February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
For decades he’s enriched the New York Irish traditional music scene as few others have, and he’s delivered more moments of musical enjoyment than I could possibly list here. Now he needs our help, though he’d be the last one ever to request it.
“When I first called Jerry to ask if it was OK to hold a benefit for him, he basically didn’t want it, which is no surprise,” said his longtime friend Joanie Madden, the Cherish the Ladies leader. “Then I called him a second time and said, ‘Jerry, you know what? I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. We’re having a benefit for you.’ “
During the past months, Jerry O’Sullivan has undergone surgery and chemotherapy for cancer with, I’m happy to add, good medical results. Still, the disease has sapped his strength and forced the father of four to turn down work.
“Jerry has done so much for Irish music in America and is always the first to come to the aid of anyone who needs a hand,” Madden said. “He has a lot of friends, and every musician I asked to perform at the benefit said yes. Now I have to figure out how to get them all on stage in one night.”
Madden organized the musical lineup for the upcoming concert. Confirmed so far are the father-and-daughter duo of Mike and Mary Rafferty, Mary’s husband and Dan_ guitarist Donal Clancy, singer-songwriter Robbie O’Connell, button accordionists Patty Furlong, John Whelan, and James Keane, the Eileen Ivers Band (of which Jerry was once a member), fiddler Marie Reilly, singer, guitarist, and keyboardist Gabe Donahue, and Morning Star. The emcee will be singer Dermot Henry, and still more musicians are expected to join the ranks.
The concert, which will be held at Tara Circle, 1061 N. Broadway, Yonkers, kicks off at 6:30 p.m. with a children’s performance that will include some of Patty Furlong’s students in Pearl River, N.Y. Adults take the stage at 7 o’clock. The music will be played outdoors.
“So bring your blanket and your cooler and make a night of it,” Madden urged. “If it rains, we have rooms inside. Either way, rain or shine, the concert will go on.”
For details, call (914) 964-9060 or visit www.taracircle.org. Those who can’t make it can mail checks (payable to “Jerry O’Sullivan Benefit Fund”) to Jerry O’Sullivan Benefit Fund, c/o Dara M. Kane, 479 Park Ave., Yonkers, NY 10703-2121. Get-well cards and letters can be sent directly to Jerry O’Sullivan, 2 Park Avenue Terr., Yonkers, NY 10703-2121.
There will also be raffle tickets available, and several instruments have been donated by such craftsmen as John Sindt, the superb whistle maker in Nyack, N.Y.
Before cancer demanded his full attention, Jerry was finishing up the last details on a new solo album that he’ll be issuing on his own, “O’Sullivan Meets O’Farrell.” Once restored to health, Jerry hopes to have the CD out by midsummer.
IRISH CONNECTIONS FESTIVAL
After 13 tears at Stonehill College in Easton, Mass., the summer festival mounted by the Irish Cultural Centre of New England will stand its own ground this year. Literally.
Now called the Irish Connections Festival, a title echoing Celtic Connections in Glasgow, Scotland, it will be held June 11-13 on the 46-acre campus of the Irish Cultural Centre of New England in Canton, Mass. Festival artistic director Brian O’Donovan, the Cork-born host of WGBH-FM’s “Celtic Sojourn” in Boston, has assembled an attractive roster of diverse talent.
On Saturday, June 12, Irish traditional music lovers will have the chance to see 2004 National Heritage Fellowship winner Joe Derrane in action at noon with fiddler S