Seamus Egan
Seamus
Egan attained his greatest success with his soundtrack for Edward Burns'
1995 film The Brothers McMullen; it spent four months on the world music charts
and included the Top Ten hit "I Will Remember You," recorded by Sarah
McLachlan. Egan,
however, has been an important presence on the Irish music scene for far longer.
A four-time winner of the All-Ireland award (on an unprecedented four different
instruments), Egan
has been a member of a trio also featuring Mick
Moloney and Eugene
O'Donnell, as well as an all-star congregate of Irish musicians and singers
(Green Grass of America), an Irish trad-folk band (Solas), and a soloist. In
addition, Egan has recorded Irish music with Eileen
Ivers, John Doyles and African percussionist Kimati
Dinizulu, and even hip-hop with Vernon
Reid of Living
Colour.
Egan's
earliest exposure to traditional Irish music came when he moved, at the age of
three, with his parents and five siblings to Ireland. Settling into the small
village of Mayo in county Foxford, he studied under button accordionist Martin
Donaghue around the age of six or seven. His musical interests were expanded
after watching a television show featuring flautists Matt
Molloy and James
Galway and listening to a radio program spotlighting banjo player Matt
Moloney. Within a short time, Egan was playing well enough to enter and win the
All-Ireland competition in flute and whistle.
Shortly after returning to
the United States with his family, and moving to Philadelphia in 1980, Egan met
Moloney, who had emigrated to the Pennsylvania city. Egan quickly fell under
Moloney's wing and began taking informal banjo lessons. Two years later, Egan
returned to Ireland and won All-Ireland awards in banjo and mandolin.
In his mid-teens, Egan left
the competitive world and began to play professionally with his sisters, Siobhan
and Rory. Before long, he accepted an invitation to join a trio with Moloney and
O'Donnell. The trio recorded an album, Three Way Street, in 1993.
After recording his debut
solo album, Traditional Music of Ireland, Egan joined Green
Fields of America, a large group of America-based Irish musicians led by
Moloney and featuring such stellar musicians as Robbie
O'Connell, Liz
Carroll, Eileen Ivers, Jerry
O'Sullivan and Jimmy
Keane. The group recorded an album, Live in America, in 1989.
Although Egan temporarily
lived in Boston to attend Boston College, his home has remained in New York. In
the early 1990s, he formed a New York-based band, the Chanting
House, with Ivers, Doyles and Susan
McKeown. Egan continued to focus on his solo career as well, releasing his
second solo album, A Week in January, in 1990.
Although the Chanting
House disbanded before recording an album, Egan joined with Ivers and Doyle
and Kimati
Dinizulu to record a track, "Ships Are Sailing," on Ivers' solo
album Wild Blue. He continued work to periodically with Moloney and O'Donnell as
well, reuniting to perform at Bonnie
Raitt's wedding.
Egan's involvement with the
film The Brothers McMullen was sparked when producer Edward Burns heard him performing
during a tour dubbed "The Young Turks of the Banjo."
Although initially a low-budget project, the film was accepted into the Sundance
Film Festival, where it received a Grand Jury prize. After being picked up for
distribution by 20th Century Fox, the soundtrack was recorded and the film's
quality enhanced. Egan's music was subsequently featured in the PBS documentary
Out of Ireland.
When Juniper Sleeps, Egan's
third solo album, was released in 1996 and marked his debut as a nylon-string
guitarist. His subsequent project was a traditional band, Solas,
that also featured fiddler Winifred
Horan, accordionist John Williams, guitarist John
Doyle and lead vocalist Karen
Casey. Solas
recorded the albums Solas in 1996 and Sunny Spells & Scattered Showers in
1997. Craig Harris, All-Music Guide
Enya
aka. Eithne
Ni Bhraonain
With her blend of folk
melodies, synthesized backdrops and classical motifs, Enya
created a distinctive style of music that was more closely resembled with new
age music than the folk and Celtic music that provided her with her initial
influences. Enya is from Gweedore, County Donegal, Ireland, which she left in
1980 to join the Irish band Clannad,
the group that already featured her older brothers and sisters. She stayed with Clannad
for two years, then left, hooking up with producer Nicky
Ryan and lyricist Roma
Ryan, with whom she recorded film and television scores. The result was a
successful album of TV music for the BBC. Enya then recorded Watermark
(1988), which featured her distinctive, flowing music and multi-overdubbed
trancelike singing; the album sold four million copies worldwide. Watermark
established Enya as an international star and launched a successful career that
lasted well into the '90s.
Enya (born Eithne Ni
Bhraonain) was born into a musical family. Her father, Leo Brennan, was the
leader of the Slieve Foy Band, a popular Irish show band; her mother was an
amateur musician. Most importantly to Enya's
career, was her siblings, who formed Clannad in 1976 with several of their
uncles. Enya joined the band as a keyboardist in 1979, and contributed to
several of the group's popular television soundtracks. In 1982, she left Clannad,
claming that she was uninterested in following the pop direction the group had
begun to pursue. Within a few years, she was commissioned, along with
producer/arranger Nicky Ryan and lyricist Roma
Ryan, to provide the score for a BBC-TV series called The Celts. The
soundtrack was released in 1986 as her eponymous solo album.
Enya didn't receive much
notice, but Enya and the Ryan's second effort, Watermark became a surprise hit
upon its release in 1988. "Orinoco Flow," the first single pulled from
the album, became a number one hit in Britain, helping the album eventually sell
four million albums worldwide. Enya spent the years following the success of
Watermark rather quietly; her most notable appearance was a cameo on Sinead
O'Connor's I
Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. She finally released Shepherd
Moons, her follow-up to Watermark,
in 1991. Shepherd
Moons was more successful than its predecessor, entering the US charts at
number 17 and eventually selling over ten million copies worldwide.
Again, Enya was slow to
follow up on the success of Shepherd Moons, spending nearly four years working
on her fourth album. The record, entitled Memory
of Trees, was released in December of 1995. Memory
of Trees entered the US charts at number nine and sold over two million
copies within its first year of release. Stephen Thomas Erlewine & William
Ruhlmann, All-Music Guide
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