He may be considered by many to be the one of the finest traditional fiddle players to have come out of this country, but when he speaks about his art, Clare native Martin Hayes doesn't exactly make it sound like rocket science.

"I'm just happy to play the tunes straight up; I don't really care about all the other stuff. I like just playing music, and getting to the meat of the tunes," he says speaking from his adopted home of West Hartford, Connecticut.

One of the finest traditional fiddle players in the country, Martin Hayes, who plays with Dennis Cahill at St Mary's Cathedral this Thursday, July 3.

The six-time All Ireland Fiddle Champion has spent the last three years in Connecticut, after spending most of his adult life in Chicago and Seattle. As Hayes explains, he isn't exactly a local celebrity:

"I live in relative obscurity, but to be honest, it would be the same if I was living in Limerick. People who are into this sort of thing know me, but I'm not exactly Michael Jackson! It means that I don't walk around with a swelled head, and it's good to be able to get on with the day-to-day things in life."

And while he readily admits that the days of "partying in Chicago" are behind him, life today is still a far cry from his youth growing up outside Feakle in East Clare. From an early age, Martin had a fiddle in hand, no doubt buoyed by his fiddling father PJ. On top of this, he became a keen musicologist of sorts, recording any fiddlers his father brought to the house.

"I still have all the tapes stacked here," he enthuses. "I've converted some of them to CD at this stage. My tape recorder came out anytime a musician came into our house. I suppose when you are younger, it is hard to imagine that the old fella down the road has a lot to offer, but they almost always do; it's just that sometimes they mightn't be able to get it across properly, but what you pick up from them is invaluable."

It is not just the tricks or tunes that he picked up in Clare that has made Hayes such an exemplary musician: his talent combined with ability to take a risk and be more audacious than some of his contemporaries put him firmly in the upper echelons of fiddle-playing. Nevertheless, his recorded output has been somewhat limited at times.

His latest album, 'Welcome Here Again', was recorded with longtime partner, Chicagoan guitar virtuoso Dennis Cahill. While the duo are in separate States now, they do manage to meet up on the road, and get work done "during those allocations", as Martin puts it.

As for whether or not this has an impact on how prolific they are in the studio, Hayes has another theory: "I read a quote recently from Duke Ellington. He said: "I don't need more time, I just need a deadline!" I think the same applies to me at times; I probably could have done five albums in the time between this and the last one!

"The record company were in the process of being bought out, and it went on for years and years, and I just kept on waiting to see what would happen. The main thing for us is the gigs, though," he expands. "We really do prefer playing live than working in the studio for sure; it (the studio) is a much colder place."