Denver Cruise trip to the Mediterranean and before that I was on a cruise off the coast of the USA organised by Joanie Madden of Cherish the Ladies. Later this summer I am singing on sun holidays with Paul Claffey tours plus on Marty Morrissey’s Marty’s Party in the Sun as well as guesting on many concerts here at home,” added Kathy.

But even with all those shows she is still only on stage the equivalent of one day a week.

“I’m not killing myself anymore like I was in the past trying to make a living for myself as well as for a band. Now I have more time to be with family and friends plus more time for golf too,” says the singer, who also organises one of the biggest golf classics in Ireland in her native Cavan every August.

“I like to have more time with my grandchildren now as well as playing a bit of golf plus of course going to the Gaelic football matches,” says Kathy, who, as a teenager, won an All-Ireland Ladies medal playing for Cavan.

One of her sons, Alan, who is married in Co Monaghan, with three children, followed in the family footballing tradition while her other son Andreas has a music career working with Derek Warfield and the New Wolfe Tones for the past few years.

When The Working Man gave Kathy a Top 5 hit in Ireland and became her biggest selling single in 1991 and 1992, she says it was shortly after The Saw Doctors song I Usta Lover became the biggest selling Irish single of all times in 1990.

Her career song, The Working Man, is on her latest release and other tracks include The Clock On the Tower, Midnight to Moonlight and The Way Back Home.

She puts her own stamp on well-known songs such as Home Away from Home, Hard Times Come again no More, Flight of Earls, Mississippi, Dr Hook’s Ballad of Lucy Jordan and the anthem of her own Co Cavan, Come Back Paddy Reilly. But perhaps the most thought-provoking song is her sensitive rendition of I'll Never Fill My Father's Shoes, co-written by PJ Murrihy and Clifford Austin. It's a song that should have been a hit for someone but wasn't.

While Kathy can diversify with ease from Folk to Country she isn’t a fan of some of the new Country songs.

“To quote my late father: ‘if the milk delivery person or the person delivering the post can be heard singing a song while on their rounds then it’s a hit’. But I’m not sure if many of the new Country songs fit into that category,” concluded Kathy.