Fundraising Melanie Beth Curran Fundraising Melanie Beth Curran

Kickstarter Launched: Unearthed Songs From Irish America

In September of 2024 Melanie Beth Curran launched a Kickstarter campaign to create an album of forgotten Irish American songs. Curran seeks to make an album fit for all immigrants. The songs speak to common struggles of all colonized and displaced people today. Amidst a rise in anti-migrant rhetoric in both America and Ireland, Curran’s project provides a bastion of clarity, connecting the broader Irish American immigrant experience to the shared struggles of today’s refugees.

In 2024, Curran unearthed a bevy of Irish American field recordings from The Library of Congress and other archives. These songs packed a punch. They illuminated how Irish Americans coped with loss, longing, and the process of finding home in a new world. Though rife with historic and cultural significance, the songs were gathering digital dust. She sought to change this. In August, she performed the songs at Jalopy Theatre and School of Folk Music in Brooklyn. She wrote and published a zine documenting the lyrics and stories behind the songs.

Here are a selection of the source materials Curran is working with and is inspired by:

Kathleen Mouverneen, Yankee Brown, Don't Judge a Man by The Clothes That He Wears - Beaver Island, Michigan (Library of Congress)

Interviews of Kevin Shannon - Butte, Montana (Library of Congress)

Bonny Irish Boy, Hills of Glenswilly, I am Thinking Ever Thinking - Ireland 

Jerry Go and Oil that Car - Canton, New York (Minnesota Folk Song Collection)

Goodbye Mike, Goodbye Pat (Leaving Tipperary); Barney McShane - America, Tin Pan Alley 

Songs from The New Song Book for Butte Mining Camp

Songs from present day New York City Irish, such as Chris Byrne's "Love in The Room”

Irish Americans on Beaver Island, Michigan during Alan Lomax’ field recording trip there in 1938.

“I am a devotee of Saint Brigid, who, in her beauty and grace, taught all people how to love and take care of the landless, of the people who have less, of the ones who come behind and need a hand up. She taught us to be great people of hospitality. I bring these songs into the 21st century so that others may find compassion in their hearts. The Irish American consciousness can be one of love and support across lines of race, creed, and politics. I am working for Saint Brigid and I will not stop singing until all people and all lands are free.” - Melanie Beth Curran

Curran’s Kickstarter campaign supports the realization of an album and a subsequent tour. Curran aims to connect through live performances in Irish American enclaves, in Ireland, and in spaces where the displaced are currently housed. Inspiration for this project comes from the late folklorist and musician Mick Moloney. His work bringing life to historic Irish American music is a blueprint for Curran’s efforts.

“Unearthed Songs of Irish America” is available to support on Kickstarter at this link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/glenswilly/unearthed-songs-from-irish-america. The Kickstarter is live from September 5 - 27, with an all-or-nothing fundraising goal of $17,500. Rewards for backers include private concerts, vinyl albums, digital downloads, t-shirts, stickers, hats and more. The anticipated release date for the album is Saint Brigid’s Feast Day, Feb 1, 2025

Read More
Fundraising Melanie Beth Curran Fundraising Melanie Beth Curran

Black Banjo Reclamation - Banjo Has Given Me Everything, What Can I Give Back? Spring Newsletter '22

Hi, I’m Melanie, and I’m a banjo player.

A white banjo player.

Banjo has given me hope, happiness and human connection. In my darkest times, it’s given me a way back to life and into community. It’s put food on my table. It’s made me a guest at places I arrive a stranger. It’s allowed me to communicate without using words. Banjo has given me everything and asked nothing in return.

But I do hear it asking. Deep down in my gut I know something's not right. My quietest part knows that in the history of this instrument there are horrors and gravest wrongdoings.

Many are surprised to learn that enslaved Black people brought the banjo to America. Banjo music is Black music. Human beings were sold and purchased and their music was appropriated. Black-face minstrel shows, theft, and forgetting rendered the Banjo not a Black instrument in cultural consciousness, but the symbol of white, poor, rural authenticity. This details of this history are beyond my scope of knowledge. Some links are below to more resources.

Banjo music didn’t just wind up at my door. Banjo wasn’t placed on my table by a disembodied gloved hand. My musical life has been made possible by Black artists.

I have never had to pay one penny to Black artists or to descendants of the Black banjoists whose music, techniques and instrumentation I replicate. I want to be part of the end of a cycle of stealing, of taking without recognizing, and of receiving without giving back. For this reason, I am donating half of my performance fees, tips, and record sales to The Black Banjo Reclamation Project.

The Black Banjo Reclamation Project is led by an Oakland-based Black-Banjoist named Hannah Mayree. The focus of their project is “to return instruments of African origin to the descendants of their original makers.” They lead banjo builds and workshops for people of African descent to reclaim this ancestral instrument in the present day. Participants of workshops build and receive banjos. This reception of traditional instrument and knowledge is a form of reparations.

I am trying to raise $2,000 by May to help fund BBRP's 2022 builds:

  • Sacramento Weekend Banjo Build April 30 - May 1

  • Port Townsend Banjo Crafter Fellowship, Last week of June

  • Chicago Banjo Build, mid-July through mid-August
     

This work is transformational at the root. It heals the past while generating future possibilities. It moves beyond the bounds of time and space. Banjoists are cosmonauts, or banjoists are gardeners- pulling out rotted roots and nourishing the strong ones. Encouraging new life. It is restoration.

Will you please help me raise $2000 for The Black Banjo Reclamation Project? No donation is too small.


WAYS TO DONATE:

Donations to Black Banjo Reclamation Project are tax deductible. I can get you a tax receipt if you need.

I am one in the larger BBRP support team. We are mostly white banjo players and builders. We are working to raise these funds all over the country and change the way we interact with this instrument.

I have faith this fundraising is an action which conforms to will of my spiritual guides and ancestors. Supporting BBRP is a way to live like the world is already a better world for all. Here too is an opportunity for you to support healing, and to direct funds and power back to the Black traditional music community.

Thank you for taking the time to read my newsletters. Also thanks to Bochay Drum for pointing me to this project. I am healthy and living well in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. I have taken a break from performing. Being involved with this project helps me connect to the true purpose of my work as a musician and writer. More will be revealed. Thanks for coming along with me.

Springtime love,

-Melanie Beth Curran


Recommended:

If you want do one-on-one anti-racism work with a counselor, please check out this project:
Holistic Resistance. Facilitator Chelsea Meney is amazing. They help facilitate the BBRP support team meetings.

If you'd like to play the banjo, check out Sule Greg Wilson's banjo instructional books. He is another facilitator at Black Banjo Reclamation Project.

Further reading/listening about Black Banjo History
Black Musicians' Quest to Return Banjo to Its African Roots
How Rhiannon Giddens Reconstructs Black Pain With The Banjo
Black History of The Banjo

Books:
Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics by Phil Jamison
White Tears by Hari Kunzru

Read More