Live at Lake Effect is our music series featuring local and nationally touring artists performing in the Lake Effect Surf Shop in Shorewood, Wisconsin.
We brought the Lake Effects together, along with Visionary Studios, to showcase musicians once a month through an interview with the band exclusively on Lake Effect, plus filmed performances.
This episode features the Celtic folk group Solas, who are celebrating their 30th anniversary after an eight-year hiatus. Their name comes from an Irish word meaning “light,” and are known not only for playing traditional Irish music, but Solas also performs original works influenced by country, rock and Americana genres in over a dozen albums so far. The group has had many iterations over the decades, but original members Séamus Egan (founder & multi-instrumentalist), Winifred Horan (fiddle) and John Williams (button accordion) still make up a majority of the band. Solas members today also include singer Moira Smiley and guitarist Alan Murray.
Solas, in every iteration, is composed of talented musicians that are extremely accomplished in their own instruments as soloists and instructors—making for intense, dynamic performances filled with respect for the traditions of Irish music. While each member had their own pathways into learning Irish music on their varying instruments, Egan says growing up within or near an Irish community listening to their musical heritage is often a shared experience.
“In my case, my parents just wanted their children to have some connection to where they came from,” explains Egan, who was born in Philadelphia but grew up in Ireland before returning to the U.S.
“Certainly there was no plan to [be a professional musician] or anything, it was just like, ‘Hey here’s a tin whistle go learn a couple of tunes.’ So I think we all have a version of that story.”
Moran grew up in an Irish-Catholic community in New York, and adds that growing up in an immigrant community in the United States is also a multicultural experience. "Growing up in those homes where our parents were actually missing home, making a new life here in the United States, wanting to have their children exposed to their culture — that goes for any immigrant community and it'd a beautiful thing actually. So that definitely was how I was raised, you know, to embrace my Irish heritage, but also embrace the other cultures and heritage around me," she explains.
Solas is one of few bands in any genre that has 30 years of playing and touring, and Smiley says that it has been a joyful experience to see and be a part of how Irish music traditions have changed over time.
The music unites us still and that's a really beautiful thing.Winifred Horan, Solas fiddler
"It, for me, is a beautiful way of seeing how traditions move people and give them a sense of belonging and identity, and how you’ll push and pull on that identity with your own creativity as a musician," she says. "[You] get influenced by all sorts of things and I've so enjoyed watching how Irish music kind of stands the test of those eras and keeps coming back for new listeners and players."
Solas has both embraced and pushed past the boundaries of traditional Irish music, but they haven't done it alone.
"For Solas, I think it's a true awareness of when something becomes monetized or has to have a certain polish to appear on the stage, I think we've actually rebelled to a certain degree at some of those notions," notes Horan. "We're not afraid to push the envelope a little bit while remaining respectful to what people like Tommy Makem, The Clancy Brothers, Patty Maloney of The Chieftains made possible for us to do. And at the same time ... whether it be through our live shows, all of us are teachers, workshops around the country, you know actively encouraging the younger generation to take a risk and pick up [an instrument]."
No matter how the group or Irish music changes, for Williams the central mission is to remind others that most Irish music happens outside of the stages and studios.
"We all learned from waitresses, janitors, steel workers, butchers — so for me it's the voice and the music of the common people that we bring on the stage," he says.
Horan notes that staying together as a band for as long as they have has not been without its challenges. “I’ll say that touring and traveling the world at the extent that solace did over the course of the life of the band was extremely taxing and life altering. But I think this is proof, this 30th anniversary celebration is proof that the music was the strongest, right? The music unites us still and that’s a really beautiful thing,” Horan says. “We worked hard and we would be playing anyway.”
Egan adds, “It’s nice that we we’ve had this sort of vehicle that allowed us to travel around the world and experience all these things, but if that hadn’t even happened we’d still be playing at home… It’s just part of life, really, so we got lucky that we have an opportunity to do it.”
SET LIST
- The Newry Highwayman (0:10)
- The Wind That Shakes the Barley (4:15)
- The Wiggly Jigs (8:02)
MUSICIANS
- Séamus Egan (Irish flute & whistle, banjo)
- Winifred Horan (fiddle)
- Moira Smiley (vocals)
- John Williams (button accordion)
- Alan Murray (guitar, backup vocals)
Live at Lake Effect Team:
- Executive Producers: Audrey Nowakowski & Trapper Schoepp
- Audio Engineering: Jason Rieve
- Location: Lake Effect Surf Shop in Milwaukee
- Production Company: Visionary Studios
- Camera Op: Brad Roehl & Jessica Wolff
