The area music community, particularly the Celtic component, is still reeling from the news that Johnny Cunningham, of New Bedford, one of the world's preeminent Scottish fiddlers and a prodigious record producer, died Sunday night in New York City of a heart attack. He was 46.
"The community is just in shock," says Bob Drouin, of Rhode Island Celtic group Pendragon. Cunningham produced Pendragon's Passage to New England album in 1993.
"He was a real Renaissance man in Celtic music," says Laura Travis, a local Celtic-music DJ and a former concert producer who first worked with Cunningham in 1982.
Cunningham was born in Scotland and first rose to prominence in Silly Wizard, the band that was the Scottish arm of a revival of traditional Celtic music in the 1970s and early '80s.
"Silly Wizard really brought Scottish music to the States," Travis says. "It was a critical period in the revival in Celtic music. They had tremendous energy; they played with a very rock 'n' roll sensibility: very hot arrangements, a lot of drive."
Cunningham's brother, Phil, an accordionist, was also in Silly Wizard. After they left the band, they played in duets, along with other projects, for much of the '80s and '90s.
"They had a tremendous quality when they played together," Travis says. "People all over the world have remarked on that -- the tremendous character and synchronicity . . . from just years and years and years of playing side by side."
"We started playing together as children, age 3 and 5," Phil Cunningham, who lives in Scotland, said on the phone from New York.
"His heart was as big as his technique," Phil Cunningham said of his brother. "When you were watching and playing with Johnny, he could move you with one flick of the bow. He had the full range of emotions at his hands."
A presence in New Bedford
Johnny Cunningham moved to the United States in 1981, first living in Pennsylvania, then Boston, and finally moving to New Bedford in 1995.
Cunningham was a frequent participant in the New Bedford Summerfest, leading the Celtic Extravaganza, the ending celebration of the festival. "Quite magical and quite amazing," said Helene Korolenko, co-artistic director of the New Bedford Summerfest and the production company Barrel of Music.
Friday night, Cunningham performed in New Bedford with Susan McKeown, promoting their album A Winter Talisman. "He made friends here," said Korolenko, who had known Cunningham for 20 years, "and they didn't know who he was, how big he was in his genre."
In New England, Cunningham kept traditional Scottish music alive with his brother, with the "Celtic supergroup" Relativity and the Celtic-New Age hybrid Nightnoise.
But he did much more than that.
"He wasn't afraid to experiment with things," Phil Cunningham says. "Which is one of the reasons I think he was such a good record producer. Because he had a great feeling for a lot of different stuff."
Making music in Boston
In 1986, Cunningham joined the Raindogs, a Boston-based rock group fronted by ex-Schemer Mark Cutler that released two albums.
The pairing of a Scottish fiddler with a rock band seemed strange at first, but Cutler says "he was one of the most rock 'n' roll people I've ever known. . . . He was the reason that the Raindogs were the Raindogs. Rolling Stone said our secret weapon was Johnny Cunningham, and they were right."
Shortly after the Raindogs broke up in 1991, Cunningham produced Pendragon's Passage to New England record.
"Even though he was an incredible traditional musician, he didn't mind pushing the envelope," Drouin says. "And technically, he was a genius. Sitting behind the board, he knew how to do things. And as a person, he could also get the best out of people.
"And he was a tremendous arranger. We did something called 'The Bonnie Irish Boy' [on Passage to New England] and we did a very bouncy, folky version of it. And when we went into the studio, it was heavy synthesizers, Mary Lee [Partington] singing it like a dirge, and it was incredible. ". . . He was a real wizard in the studio. After Johnny, we basically produced everything ourselves, based on what we learned from him."
One of the greats
Cunningham produced albums by singer-songwriter Bill Morrissey, Brooks Williams and dozens of others. He collaborated with the pop duo Hall and Oates, the Celtic group Solas and author Thomas Moore (Care of the Soul). He wrote the score for Peter and Wendy, an off-Broadway production by the New York theatrical troupe Mabou Mines, a show that won two Obie Awards.
Most recently, Cunningham was playing with McKeown, as well as the group A Celtic Fiddle Festival, with fellow fiddle stars Kevin Burke and Christian Le Maitre.
"He'll always be remembered as one of the great Scottish fiddle players," Travis says, "but I think we around here are really lucky to have known that range and the creative power that brought that music into other genres."
Cunningham's friends and collaborators all remember his wit, as well.
Drouin saw Cunningham perform Friday in New Bedford. "He was telling the audience that he was paranoid in reverse -- that he would be following people and he didn't know why. He used to complain about being a millionaire trapped in a fiddler's body."
"His personality was so large," Cutler remembers. "And it wasn't an ego thing; he was just a person who took over a room in spite of himself."
"He was an incredible, full-of-life person," Drouin says. "He was a real light. And no one can believe it's gone out."
A memorial service was held in New York yesterday; another is planned for Jan. 17 at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, Korolenko says.
