INTERVIEW Sarah and Hubie MacEvilly of The Rocky Top String Band

SINGING SIBLINGS?Hubie and Sarah MacEvilly of The Rocky Top String Band.?Pic: Conor McKeown

Strings, ties and harmonies


Ciara Moynihan chats to sibling members of The Rocky Top String Band ahead of the launch of their debut album ‘Tall Pines’

While all five members of The Rocky Top String Band were drawn together by a deep love of bluegrass music, two were always destined to inhabit in one another’s orbit. Hubie and Sarah MacEvilly from Killawalla are not only the vocal backbone of the band, they are brother and sister. Hubie also plays the guitar, while Sarah plays the autoharp – that singular-looking instrument often seen on the knee of June Carter.
Completing the Rocky Top String Band’s sound are Tommy Lyons of Prizon, Balla (five-string banjo, mandolin and harmony); Rob Thornburgh of Carracanada, Swinford (fiddle); and John Flatley from the Partry Mountains (double bass, vocals, harmony).
The band first came together in their current form in 2006, Hubie explained. “Sarah used to join us for the odd gig. She’s great for harmonies, and for picking old songs and making her own style of them. She started joining in with the band in the run up to the first Westport Folk and Bluegrass Festival.
“For that first festival she was with us; it was out in The Sheebeen [Rosbeg, Westport] at the time. So that was the birth of it, if you like.
“The material, the songs are really from myself and Sarah. Sarah really has to be credited with keeping the band rejuvenated, coming up with new material and the harmonies.”
The band has just put together a CD, ‘Tall Pines’, a collection of traditional bluegrass standards, and they are looking forward to launching it in The Clew Bay Hotel, Westport, this Saturday night, June 1. The album’s eleven tracks were recorded at Sarah’s home – or, as it says on the CD sleeve, ‘Sarah’s timber house, beside the old home place, Killawalla’ – about a year ago.
“John [Flatley] has a mobile recording unit, so we recorded out in the house,” Sarah revealed. Flatley is a sound engineer by trade – a handy man to have in your band, it turns out. “He set up the system in the house. It was all very casual … we just went for it. We had a set list of what we wanted to put down, and that’s what we did,” Hubie says, with no small measure of pride.
That same tone of pride colours the conversation as it turns to Killawalla, and what it was like growing up in the west Mayo townland. “Everyone probably thinks that their own childhood was the best, but I think ours really was,” Hubie says, smiling.
45 years ago, back in 1968, Sarah and Hubie’s parents Pakie and Kathleen MacEvilly, opened MacEvilly’s pub and shop in Killawalla, and the business continues to thrive. “You’d have all these fellas coming into the pub, and you’d go out in the evening and do a shift for a couple of hours, you know. So you were constantly meeting people, which is great, bouncing ideas off everyone and hearing stories.”
So does music run in the family, so? “When it came to the music, well, our dad doesn’t have a note in his head,” Hubie laughs, “but his mother was very musical – our granny, Lil – she played the accordion. And our uncles, Walter and Gerry – they were always big into the trad, so fiddles, tin whistles, accordions all of that.”
As for the other band members, they have always been into bluegrass and Americana. “Tommy has been having well-known bluegrass sessions in Balla for many years,” says Sarah. “He’s a legend, and a lovely man,” Hubie adds, “He’s like a father figure to us.” Nodding, Sarah chimes in, “Every festival should have a Tommy Lyons.”
“With Rob we’re very fortunate, he’s a great fiddle player,” grins Hubie. “His day job is actually tuning pianos. He went to school in North Carolina when he was a young fella. The region forms part of the Appalachian states [which are strongly linked to the bluegrass tradition], so he’d have picked up a lot of those old fiddle tunes. So, he has the music ingrained in him.”
The mere mention of the John’s name brings out more smiles, with Sarah declaring him a firm favourite with audiences. “People love him! He plays bass and he sings bass real, real, low… I think sometimes people think he’s American – which he often plays to, finishing up with [laughing, and breaking into pretty good Elvis impersonation] ‘Thank you very much’!”
Sarah and Hubie are a busy pair; that they find time to create and perform music is a testament to how much they enjoy it. Sarah teaches English and Irish in Sancta Maria College, Louisburgh, where she is currently helping her students prepare for their end-of-year exams.
Hubie has worked in Westport-based pharmaceutical company, Allergan, for near-on 20 years. His hands (and doubtless his arms and knees) are also full at home: He has eight children ranging in age from 13 right down to one-and-a-half years. As a dad, he’s delighted to see members of his young family already gravitating towards music, thanks to guitar lessons from Gert Naugesser of Westport Sound House and fiddle lessons courtesy of Pat Early at Gaelscoil na Cruaiche, Westport.
Seems like the Rocky Top String Band might wind up welcoming a few more MacEvillys into the fold in the years to come.

‘Tall Pines’, The Rocky Top String Band’s debut album, will be launched this Saturday night, June 1, in The Clew Bay Hotel, Westport. Copies of the album will be available on the night and from colonelwood@eircom.net. They can also be found in Castlebar and Westport record stores.
The Rocky Top String Band will also be performing in this year’s Westport Folk and Bluegrass Festival, June 14-16. More details on www.westportfolkandbluegrass.com.