REYNOLDS RAP

Mickey and the house

There are similarities among professional  craftsmen – masters of their craft .  Easy grace and seemingly graceful ease.

Dennis McCarthy had been making/chasing music for  four decades with the dedication of any smitten swain.  His breadth of knowledge  about and love of sharing music’s joys in all its forms –  snarls and scats,  writhes and writings – its hugs and howls – its dance – was contagious.   It formed  community.

Dennis Mc Carthy and The Dennis McCarthy Band (  whatever keyboards   drummers, strings, guitars, or harmonizers de jour or nuit were part of it)  always transported and delivered  whatever it is good merry-making does.

Whatever canines, ladies, gentlemen, swooners and smoothers  were sharing a shake-down  at Stephanie Finizia’s  dream come true Best Bar Ever  Nick-A-Nee’s (in the Providence jewelry/knowledge/docs/arts/and sharks district) the vibe was always ageless and engaging.    Always  smiles and always finding  common funky beat.

There are people around Rhode Island ( and elsewhere) who talk about  listening and seeing Dennis McCarthy as a necessary therapeutic  exercise.  People who got and stayed married to his unashamed make your-heart-cry ballad-pledge-lament voice,  people who followed him for decades, and people, like me, who only met him  during the last couple of years and owe a whole lot of  late thanks to him for getting even old folk like me (a too sedentary crip)  up-stepping  and tappin’ in   mostly good time.

True masters share true traits; One of the nicer ones is generosity.   In fact, sharing the wa and way of whatever magic it is that  forms your game is  music in the ears, blood in the heart and air in the lungs for such artists.  It is a lifeforce that grows ever larger with practice and use. McCarthy leapt to encourage and include young musicians under his wide and warm wingspan

 

Dennis McCarthy was a   Master of  vibrancy and public Groove .  He bounced when he walked and he walked in a Samba  Gospel beat, singing songs that struck his fancy or  fanaticism – as in the zone, the drugged,  wired jumping – he can’t help it  zone – a valkyries’  sulky silken  siren.

He danced to his own beat. Always. He cried a little, crooned alot and dared ape the monkeys

About Miss Polly

a writer and painter in Rhodee Island with MS
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