Maura O'Connell
Maura
O'Connell embodies many paradoxes: lead singer for De Dannon, she was not a
traditional Celtic singer; resident of Nashville, she is not American;
collaborator with New
Grass Revival, she is not a bluegrass performer. Nevertheless, O'Connell
has made a name for herself on two continents as a superb singer.
O'Connell was born and raised
in County Clare, Ireland, where she began singing at an early age. Involvement
in the folk club scene led to an invitation from celtic traditionalists, De
Dannon, to join their ranks. Her involvement with De Dannon resulted in the
recording of Star Spangled Mollie, a clear indication of interest in
trans-Atlantic culture. O'Connell then began to collabrate with members of New
Grass Revival, and in particular with Bela
Fleck who produced several of her tracks. Together with Fleck
and others, she recorded Just
in Time and made the decision to settle in Nashville, Tennessee. Since then,
she has released Helpless
Heart, Blue
is the Colour of Hope, and Real
Life Story, each album registering a move toward a pop synthesis. Stories
followed in 1995, with Wandering Home appearing two years later. Leon Jackson,
All-Music Guide
Robbie O'Connell
This nephew of the
world-famous Clancy
Brothers is also a fine folksinger and a respected songwriter. Steve Winick,
All-Music Guide
Eugene O'Donnell
This native of Derry city
now lives in the Philadelphia area. He is a master of slow airs and set dances
on the fiddle. ~ Steve Winick, All-Music Guide
Martin O'Connor
Button accordion player Mairtin
O'Connor has been a member of the ensemble De
Danann as well as an influential solo musician. Steve Winick, All-Music
Guide
Sinéad O'Connor
Sinead
O'Connor ranked among the most distinctive and controversial pop music stars
of the 1990s, the first and in many ways the most influential of the numerous
female performers whose music dominated airwaves throughout the decade. Brash
and outspoken, with her shaven head, angry visage and shapeless wardrobe a
direct challenge to the popular culture's long-prevailing notions of femininity
and sexuality, O'Connor
irrevocably altered the image of women in rock; railing against long-standing
stereotypes simply by asserting herself not as a sex object but as a serious
artist, she kick-started a revolt which led the way for performers ranging from Liz
Phair to Courtney
Love to Alanis
Morissette.
O'Connor was born in Dublin,
Ireland on December 8, 1966. Her childhood was often traumatic: her parents
divorced when she was eight, and she later claimed that her mother, who was
killed in a 1985 automobile accident, frequently abused her. After being
expelled from Catholic school, O'Connor was arrested for shoplifting and
shuttled off to a reformatory; at the age of 15, while singing a cover of Barbra
Streisand's "Evergreen" at a wedding, she was spotted by Paul
Byrne, the drummer for the Irish band In
Tua Nua (best known as proteges of U2).
After co-writing the first In Tua Nua single, "Take My Hand," O'Connor
left boarding school in order to focus on a career in music, and began
performing in area coffeehouses; she later studied voice and piano at the Dublin
College of Music, and supported herself delivering singing telegrams.
Upon signing a contract with
Ensign Records in 1985, O'Connor relocated to London; the following year she
made her recorded debut on the soundtrack of the film The Captive, appearing
with U2 guitarist the
Edge. After scrapping the initial tapes for her debut LP on the grounds that
the production was too Celtic, she took the producer's seat herself and began
re-recording the album, dubbed The Lion and the Cobra in reference to Psalm 91;
the result was one of the most acclaimed debut records of 1987, with a pair of
alternative radio hits in the singles "Mandinka" and "Troy."
Almost from the outset of her career, however, O'Connor was a controversial
media figure; in interviews following the LP's release, she defended the actions
of the IRA, resulting in widespread criticism from many corners, and even burned
bridges by attacking longtime supporters U2, whose music she declared
"bombastic."
However, O'Connor remained a
cult figure prior to the release of 1990's chart-topping I
Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, a harrowing masterpiece sparked by the
recent dissolution of her marriage to drummer John
Reynolds. Boosted by the single and video "Nothing Compares 2 U,"
originally penned by Prince,
the album established her as a major star, but again controversy followed as
tabloids took aim at her romance with Black singer Hugh
Harris while continuing to attack her outspoken politics. On American
shores, O'Connor also became the target of derision for refusing to perform in
New Jersey if "The Star Spangled Banner" was played prior to her
appearance, a move which brought public criticism from no less than Frank
Sinatra, who threatened to "kick her ass; " she also made
headlines for pulling out of an appearance on the NBC program Saturday Night
Live in response to the misogynist persona of guest host Andrew
Dice Clay, and even withdrew her name from competition in the annual Grammy
Awards despite four nominations. O'Connor also continued to confound
expectations with her third album, 1992's Am
I Not Your Girl? a collection of pop standards and torch songs which failed
to live up to either the commercial or critical success of I
Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. However, any discussion of the record's
creative merits quickly became moot in the wake of her most controversial and
damaging action yet: after finally appearing on Saturday Night Live, O'Connor
ended her performance by ripping up a photo of Pope
John Paul II, resulting in a wave of condmemnation unlike any she'd
previously encountered. Two weeks after the SNL performance, she appeared at a Bob
Dylan tribute concert at New York's Madison Square Garden, and was promptly
booed off the stage.
