Folk artist Lee Murdock is probably best known for performing and writing songs about the Great Lakes — but he also has a huge repertoire and knowledge about Irish folk music.
Murdock, who sings, plays acoustic guitar and composes folk music, will perform at 7 p.m March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, at the Grayslake Heritage Center in a concert called “From the Auld (Old) Sod to the New Prairie: The Irish in America.”
Murdock will sing some old Irish pub songs along with more poignant tunes about the Irish immigrant experience. He also promises to do some of his Great Lakes songs, which actually led him to learn more about Irish folk music, he said.
His music, whether about the Great Lakes or Irish immigrants, speaks of sailors, fishermen, lighthouse keepers, shipwrecks, whales and even ghosts. Some tunes are renditions of old folk songs; others are original compositions. Over the years, he’s learned a lot about the history of the Great Lakes and Irish immigrants. Today he’s considered not only a musician, but also a storyteller and historian, as well as one of the premier Great Lakes balladeers.
“Quite a few years ago, I noticed as I was learning more songs about the Great Lakes that many were based on Irish folk melodies or from an Irish perspective,” Murdock said. “There were a lot of Irish immigrants. They came over as tradesmen and laborers and they built a lot of the infrastructure of this country.”
Some of them settled in Ohio around the Great Lakes, which reminded them of their homeland, he said.
The immigrants brought their folk music with them, and Murdock said. “A lot of the melodies we think of as American folk songs are actually derived from Ireland.”
Murdock developed a series of songs featuring Irish melodies to perform for an Illinois Humanities Council project years ago, which led to him adding Irish folk tunes and immigrant songs to his repertoire, he said.
One tune he’ll perform in Grayslake is “The Red Iron Ore,” also known as “EC Roberts,” the name of the vessel that’s mentioned in the song. “It’s based on an Irish folk song,” Murdock said. The chorus includes the words “derry down,” which is an Irish idiom, he said.
Murdock said he’ll also perform Irish songs many folks know, for example, “Danny Boy,” interspersed with some Irish immigrant songs and how they dealt with being away from home and starting a new life.
One song is about Irish immigrants building the Illinois and Michigan Canal. “The song gives you an insight into why politics are the way they are in Chicago now,” Murdock said.
Murdock’s music often embraces issues important to him. For example, a song he wrote called “What About the Water” in 2014 is based on a time in the 1960s when raw sewage was being dumped into Lake Erie. Likely that time in history “was the first step toward the Clean Water Act,” he said.
“There’s no place on earth like the Great Lakes, and we have a responsibility to protect it,” he said.
Murdock said, storytelling is at the heart of folk music, and people like to hear stories.
“Folk music is a way to sit back and reflect on the world around you without the spectacle that so much of our lives is infused with now,” Murdock said.
“People like spectacles, fireworks on Fourth of July, for example, but sometimes they like to sit back, put their feet up at a campfire, or even in front of a candle and just kind of relax. Folk music itself expresses home, a sense of timelessness, and a sense of place.”
Murdock is working on a new album to be released in 2020, which he said will include traditional and new pieces about the Great Lakes.
Lee Murdock: Songs of the Emerald Isle
When: 7 p.m. March 17
Where: Grayslake Heritage Center, 164 Hawley St., Grayslake
Tickets: $15-$18
Information: 847-602-8882; thelakecountyfolkclub.org
