Salut! Live

Excruciating memories of Jimmy Shand and Andy Stewart's kilted exploits, and subsequent encounters with English Morris, should have put me off folk dance for life.

But then I discovered Irish dance. Long before Riverdance turned a Eurovision Song Contest interlude act into a global stage phenomenon, I sat with my pint in a pub in the Somerset village of Cheddar and was mesmerised by the Doonan Family Band. Here was an ensemble of Geordie-Mackem-Irish pedigree that would evolve into the Mighty Doonans.

As well as playing riveting jigs and reels, rattling off powerful mining songs of the North East and making Irish ballads sound more like rock and soul hits seem Irish, they had their stunning added value. The Doonettes were a couple of young women who would appear on stage during the faster Irish instrumentals and, hands by their sides in their Irish dance costumes, perform their amazing footwork.

It was one of the best small-venue sets I had witnessed and led to a brief period of Irish dancing lessons for my two daughters, who may well look back on it as child abuse. All of which came to mind when I watched a wonderful YouTube clip posted at the Salut! Live Facebook group by my friend Bill Taylor.

Everything about the short film is to be enjoyed. The faces, purposeful but content, the technique and the accompanying music are pure magic.

David Hoffman included it as a young film maker in a 1965 documentary he eventually called Bluegrass Roots. He spent weeks recording the film with Bascom Lamar Lunsford, then 82 (Hoffman's age now) but still running the Asheville clog dancing festival in North Carolina, and his wife, Freda.

"In the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina clog dancing has been an important part of social gatherings, community events and local celebrations," Hoffman writes in his notes on the clip. "It was historically a way for communities to come together, share stories, and pass down traditions through generations."

He describes an "energetic and rhythmic dance style [blending] several European and African-American influences, including English, Scottish, Irish, and African dance forms."  It is worth looking up the YouTube file to read his explanation in full; the film itself amply justifies Hoffman's headline: "My God Aren't These 1960s Bluegrass Clog Dancers Magnificent To See?"

By way up update and in passing, I am pleased to be able to say I located David Hoffman and he has now seen this post.

If I came late to an appreciation of folk dance, I have done a little to make up for it. I did go to a performance of Riverdance at the Apollo in Hammersmith, west London. The first half was excellent but I felt the second flagged, with too many oddly misplaced diversions apparently intended to turn that interlude slot into a full theatrical experience. Much better, in a Belfast nightspot, Nick Watt, then The Times man in Ireland, now BBC Newsnight's political editor, watched with much pleasure as young clubbers took to the dance floor and provided stirring sideshow for the fine music of Ron Kavana's band with their exuberant combination of Irish steps and whatever modern dance happened to be in vogue. But one other memory competes with that of the Doonans at the Cheddar Folk Festival in the early 1980s. Back in London after seven years in Bristol, also in the 1980s, I headed to a park in Hounslow for a Saturday folk event. As the musicians fought to be heard above the roar of planes, one every 13 seconds, on their final descent into Heathrow, two sights stood out. One, unrelated to this article's subject matter was seeing the Wainwright family - Loudon, his then wife Kate McGarrigle and their kids Martha and Rufus, as formidable an array of actual and emerging talent as can be imagined - enjoying themselves in the sunshine. The other came during a typical display of virtuosity from the Chieftains. As a splendid finale, they were joined on stage by am Irish dancer, not just any Irish dancer but a fully uniformed, on-duty Metropolitan policewoman. In a few unexpected minutes, she stole the show.