Now a virtual pariah,
O'Connor's retirement from the music business was subsequently reported,
although it was later claimed that she had merely returned to Dublin with the
intent of studying opera. She kept a low profile for the next several years,
starring as Ophelia in a theatrical production of Hamlet and later touring with
Peter Gabriel's WOMAD festival. She also reportedly suffered a nervous
breakdown, and even made a half-hearted attempt at suicide. In 1994, however,
O'Connor returned to pop music with the LP Univeral Mother, which, despite good
reviews, failed to relaunch her to superstar status; the following year she
announced that she would no longer speak to the press. The Gospel Oak EP
followed in 1997. Jason Ankeny, All-Music Guide
Liam O'Flynn
An uillean piper from Co.
Kildare, O'Flynn
was a founding member of Planxty.
An innovative performer, he has recorded with pop, folk, and classical musicians
and on film soundtracks in a variety of styles. Steve Winick, All-Music Guide
Old Blind Dogs
In Britain and Ireland,
as in America over the last 25 years or so, a number of folk music bands have
sprung up that have combined strong elements and foundations of the traditional
with a variety of influences from other cultures and styles. Steeleye Span, the
Tannahill Weavers, Fairport Convention, the House Band, Wolfstone and others
have all produced music that borrows as freely from reggae, African rhythms, and
American folk and rock music, as from the ancient ballads and tunes of their own
cultures. Among the most striking and interesting of these bands was Scotland's
Old Blind Dogs, an Aberdeen based band that toured Europe and North America
extensively throughout the '90s before dissolving in 1998. The genesis of Old
Blind Dogs dates to 1990, when three veterans of the Aberdeen music scene came
together after having played with each other in various other bands. Guitarist
and lead singer Ian F. Benzie, the elder statesman of the band, had been
involved with folk music since the glory days of the late '50s and early '60s.
It was the realization that many of his favorite songs by American folk icons
like Joan Baez were, in fact, songs from centuries past in his own culture that
steered him toward the traditional side of the music, while becoming adept at
writing his own powerful material. As a singer, Benzie has been compared to
fellow Scotsmen Dick Gaughan and Archie Fisher, a master of phrasing and
delivery, whether of his own songs or of classics like "The Cruel
Sister." Joining Benzie in the original configuration of the Dogs were
fellow Aberdeen natives Jonny Hardie on fiddle and Buzzby McMillan, a jack of
all trades on bass, whistles, cittern and just about anything else with frets
and strings. Though classically trained as a viola player, Hardie became
enamored of the traditional fiddle tunes he heard while travelling throughout
Britain. Meeting up again with McMillan after returning from music college, they
began busking together on the streets and playing in a succession of bands
before forming the Dogs with Benzie. By 1992, they had gained a reputation as a
band adept at mixing traditional Scottish fare with more modern material, but it
was the addition of percussionist Davy Cattanach in that year that gave the band
a character unlike any other of their contemporary bands and allowed them to
branch out in new directions. Cattanach had played drums in a number of reggae,
rock and blues bands that McMillan had also been part of. After spending five
years or so in London, Cattanach returned to Aberdeen, where he met up again
with McMillan. He had never played or been involved with traditional music
before, but was intrigued with the sound of the band his friend was playing in,
and on being told they were looking to add a percussionist, immediately went out
and got a set of congas. With the addition of the exotic rhythms Cattanach
brought to the band, they were able to explore new ways of expressing their
distinctive blend of old and new. For the next five years, they toured and
recorded to rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic, such as this one from
the Scottish Daily Record: "From the exciting driving energy of traditional
tunes to the haunting melody [they] will give you goosepimples on the back of
your neck." In 1997, a fifth Dog was added in the person of piper and
woodwind player Fraser Fifield, whose work was welcomed by the band's die-hard
fans as an added dimension to the sound. In 1998, Cattanach departed the band
and was replaced by long-time Wolfstone drummer and percussionist Graeme
"Mop" Youngson. Following their 1998 U.S. tour, though, the years of
being on the road induced Benzie to also quit the band, and as the clock wound
down on the century, Old Blind Dogs was in hiatus. ~ John Lupton, All-Music
Guide
Sean O'Riada
Sean
O'Riada was the founder of the modern school (which is to say, the authentic
ancient-style of playing) Irish folk music and, equally important, a vital
nationalistic voice in the orchestral music of Ireland. Best known today as a
composer, he was also present at the recording of the first album by the
Chieftains, and founded the folk chamber orchestra Ceoltoiri
Cualann, Paddy Moloney's group before forming the
Chieftains.
