Terry Woods

[James McCloskey]

In Article 15045 of rec.music.folk, Craig Todd (ct...@desire.wright.edu)
asks:

|> Excuse my ignorance but can anyone enlighten me as to the history and/or
|> musical affiliations of Ron Kavana and Terry Woods?

Don't know a thing about Ron Kavana. As for Terry Woods, though:

He was an important figure in the traditional music scene in Ireland
in the late 60's and early 70's. He was one of the founder members of
the seminal group Sweeney's Men. This was the group that first brought
real sophistication to the playing of Irish music in contemporary
settings. At the time, it seemed like an incredible advance over the
simplicities of the Clancy Brothers and The Dubliners. The music still
sounds fresh and sophisticated (to my ears at least). There is, as far
as I know, just one record---on Transatlantic originally, first
released in 1969 or 1970 but re-released a number of times since then.
The line-up in that recording is just three---Terry Woods, Andy Irvine
and Johnny Moynihan. Earlier versions of the group also included Henry
McCullough (who later played with Joe Cocker and the Grease Band at
Woodstock and later still played with Paul McCartney and Wings). The
record is a lovely mix of things---some of Andy Irvine's early and
best songs (Willie of Winsbury for instance), some instrumentals (The
Exile's Jig), a great a capella version of the Dublin street-song
`Poor Oul Dicey Reilly' .... the instrumentation was guitars,
mandolins, harmonica, banjo, whistle, clearly prefiguring a lot of the
work of the great bands that came later (De Danaan, the Bothy Band and
so on). I have a half-memory that they had already broken up by the
time the record was released.

Terry Woods at the time had a great preoccupation with traditional
American music, and that element was his contribution to the mix of
styles and sources that appear on this record. There is a version of
Tom Dooley that he does on the record and a lovely thing that consists
of the words to Peggy Seeger's song "My Dearest Dear" set to a melody
that Woods composed. I have always preferred this to the `real'
version of the song.

After the dissolution of Sweeney's Men, Terry and his wife Gay Woods
were members of the first version of Steeleye Span, along with Tim
Hart, Maddy Prior and Ashley Hutchings (?). That version of Steeleye
recorded just one album (wasn't it called "Hark the Village Wake"?).
There followed some fairly bitter musical and personal differences and
that version of the band broke up. Tim Hart and Maddy Prior kept the
name and went on to make the series of recordings that are probably
well known to many readers of this group. Gay and Terry Woods formed
The Woods Band, which continued to explore the musical directions
defined in the first Steeleye recording (with drums, for instance,
unlike Tim Hart and Maddy Prior's conception of how things should go).
They released at least two recordings, I believe (this would be in the
early and mid 70's).

Gay and Terry then broke up and so did the band. Gay Woods in the
80's was the centerpiece of a punk band that played in Dublin clubs
and had considerable local success. Can't remember the name.

Terry retreated, very bitter and disillusioned, from playing music
completely. I think he moved back to Drogheda (where he's from) and
worked in a factory.

He was tempted out of this retirement/sulk to join the Pogues.

And the rest is ongoing history.

Jim McCloskey