Paul KeenanThe woman behind Crystal Swing talks faith and family with Paul Keenan
From music to television to persistent newspaper reporters, it is a busy time for Mary Burke. The woman who is the power behind the music phenomenon that is Crystal Swing is barely finished with a video shoot for an upcoming television programme when she settles into an interview with The Irish Catholic newspaper. And she is by no means finished with the demands placed on her and those other members of the band, son and daughter Derek and Dervla.
“We’ll be busy right up to Christmas,” she says, but without any trace of weariness. This is, after all, what she has been preparing for since her earliest days in rural Co. Cork.
“I always wanted to be a singer,” she admits. “I have loved performing all my life.”
This, she explains, can be traced back to her mother’s love of music which gave Mary an ear for a tune while still very young. In this one immediately senses a generational flow in the same love of song now apparent in her children.
Parental influence is something Mary wholeheartedly acknowledges as central to her own upbringing and outlook.
“My parents were very good people and a great influence,” she recalls, conjuring up a home life where music was second only to faith.
“My father used to pray with us before we went to school. I was always involved with the local church.” The gentlest pressing on this draws the not unexpected admission that it included the church choir.
Legacy
Music was never far away, however, and is a topic Mary visits very early on in her pictorial family history Mary’s Crystal Dreams: “I have to thank mam for the legacy of music which I inherited from her. All of her family loved to sing and dance. Mam’s favourite songs were ‘St Theresa of the Roses’, ‘For the Good Times’ and ‘I Don’t Work for a Living’. My father’s favourite song was ‘The Bold Thady Quill’. Our family seized on any excuse for a sing-song.”
Carrying that legacy and the dream of performing on a professional basis into adulthood, it would be a case of family before fame for Mary, who eventually met Mike, “a man of great faith”.
From this time on, Mary says, singing went hand in hand with raising her children, who not only grew up listening to the music she loved, but frequently attended her performances. At this time Crystal Swing was already a recognised name, being the solo act that was Mary making her way on the male-dominated music scene.
“I loved what I was doing and I didn’t want it to end,” she says.
As for Derek and Dervla, watching – and no doubt learning fast – from the wings, Mary says “It was perhaps inevitable that they would get into the business,” and she recalls how the youngsters first joined her on stage before growing into slots that would see the expansion of Crystal Swing to the three-way band it is today.
“People liked the mix,” Mary recalls of audience reception to the family structure to things.
With the dream now broadened to include her children, fame came knocking for the family suddenly and unexpectedly.
It came as that required element for any musical tale – the big break.
“In 2007, we launched our first album, Sweet Dreams, to a packed audience at Kades Kounty, Glenville, Co. Cork,” she writes in Crystal Dreams. “The crowds on the night exceeded all our expectations with several people turned away from the door due to overcrowding.”
That response led the family to redouble its musical efforts and a second album, The Best Years of Our Lives, was unveiled in 2009. The following year, Crystal Swing uploaded their video ‘He Drinks Tequila’ to Youtube.
Prayers
Mary understates matters somewhat when she says that the video and song “got an extremely positive reaction”, as it was ‘Tequila’ which proved to be Crystal Swing’s breakthrough hit and the launch pad for massive television exposure in Ireland and beyond.
Looking back now, Mary cannot help but wonder at the timing of events, pointing to a visit to Mount Mellary Abbey just days before Crystal Swing became a household name.
“We had visited Mount Mellary and said some prayers,” she says, revealing that she included among them a prayer or two for what she calls “the tools” to help her children realise their own musical ambitions. By that time, a performance video of Crystal Swing was sitting unnoticed online. “I remember leaving Mount Mellary with a great sense of peace,” Mary says now, unable to explain it any more deeply than that.
Three days later, that forgotten online video was discovered by the media, setting in chain a viral response.
“The whole world opened up to us,” Mary says, “there were lots of television appearances after that, including appearances on American networks, a dizzying rise from relative obscurity. “Every tv programme, every radio programme, every newspaper, every magazine, every major festival, every show, every concert, every professional band in the country wanted us. Our website almost crashed with the rising stats and thousands of emails rolled in.”
Mary places everything firmly into context, however.
“After our prayers in Mellary Grotto…everything we could ever have dreamed or imagined happened to us. Literally overnight, Derek and Dervla were living their dream and my own childhood dreams were now a reality. From that day on, I placed my trust in God and surrendered all dealings with the band into his hands…God became my manager and he guided me in the right direction at all times.”
That was six years ago, plenty of time for the members of Crystal Swing to grow accustomed to their status. But more importantly, it was a sufficient period in which to bring a keen knowledge of the music industry, a place not always kind to musical hopefuls.
Mary acknowledges that there is a darker side to the industry while insisting that there have been “wonderful experiences” for Crystal Swing.
She says succinctly: “People who are smiling on stage may have terribly broken lives.
“Once fame hits, highs and lows follow and you become public property. Privacy becomes a coveted luxury…The allure of fame, meeting new people, preferential treatment and ‘membership in an exclusive club’ are a cocktail that can make or break you. It’s so easy for people to get drawn into the high-flying lifestyle and lose themselves to what is really a ‘fake’ world…Some will admit that fame has destroyed their families…Many celebrities have deep regrets about not being there to see their children grow up.”
For the Burke’s, however, Mary insists their strength has been in being together as family and, no less important, the faith they hold to, something all too rarely covered in interviews.
“Many are embarrassed to admit they have faith,” Mary explains, adding from personal experience that media outlets, while respectful on many levels, prove reluctant to visit questions of faith during interviews.
“I’d love if more people opened up to that,” she says, keenly aware of a hunger for something deeper among so many she has met over the years. “So many are searching for happiness, in a lot of cases in the wrong places.
“Without faith, I can see how people can be drawn into a ‘different life’. Without faith nothing is ‘wrong’. It’s faith that gives life a backbone.”
For herself, she says, “my faith has deepened as time has gone by. I read the Bible more than I used to.”
Medjugorje
That deepening of a faith laid down in childhood, and an ongoing devotion to Our Lady, has led Mary to discover and explore Medjugorje. She has been to the site four times now over the last two years.
“Medjugorje calls you back again,” she says of those repeat visits. “What I found there is a feeling of real safety, it’s tangible. You can feel the presence of Our Lady. It brought tears.”
Further still: “You come back wanting to be a better person.”
Mary is pleased to report that her faith has communicated to Derek and Dervla too. Both are regular Massgoers (Mary and Derek have already planned a visit to Fatima in 2017).
“We say a prayer together before going on stage,” Mary adds.
For herself, “on occasions, when I can’t find answers to problems, I surrender them to Jesus and he takes care of them for me. The more you put your trust in Jesus, the more graces and wonders you will see unfolding in your life.”
Now, at the end of another busy year in performance, Christmas – “a very special time” – will offer a welcome rest for the family.
The year also offered the sadness of a personal loss for Mary, when, in May her mother passed, a loss balanced out somewhat by the much anticipated arrival of Dervla’s first baby by New Year.
Baby will also bring another matter to the fore for Crystal Swing, however.
“We’ll take a break for a few months,” Mary says, promising a new tour in May or June to announce Crystal Swing’s ‘comeback’.
Family comes first, but one can sense no small measure of joy for Mary in Crystal Swing’s continuance.
“I’d miss the music,” she concedes. “It’s a gift we’ve been given. I love the music and always will. I hope I’ll never lose it.”