Published: Wednesday, 1st September, 2010 4:42pm

Still having a Grand Ole Time

Fiddler Charlie Arkins is in demand as one of Ireland's foremost country and western session musicians.
Pic by==: 97

Charlie Arkins is a full-time musician with a busy schedule and for the past 25 years has called Athboy home. Once the fiddle player in the Cotton Mill Boys, Arkins continue to work with some of the biggest names on the country and western scene. He recalls his career in the constantly changing world of music for JIMMY GEOGHEGAN

Nashville, Tennessee, the mecca for country music buffs and the kind of places Charlie Arkins loves to visit. After a lifetime spent in the business there is something about 'country and western' that continues to intrigue Arkins, yet he didn't get to see at first hand the famous city until recently. He had always wanted to visit and sample the place for himself. He wasn't disappointed.

The Athboy resident was shown around by none other than the great George Hamilton IV, one of country music's most famous sons. Hamilton and Arkins have been tight friends for some time now. While in Nashville they paid a visit to some of the local landmarks including the house where Tammy Wynette lived out her last days and, of course, the Grand Old Opry.

Hamilton has visited Ireland on a number of occasions and is familiar with Athboy where Arkins has lived for 25 years. He is just one of the many big names Arkins has come to know in four decades as a professional musician, specialising in the fiddle and harmonica.

During his time in the business, Arkins has rarely been short of work either as a band member or a session musician. It is a testament to his commitment to his craft.

It has also something to do with the fact that Arkins, friendly and genial as you'll get, is one of very few fiddle players in Ireland comfortable playing the country and western way.

He says there are no other harmonica players specialising in country currently on the recording circuit. Don Baker is more a blues man. It all means that Arkins is in demand - just the way he likes it. Forty years on the road and still no sign of him slowing down.

Last week, he was on his way to Longford to continue work on Declan Nerney's forthcoming album. He also regularly makes the trip up North to record gospel music that is then exported to the United States. Along with his son, David, he runs his own studio in Athboy and tours regularly with the Jimmy Buckley Band.

For many people, Arkins will be better known for his involvement with one of the iconic Irish country bands of the 1970 s and '80s - the Cotton Mill Boys.

Thirty-five years ago Arkins started touring in earnest with the Boys. They played an up-tempo, foot-tapping, straw-sucking type of country that helped them become one of the biggest name on the ballroom circuit; their live shows distinguished by fiddle solos performed by Arkins especially in songs such as 'The Orange Blossom Special', one of their hits.

Their repertoire was mainly made up of covers of well-aired American country and western numbers, enlivened by the band's own distinctive touch. It was a formula that worked for more than a decade.

They released a string of singles and albums; played in places such as the Wembley Arena and US military air bases in Germany. They traipsed up and down the highways and byways of Ireland, England and Scotland, through the 1970s and up until the mid 1980s. Then like a much-travelled car, they simply spluttered to a halt.

Arkins describes it more graphically: "The whole thing drained out."

By that stage Charlie Arkins and his wife Mary were about to have their fifth child. It just seemed the right time to call a halt. Soon after John Hogan called: "You'd be interested in joining a new band, Charlie?"

Arkins today owns the rights to the Cotton Mill Boys name. It doesn't mean he's worth a fortune yet he is surprised at times at just how many people still remember the band. Recently he got a call from an Irish TV station wanting to know if they could use footage of the 'Boys' for a documentary.

Remarkably for a man who is now one of Ireland's foremost C&W session musicians, Arkins wasn't formally educated in music, it's simply part of his DNA. From Castletown Finea, close to Castlepollard, Arkins grew up listening to his father, Willie, play traditional tunes on the fiddle. That experience, says Charlie, helped him to "kick-start" his own love of music and the fiddle.

"My mother's brother, John Masterson, played music, while my grandfather, Charlie Arkins, was a great fiddle player and was well known around the Meath, Westmeath, and Cavan areas," he recalls.

Young Charlie trained as a psychiatric nurse and worked in St Brendan's in Dublin yet he was inexorably drawn to the music scene. For fun he formed a band called the Arkansas Travellers in the late sixties.

He steadily drifted deeper and deeper into music scene fascinated by the combination of light, colour, style that went into a band's stage presentation.

"I went to see George Kaye and the Smokie Mountain Ramblers in the Town and Country once. It was some sight to see, the packed crowds, the boys coming on stage, blue background, lights beaming against the wall. The band came on in black, swallow-tailed suits, it looked so impressive. I thought, this is the biz."

Notice was taken of Arkins fiddle-playing talents around Dublin and beyond - he was asked to join a newly-formed band called the Virginians. "When I was a psychiatric nurse I was earning £12 a fortnight, which was grand at the time, then I was offered £25 a week to join the band."

In the mid 1970s, the Cotton Mill Boys came calling. By the time he joined they were already well-established with a couple of hits, holding onto their audience despite the advent of punk and the steady demise of the showband era.

They got a big break when they won the ITV show 'Opportunity Knocks', the forerunner of 'Britain's Got Talent' with the presenter Hughie Green something of an early Simon Cowell. A number of appearances on other TV events in Britain followed including a unique appearance on the Benny Hill Show. The big time beckoned.

Success achieved outside that country paved the way for the band to increase their profile back home. Payback came with a much sought after appearance on Ireland's most popular TV talk show.

"It put us on the top in Ireland and England, at that time Opportunity Knocks was like the Eurovision now, it put us at the top and we were packing places for a few years," he recalls. "We did loads of TV shows, Anglia, Scottish, big shows in Wembley. When you do something big outside Ireland you're recognised, we couldn't get on the 'Late Late Show' until we won Opportunity Knocks. Straight away we were on the Late Late and it was a big thing for us. I have footage of that still," he says.

Arkins has kept a scrapbook of cuttings from his days with the Cotton Mill Boys. He also has a huge collection of CDs and computer downloads from artists from America and beyond. He continues to add to his collection.

He may be 40 years in the business but there is no room to rest on the laurels. He is constantly listening out for new trends in the art of fiddle playing, little aspects of the trade that would improve his own performances.

It's one of the reasons he is still sought after for studio and live work many years after he first took up the fiddle and played little country gems such 'The Orange Blossom Special'.

Return to: Homepage | News Index | This article