An Obit to Love–Louisa Jo Killen (1934-2013), Irish Folk Musician, Lived till Age 76 as Louis Killen

Obit of UK folkie Louisa Jo Killen who until '10 lived as Louis, a man. See @TheHarryShearer role in A Mighty Wind? http://t.co/ArXALVmfyZ

— Philip Turner (@philipsturner) August 26, 2013

An obit to love-this of Louisa Jo Killen who lived til age 76 as Louis. Imp Irish folkie, member of the Clancy Bros. http://t.co/ArXALVmfyZ

— Philip Turner (@philipsturner) August 26, 2013

A truly fascinating NYTimes obituary announces the end of an amazing life–Louisa Jo Killen, tenor, member of the Clancy Brothers, song collector, performer on the important UK label, Topic Records, and charter member of the crew that took Pete Seeger’s Clearwater sloop on her maiden voyage, from Maine to Manhattan’s South Street Seaport. Known as Louis, Killen joined the Clancys after Tommy Makem left the quartet, appearing on the 1968 album “Songs of the Sea.” Times reporter Paul Vitello adds, “Folk archivists still consider the dozen recordings made by…Killen in the late 1950s and early ’60s for the British folk label Topic Records to be the definitive versions of traditional English songs like ‘The Shoals of Herring,’ ‘Black Leg Miners,’ ‘Pleasant and Delightful,’ ‘The Flying Cloud’ and ‘The Ship in Distress.’” At age 76, Killen took the step of becoming Louisa; Vitello reports other details of this change: “In 2010…Mr. Killen surprised his fans and many of his friends by resolving to give voice to another sort of lost life. He began living openly as a woman, performing in women’s clothing and a wig. In 2012, he underwent a sex-change operation.”

Here are some shots of Topic Records LPs I own, the sort to which Killen contributed.

As alluded to in my first tweet, this scenario from a real life folksinger put me in mind of the musician character Harry Shearer plays in A Mighty Wind, the 2003 faux folk scene documentary directed by Christopher Guest. Shearer’s character, Mark Shubb, is dressed like a woman and speaks of his gender switch in one of the movie’s final scenes. One wonders if art anticipated life in this case. The obit has a photo of Louis from sometime in the 1960s or ’70s (courtesy of Brian Sheul/Redferns, via Getty Images) and of Louisa from 2010 (courtesy of Debra Cowan), both posted below.