Barney McKenna - Artistic Performance

Artistic Performance

Barney used GDAE tuning on a 19 fret tenor banjo, an octave below fiddle/mandolin and, according to musician Mick Moloney, was single-handedly responsible for making the GDAE tuned tenor banjo the standard banjo in Irish music.

Barney remained a great favourite with live audiences, and some of the loudest and most affectionate applause followed the tunes and songs on which he was the featured performer. He was well known for his unaccompanied renditions of songs such as 'South Australia' and 'I Wish I Had Someone to Love Me'. His banjo solos on tunes such as 'The Maid Behind the Bar', 'The High Reel' and 'The Mason's Apron', where he was usually accompanied by Eamonn Campbell on guitar, are often performed to cries of "C'mon Barney!" from audience or band members. Another featured spot in Dubliners performances is the mandolin duet that Barney played with John Sheahan - again with Eamonn Campbell providing guitar accompaniment. As Barney often pointed out to the audience: "It's an Irish duet, so there's three of us going to play it".

Barney's tendency to relate funny, and often only marginally believable, stories was legendary amongst Dubliners fans and friends. These anecdotes became known as Barneyisms, and Barney's friend, and former Dubliners bandmate, Jim McCann has been collecting them for a book.