{"id":32092,"date":"2025-11-14T08:59:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T13:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=32092"},"modified":"2025-11-14T09:00:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T14:00:37","slug":"writer-interviewer-eamon-carr-created-pure-gold-from-many-conversations-done-over-the-years-with-creative-and-intriguing-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=32092","title":{"rendered":"Writer\/Interviewer Eamon Carr Created \u201cPure Gold\u201d From Many Conversations Done Over The Years With Creative and Intriguing People"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Review by Brad Balfour<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Title: Pure Gold: Memorable Conversations with Remarkable People
Author: Eamon Carr
Publisher: Merrion Press
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If there\u2019s one idea applicable to this book, it\u2019s that there\u2019s more than one act in life. \u201cPure Gold\u201d is perfect evidence of that notion. From being a noted musician with the fascinating Irish group Horslips, the writer, musician and art historian Eamon Carr became a widely published commentator on culture, arts and sports. When he was in Horslips, Carr co-wrote and recorded a series of innovative best-selling albums.\u00a0
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In addition, his published work includes \u201cThe Origami Crow,\u201d \u201cDeirdre Unforgiven,\u201d \u201cFoundation Song\u201d and \u201cShow business with Blood.\u201d His dramas include \u201cDUSK\u201d and \u201cC\u00faChulainn Awakes.\u201d
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But it\u2019s in his recent book, \u201cPure Gold,\u201d that Carr transforms a series of interviews into a kind of memoir of his experiences, written as much with his personal touch as they are written to detail the people he\u2019s spoken with.\u00a0
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Included in this book are interviews with many musical personalities who are no longer with us. These include classic pop\/jazz chanteuse Eartha Kitt, Irish pup rocker Shane MacGowan and punk entrepreneur\/performer Malcolm McLaren. In addition, there are interviews with several others in the arts who have passed on such as the Russian ballet master Rudolf Nureyev, the legendary author J.P. Donleavy and\u00a0 veteran writer Brian Behan.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given that many of the people he interviewed are so notable, it makes these interactions even more worth a read since many of his interviewees are no longer with us and won\u2019t have a chance to say anything more. But there are others interviewed here who are still among the living such as Irish actress Brenda Fricker and British artist Ralph Steadman. In any case, Carr does a great job of turning these profiles into real portraits of creative exchanges.
 
Born November 12th, 1948, Carr is from Kells, County Meath. He and Peter Fallon were among the founding members of a poetry and beat performance group called Tara Telephone in Dublin in the late \u201860s. He was both the drummer, and also published the quarterly literary journal, \u201cCapella.\u201d 
 
Carr, Barry Devlin and Charles O’Connor met when working at Arks Advertising Agency in Dublin. They were cajoled into pretending to be a band for a Harp Lager commercial but needed a keyboard player. Devlin said he knew a Jim Lockhart who would fit the bill. The four enjoyed the act so much that they decided to be proper rock performers. They joined with guitarist Declan Sinnott \u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u2013\u2013 Carr’s Tara Telephone colleague \u2013\u2013 (and briefly, Gene Mulvaney) to form Horslips (originally Horslypse) in 1970.
 
The band went professional on St Patrick’s Day, 1972, and released a single, “Johnny’s Wedding”, on their own label, \u201cOats.\u201d Sinnott left soon after, primarily due to his annoyance at the group\u2019s having appeared in an ad for Miranda orange drink (shot in the grounds of Ardmore Studios, Bray, in Easter \u201972). 
 
Horslips designed their own artwork, wrote sleeve-notes and researched the legends that they made into concept albums. Through their label, they licensed their recordings to Atco, RCA and DJM for release outside Ireland. Unlike other Irish bands, they kept a base in Ireland.
 
On their first album, melodies were mostly traditional. Keyboardist Lockhart gradually mastered other instruments including uilleann pipes. Drummer Carr was on the Irish bodhr\u00e1n. \u201cHappy To Meet, Sorry To Part\u201d was the fastest-selling album for eight years in Ireland. 
 
So Carr is no stranger to the creative process, nor to fame as well. When he went on to his next act as a master interviewer, he could authentically tap into what it is to be creative, diggings out from his participants what gave them the creative spark. And this book is the result of many years of talk and rumination.
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