Sean O'Riada
(or John Reidy, in English) was born in Cork, Ireland in 1931, and attended
University College, Cork. He received his Bachelor of Music degree in 1952, and
served as assistant music director for Radio Eireann in 1954 and 1955. In 1955,
he became the music director of the Abbey Theater in Dublin, a post he held
until 1962. The following year, he became a lecturer at University College,
Cork, a post he held until his death in 1971. During this period, he composed
prolifically in all areas, including music for plays, 2 ballets, various
orchestral suites symphonic pieces, several choral works, masses, chamber
pieces, and piano works, and three notable pieces of film music.
Among his generation of Irish
composers, O'Riada was the most deeply involved with traditional Irish music.
Curiously, however, most of his works for the concert hall utilized no folk
material, and some of it--most notably Nomos No. 1, is a contrapuntal piece that
uses 12-tone ("serialist") technique. Nomos No. 2 utilizes a text
drawn from Sophocles' Theban plays in its reflections on life and death and the
history of music, and includes a quotation from Mozart's
Symphony No. 41. O'Riada was just as likely to look back to Mozart,
Beethoven,
or Brahms
as to his own nation's musical heritage.
O'Riada also prepared
numerous arrangements of traditional Irish songs, and in the late 1950's, he
organized Ceoltoiri Cualann, a folk chamber orchestra whose membership consisted
of the best traditional musicians in Ireland. O'Riada's
group performed Irish folk music stripped of all the pop inflections and
sentimentality that usually afflicted their performance. The earliest versions
of the melodies and dances served as the source material, and the group played
them with a natural lilt and an abandon that came from deep within the music's
origins; the airs, in particular, stripped of their modern inflections, came
across with even greater poignancy than anyone had recognized in them in
decades. It was out of this group that Paddy
Moloney formed the
Chieftains in the early 1960's, a smaller, more flexible ensemble that
eventually brought this new/old vision of Irish music to the world. O'Riada was
with the Chieftains on their first album, and some three years after his death,
his composition "Women Of Ireland," as used in the 1974 Stanley
Kubrick movie Barry
Lyndon, broke the group in America, garnering considerable radio play and
network television time for them. His own film scores included the music for
three documentaries, I Am Ireland, Freedom, and The Living Fire, and Brian
Desmond Hurst's 1962 feature film Playboy of the Western World.
O'Riada's other great
contribution to Irish folk music lay in the realm of orchestral composition.
While England had composers such as Gustav
Holst, George
Butterworth, and, most important, Ralph
Vaughan Williams, who used English folk music as the basis for some of their
most successful orchestral compositions, Irish music never quite achieved the
same degree of prominence as a source for serious orchestral music--not until
O'Riada came along. Although his most serious compositions drew from German and
Austrian inspirations, he also took up authentic Irish music as a basis for
composition on several of his works, and ended up doing for Irish folk music
what Vaughan
Williams did for English music. His work has been compared to that of Gustav
Mahler, for his ability to paint orchestral pictures with rich colors and
sparse austerity, and also to Sibelius
in its nationalist sentiments. Bruce Eder, All-Music Guide
Billy Oskay
New Age producer and
session player Billy Oskay was born and raised in Kingston, NY, where at age
seven he first picked up the violin. Beginning in 1970 he studied under Eugen
Prokop at the International Academy of Music located in Palma de Mallorca,
Spain, and a year later earned his master's degree in music from Indiana's Ball
State University. In the years following, Oskay headed the music department at
Oregon's Mt. Angel College before joining the swing combo Everything's Jake;
during the late 1980s, he also teamed with Irish guitarist Michael O'Domhnill to
form the Celtic-influenced Nightnoise, issuing a series of LPs on the Windham
Hill label beginning with 1988's At the End of the Evening. In addition to a
steady touring schedule, Oskay emerged as a prolific session musician, appearing
on countless projects headlined by John Doan, Dan Crary and others; at his Oskay
Recording studio in Portland, OR, he also helmed dozens of other albums. ~
Raymond McKinney, All-Music Guide
Ossian
Formed in the mid
'70s, Ossian
became one of Scotland's best-loved folk revival bands. Members have
included fiddler John
Martin, highland bagpipe virtuoso Iain
MacDonald, composer and multi-instrumentalist Billy
Jackson, and singer and guitarist Tony
Cuffe. The group broke up after Cuffe
and Jackson
moved to the U.S. The other members have remained prominent on the
Scottish folk scene. Steve Winick, All-Music Guide
Jerry O'Sullivan
Jerry
O'Sullivan is one of the United States' finest uillean pipers. He won the
all-Ireland piping championship in 1979, and since then has played at major
Irish events up and down the east coast and spent several years in co. Clare
honing his piping skills still further. He has appeared on several film
soundtracks, including Far
and Away. Steve Winick, All-Music Guide
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