Tuatha Dea’s music filled with chapters of their lives led

Raindrops fell gently on a band of hurricanes Tuesday afternoon.

No wind, but their instruments lay nearby, ready for action.

While Florida braces for Hurricane Irma, hurricanes Tuatha Dea look to storm Capone’s in Johnson City, Tennessee, on Friday, Sept. 8. Tagged with a freakish swirl of intense Celtic rock as informed by Appalachian roots and treated with freedom’s welcoming vibe, Tuatha Dea invade as friends on the prowl.

“We’re Celtic tribal Appalachian Gypsy rock,” said Danny Mullikin, the band’s founder and guitarist. “We didn’t start out with the intention of being a band. We started as a drum circle.”

Roots struck paydirt on the day Mullikin met Rebecca Holman nearly 10 years ago.

“I met Rebecca at the Highland Games on Grandfather Mountain,” Mullikin, 54, said. “I heard this voice, singing, in the woods. It was her.”

She and sister Kathy Holman provide crisp vocal harmonies as the primary singers in Tuatha Dea. As rain pitter-pattered nearby, the sisters demonstrated their gift undercover of Bluff City’s pavilion.

“Go to sleep you little baby, go to sleep you little baby,” they sang, “your mama’s gone away and your daddy’s gonna stay, didn’t leave nobody but the baby.”
Based in Gatlinburg, Tuatha Dea amounts to the band’s baby. Central to their core, they’re a family band. Mullikan and Rebecca Holman married in 2010. His daughter, Tesea Dawson, plays bass in the group.

“The music feels like home,” said Dawson, 36. “This is my father’s legacy. He writes the music. He writes the lyrics. I feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”

Lyrics of the band’s original songs bear the family imprint. Particularly within their latest album, “Kilts and Corsets,” their story unfurls from song to song.

“The song, ‘Kilts and Corsets,’ is mine and Rebecca’s story,” Mullikan said. “When I met her at the Highland Games, I was wearing a kilt and she was wearing a corset. The band evolved out of our life.”

Five albums comprise Tuatha Dea’s discography. Chapters of their lives led, places seen, adventures experienced — the collective serves as a bond. They’re glued like leaves that’ll never leave the branch. To audiences near and far they offer that mentality.

“Music unifies,” Mullikan said. “Music is universal.”

Radical in terms of foundation and focus, Tuatha Dea contrast far more than they compare to such Celtic-flavored brethren as Flogging Molly and The Chieftains.

“We love traditional stuff,” Mullikan said, “but that’s not how we roll.”

Brand Tuatha Dea as a revolutionary evolutionary band of misfits who fit.

“We did start out as a pub-ery type of band, but that changed when Rebecca and Kathy started singing,” Mullikan said. “I used to sing ‘Whiskey in the Jar,’ but they took it over. My voice was gone one night, so they sang it. I’ve never sung it since.”

Organic affixes well to Tuatha Dea. They’re willing to try new sounds. When it works, it stays — for a while. As a result, like clouds passing overhead, the band’s style alters.

“It’s the family aspect,” Dawson said. “I don’t know if I could play with anybody else. It’s so organic. It’s family. The music is our story.”

Yet like few bands can, Tuatha Dea transform oft-impersonal stages into a momentary family room. Come, their songs say, into our lives. Welcome, the band says, to our home.

“By the end of the show, we and the audience are totally engaged,” Mullikan said. “We get people from the audience on stage to play the drums. We go into the audience. Mission accomplished when we have that unity of the band and the audience.”

https://heraldcourier.com/lifestyles/tuatha-dea-s-music-filled-with-chapters-of-their-lives-led/article_220b48d0-9329-11e7-8e58-ef089df837f1.html

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