CAPE MAY — Does tequila really make her clothes fall off? Barry Tischler of the acclaimed Whiskey in the Jar duo believes so without a doubt.
On Saturday, Tischler, who will turn 81 in January, performed his farewell tour at the Mad Batter. Well, his last gig.
For more than 15 years, Tischler and sidekick Tom Naglee Jr. on fiddle have played every other Tuesday night at the restaurant on Jackson Street. When St. Patrick’s Day rolls around, they often are joined by Susan Tischler for an all-Irish program. Still, Tischler manages to sneak in some Johnny Cash.
“Barry may play the occasional open mic night, but he’s decided to stop playing gigs regularly,” Susan Tischler said Dec. 13.
Before gigs at the Mad Batter, Barry, also known as Big Bear, helped found one of the original open mic nights at the Pilot House on Decatur Street (now FiNS Bar & Grille).
“If you build it, they will come,” said Lori Erdley, a Cape May resident and frequent visitor of the Pilot House. “I was there in the beginning in 2010. There were like four people in attendance.”
Jimm Ross, current open mic host at the Mad Batter, said Tischler was performing for about five years before starting open mic at the Pilot House.
“In 2010, Deirdre, the owner of the Pilot House, allowed Barry to hold open mic events on Friday nights,” Ross said.
Peter Riley, a resident of the Green Mountain State, is a longtime open mic performer at the popular Mad Batter.
“After nearly 20 years of coming to Cape May for fall birding, I happened to catch an open mic at the Pilot House in 2012, and it was the first time I’d heard live music down there,” he said. “The following year I brought along my bass guitar for the first time.”
Mad Batter bartender Matt Reeves took a very short break to comment after listening to Tischler belt out a Frank Sinatra tune.
“Think about it, for 10 of the 15 years Barry played here every other Tuesday night, I was on duty behind the bar,” he said. “That would be 26 weeks for 10 years, three to four hours a night, that is a lot of time to spend together,” Reeves continued.
The Big Bear serenaded with “That’s Life” by Sinatra.
Around the bar, people spoke softly, and glasses clinked toasts. Toasts to Barry, Susan and the Kulkowitz family for conceiving the evening concept.
Brady Shoenrock from Harpoons on the Bay accompanied the trio with his Bodhran drum.
“I was honored to be a part of Barry Tischler’s farewell show this afternoon at The Mad Batter. A huge crowd. It has been a great ride with Whiskey in the Jar,” Shoenrock said.
After a couple of Sinatra and Johnny Cash songs, the ensemble returned to Irish classics.
“Her eyes shone like diamonds, you think she was queen of the land,” Barry belted out the lyrics to “The Black Velvet Band.”
At the start of the evening, Tischler described how the duo got started — a time when this writer walked into the pub while they were performing, repeatedly requesting “Whiskey in the Jar.”
“Every time John Cooke walked in, he requested ‘Whiskey in the Jar,’” Tischler said.
“Whiskey in the Jar” is a century-old Irish folk ballad about a highwayman. The song’s core story of a robber betrayed by his lover has numerous variations. Still, the earliest known versions come from Irish folk traditions, with some citing The Dubliners as key in bringing it to wider attention.
It became their theme song and ultimately how they referred to themselves. The ballad features a quick cadence with audience participation, clapping four times, then three, and once more.
Instead of taking the usual bar break, Tischler arranged for some local singer-songwriters to fill in after about an hour of performing. Two-thirds of the band The Squares — Debra Donahue and J.M. Kearns — took the stage and played a few originals. The duo also had their roots in Pilot House open mic days.
“He nearly single-handedly brought together this extraordinary community of musicians and appreciators, a community which has been thriving and growing ever since,” Donahue said of Tischler.
Long before the birth of the local open mic started, a hootenanny of sorts took place.
“A group of us felt the need for a musical outlet and gathered every other week at the Merion Inn on Decatur, now known as the Cricket Club,” Donahue said. “We needed a guitar player and enlisted Barry’s help, and what became known as the Hoot was born.”
Other fans of the Bear came out and performed, some of them having not been to the Mad Batter in years. C. Lynne Smith was invited to perform. Greg Carpenter and Laura Decosta did a set of songs.
Tischler and his quartet, including Susan Tischler, took to the stage one last time and performed timeless classics like “The Unicorn Song,” with the crowded bar performing all the animal symbols following Susan’s lead. After a brief toast to the 15 years of performing at the Mad Batter, the band broke into “Whiskey in the Jar” one final time.
“While the stage may no longer be calling, the vibrant Irish lullaby sounds from that all-too-familiar voice will never be too far away from that Pittsburgh boy and his bottle of Jamison,” said Rich McHale, a close friend of Tischler’s.
By JOHN COOKE/For the Star and Wave
