Padres' Flannery find
connections to past in music
(Associated Press)

During a San Diego Padres road trip last summer, third base coach Tim Flannery took his three children into the hills of
Kentucky to visit his father's childhood home and give them a tangible link to their past. He found a stash of coal behind the house and picked up a fist-sized piece to take back to California to his 74-year-old father, Ragon, who has Alzheimer's disease. When he slipped the rock into his father's hands, Flannery was the one who got the gift. "I told him where I brought it from, that it's from his house, and he holds onto this coal and he tells these unbelievable stories of growing up in the mountains of Kentucky," Flannery said.

Flannery, a part-time musician who had released two compact discs of mostly his own folk-rock material, was inspired to make a tape of three songs to help his father recall those memories. The venture grew into a CD reflecting his father's Southern gospel, bluegrass and Celtic roots with the help of surfing buddy Jackson Browne, Bruce Hornsby, Kieran Kane and Steve Poltz, who has co-written songs with Jewel.

The CD is called "Pieces of the Past". "He's kind of moved up from surfing second baseman to singing third base coach, and the product reflects that move," Browne said of Flannery, who played for the Padres in the 1980s. "To write a song as good as he wrote about his dad, that's kind of what everybody's in it for, "said Browne, who sings on the title track.

Producer Matt Manning, a prominent Irish singer-songwriter living in San Diego, sent a copy back home, where it's caught the ear of some well-known Celtic musicians and fans. "Irish music came across the water and became bluegrass. That's where my roots are. I think it's a real welcoming album for people that are hearing it: organic, unprocessed sound of the acoustic guitar and these acoustic instruments." said Flannery, who not that long ago was in a band that played Jimmy Buffett covers.

There are two songs with a slide electric guitar and few overdubs, the rest is acoustic fiddle, banjo, mandolin and dobro "to capture the feeling of playing on the mountain porch," Flannery said. Flannery wrote six of the 12 songs, including the title track. He covers two songs by Manning, including his 1996 Irish hit, "Waltzin' an Angel," and "Paradise," a song about Kentucky coal-mining country that critically-acclaimed lyricist John Prine wrote for his father.

Flannery weaves his family into the music as singers, storytellers and players. The intro to "Immigrant Eyes" is a recording of Flannery's great aunt, Mary Bell Gabbard Cornett, telling how her mother as a young girl prayed she would survive the weeks-long voyage across the ocean from Ireland to Ellis Island. A nearly 30-year-old reel-to-reel recording of Flannery's grandmother Audrey Flannery -- part Irish, part Cherokee Indian -- picking the banjo begins the song, "Kentucky Hills."

He completes the circle with the backing vocals of his children -- Danny, Virginia and Kelly -- on "Many Faces of Love," a song written about his wife, Donna, and her dedication to him and their family. "My reasons for recording these songs are to preserve and pass on the gifts that have been given to me," he said. "There is an old Celtic saying that says, 'What's handed down can't be given back.'"

Portions of "Coming Home" and "Immigrant Eyes" were recorded by Irish musicians in County Clare under the supervision of producer PJ Curtis, who said he cringed when Manning first told him he was working with a baseball coach. Hearing Flannery's music changed his mind. "When I got the tape, I was absolutely knocked out," Curtis said. "There's not a dud track on it. I passed it around to my many musical cohorts, and they all agree it's a very fine album and he's a very fine singer."  When Flannery heads to spring training later this month, Manning will go to Ireland to seek a distribution deal for the CD, which is on Flannery's Whale Bone Records label, and explore the possibility of a tour next winter."