By: Denise Foley

Andy Cooney

Singer Andy Cooney considers himself a lucky guy. “I’ve been able to make a living out of doing what I love,” he says.
 
But here are the other reasons Andy Cooney is fortunate: He has a beautiful voice (the kind of tenor that could give you the chills even if all he were doing was singing a page out of the phone book). And, as my grandmother used to say, he’s easy on the eyes too.

He laughs when I ask him how many millions he’s raised for charities around the country. The “fortunate” word comes up again. “I’ve really been fortunate that I’ve been able to make money for myself and help people too,” he says.

Cooney will be at it again on Saturday, May 19, at the Dennis Flyer Theater at the Camden County College, Blackwood, NJ. The beneficiary this time: the Diocese of Camden’s Youth and Young Adult Ministry. The money raised from Cooney’s Irish Concert of Stars will help defray costs to send teens and young adults from Camden’s inner city to Australia in 2008 for World Youth Day with Pope Benedict.

Cooney grew up in a large (he’s one of 9), close, musical family, though he hastens to point out that “we can’t all get up like the VonTrapp family--I’m really the only ham.” His grandfather, born in Dublin, was an Irish tenor whose musical heroes were Irish-American singer John McCormack and Josef Locke, an tenor from Derry (played by Ned Beatty in the film, “Hear My Song”). “My grandfather was pretty much my biggest influence growing up,” Cooney says. “He would sing all the old John McCormack songs, like ‘Mother Machree,’ ‘ Macushla,’ and ‘Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms.’ But he didn’t sing professionally. Mostly, he sang in church.”

By the time Cooney was 17, he was performing professionally, playing piano and singing at Kennedy’s, an Irish bar in Manhattan.  In 1986, at 19, he joined Irish bandleader, Paddy Noonan, on tour and stayed with him till 1994, when he packed away his Irish roots to work in Nashville as a writer in the Gatlin Brothers organization. “Though I sing a lot of old and traditional Irish songs now, I’m also a songwriter, so I include two or three of my own songs on my albums,” he says.

In 1997, after he and his wife Susanna started their family (they now have two children, Shannon and Ryan), Cooney decided to leave the financially precarious world of country songwriting behind and focus entirely on Irish music. While it was a choice that keeps him on the road six months of the year, it’s been steady, lucrative and allows him to take the family with him during the summer and on school holidays, whether he’s performing in Ireland (this year at Harvey’s Point in Donegal) or on his own Cruise of Irish Stars www.cruiseofirishstars.com (he and Ronan Tynan will be heading off on back-to-back Caribbean cruises this winter).

All that international criss-crossing--as well his own PBS special, An Evening of Irish Classics and his work with other favorites like Phil Coulter, Eileen Ivers, and Joannie Madden of Cherish the Ladies--has won him a huge following. He has a mailing list of more than 20,000 fans (known as the Cooney Tunes) who travel long distances to hear him sing “The Irish Wedding Song,” “My Kathleen,” “Galway Shawl,” and other ballads that take full advantage of his range and expression. He may be the only entertainer who is also skilled in musical crowd control. Last year, when a raging storm hit the Great American Irish Festival in Frankfort, NY, Cooney calmed the crowd by leading them in a rendition of “You Are My Sunshine” and other classics until the rain stopped and wind died down.

That isn’t to say he can’t also get people on their feet, clapping and stomping.

“Though we get a wide variety of people at our shows, mostly our crowd is a family audience. We’re not a Celtic rock festival band,” he says.  “But when we were at the Celtic Fest in upstate New York, they put us on at 8 to 10 pm, which would be Black 47 time. I’m like, are you kidding me? We play a lot of weddings, a lot of pop songs, but our band can rock too. We can keep the floor going and we did.”

And that part has nothing to do with luck.

You can see and hear Andy Cooney with special guests, Sligo guitarist and singer Dermot Henry, a fixture on the Irish dance band circuit, and dancers from the Coyle School of Irish Dance at 7 PM  on Saturday, May 19 in Blackwood, NJ. Tickets are $25, available at the door or by contacting the Camden Diocese Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry at (856) 583-2878 or emailing SMcGirl@camdendiocese.org or Klally@camdendiocese.org.