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Recent Album: Different Beat
BORN: April 4, 1952, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Belfast native Gary Moore first achieved renown as the lead guitarist of hard rockers Thin Lizzy. After playing with a band called the Boys, Moore formed a new band -- Skid Row -- featuring bassist Brendan Shields, drummer Noel Bridgeman,
and singer Phil Lynott, who left to form Thin Lizzy while Moore remained to pursue a record deal with the help of Fleetwood Mac guitarist Peter Green. Skid Row recorded three albums before Moore left for a solo career, releasing his first album, Grinding Stone, in 1973. Lynott then
invited Moore to join Thin Lizzy as a replacement for guitarist Eric Bell; Moore stayed for a short time before leaving to pursue session work, which he has continued off and on throughout his career. Moore joined the fusion outfit Colosseum II in 1975 and rejoined Thin Lizzy in
1977 as a full-time member, appearing on their 1979 album Black Rose. In the middle of a 1979 American tour, Moore left Thin Lizzy again to form the unsuccessful G-Force; his single "Parisienne Walkways," from the solo LP Back on the Streets, became a U.K. hit that May.
Moore recorded a series of moderately successful albums during the 1980s and had popular U.K. numbers with "Empty Rooms" in 1985 and a collaboration with Lynott, "Out in the Fields." 1989's After the War showed the influence of Celtic music, but Moore's breakthrough came with the
following year's Still Got the Blues. Toning down the hard rock feel of many of his previous recordings, Moore mixed traditional blues standards with a sprinkling of originals and delivered a superb performance vocally and instrumentally, and the album became a critical and
commercial success. Moore followed his surprise success with After Hours, which featured guest spots from B.B. King and Albert Collins and solidified Moore's reputation as a blues-rocker of note. Moore recorded a side project called BBM in 1994 with former Cream rhythm section Jack
Bruce and Ginger Baker, and in 1995, he released a tribute album to his idol, Peter Green, composed entirely of Green originals played on a guitar Green had given him years ago. Out in the Fields: The Very Best of Gary Moore followed in 1998. ~ Steve Huey, All-Music Guide (From
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Recent Album: Voyage
BORN: May 7, 1945
The older brother of Irish folk-pop singer-songwriter Luka Bloom (Barry Moore), Christy Moore is one of contemporary Irish music's best singer-songwriters. The former lead vocalist and chief songwriter of Planxty and Moving Hearts, Moore helped to bring the musical traditions of Ireland up to modern standards. As a solo singer-songwriter, Moore has continued to add elements of rock and popular music to his
well-crafted, tradition-based tunes and has been a major inspiration to such modern Irish artists as U2, and the Pogues.
Traditional Irish music had little influence on Moore's early music. Trained in old-time pop tunes and religious music, Moore was inspired as a teenager by the rock & roll of American artists including Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard. It wasn't until he had moved to
London, where he heard Irish folk songs sung in Irish ghettos, that he became aware of the musical traditions of his homeland. Acquiring an acoustic guitar and Irish drum (bodhran), Moore began busking in the streets. Moore continued to attract attention with his original,
folk-like songs after returning to Ireland in the late 1960s. Moore's debut solo album, Paddy on the Road, was released in 1969.
While recording his third album, Prosperous, in 1972, Moore assembled a band that evolved into Planxty. The group's fusion of Celtic music and high-energy rock made Planxty one of Ireland's most influential bands. With Moore singing lead in his heavily accented brogue and playing
rhythm guitar and bodhran, Planxty brought together such top-ranked Irish musicians as Donal Lunny (guitar, bouzouki, bottleneck bouzouki), Liam O'Flynn (uilleann pipes, whistle) and Andy Irvine (mandolin, mouth organ). Although he left Planxty in 1974, Moore returned when the band's original lineup reunited in 1979. He remained with Planxty until 1983, when it evolved into a new band, Moving Hearts. Moore served as frontman for Moving Hearts until leaving to resume his solo career in 1985.
The excitement of Moore's concerts has been documented on two albums. Live In Dublin, released in 1978, featured accompaniment by Donal Lunny. Live at the Point, released in 1995, captures a solo performance at the Point Theater in Dublin in July 1994. Moore's solo recordings
between 1973 and 1978, were compiled on The Folk Collection, released in 1978. His solo recordings between 1981 and 1991 were anthologized on The Christy Moore Collection, released in 1991. Moore's 1985 album Voyage featured backing vocals by Sinead O'Connor, Elvis Costello and Mary Black, plus accordion player Sharon Shannon. ~ Craig Harris, All-Music Guide (From CD-NOW Biography)
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Celtic Traditions Review "Live in Dublin"
Recent Album: 1998-Skiffle Sessions-Live In
BORN: August 31, 1945, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Van Morrison is one of the most critically acclaimed pop music singer/songwriters to have emerged in the 1960s. His bluesy voice and jazzy sense of improvisation have resulted in a three-decade career full of outstanding albums and concert performances. Morrison's father was a
fan of American music, and he grew up listening to records by Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Jelly Roll Morton, and Jimmy Rodgers, among others, spanning the genres of blues, folk, jazz, and country. As a teen, Morrison took up guitar and saxophone and played in a series of local bands,
culminating in the formation of Them, an R&B quintet, in 1964. Signed to Decca Records (the catalog is now controlled by PolyGram), Them released two albums, Them (issued under the title The Angry Young Them in the U.S.) and Them Again and scored Top Ten hits in the U.K. with "Baby
Please Don't Go" and "Here Comes the Night" in 1965. In the U.S., Them also charted with two Morrison-composed songs, "Gloria" (which became a rock standard) and "Mystic Eyes." But the group disbanded in 1966.
Morrison signed to Bang Records, a label set up by songwriter Bert Berns, who had written "Here Comes the Night," and in March 1967, recorded eight tracks in New York intended for single release. The first result of the session was "Brown-Eyed Girl," which became a U.S. Top Ten
hit, prompting Bang to release the singles session as Morrison's first solo album, Blowin' Your Mind! (July 1967), though Morrison had not approved the release, the title, or the trendy psychedelic cover. Nevertheless, Morrison returned to the studio in the fall and cut eight more
songs for Bang, which took five of them, culled five from the previous album, and released the deceptively titled The Best of Van Morrison (November 1967). With that, Morrison negotiated to get off the label, a process made easier by the sudden death of Berns in December 1967.
Morrison agreed to turn over his next ten compositions to Bang, but submitted a tape of unusable off-the-cuff improvisations finally released in 1994 on Payin' Dues. (The Bang material has been reissued endlessly, the most complete version being Epic/Legacy's 1991 Bang Masters.)
Morrison then signed to Warner Bros. Records and recorded Astral Weeks (November 1968), which failed to chart but seems to have made every critic's all-time Top Ten list ever since. Living in Woodstock, NY, and later in Marin County, CA, with his wife Janet Planet, Morrison
adopted a more commercial country-pop sound, and his second Warner Bros. album, Moondance (February 1970), was more of a sales success, spawning a Top 40 hit in "Come Running" and eventually selling over a million copies. Its follow-up, His Band and the Street Choir (October
1970), featured chart singles in "Domino" (which hit the Top Ten), "Blue Money," and "Call Me Up in Dreamland." Completing a trilogy of country-pop successes, Tupelo Honey (October 1971) produced chart singles in the title song and "Wild Night" and eventually went gold. Morrison
took a more soul-oriented approach on Saint Dominic's Preview (July 1972), characterized by the album's first single, "Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)." Hard Nose the Highway (July 1973), released around the time of the breakup of his marriage, found a more
introspective Morrison crooning such material as Sesame Street puppet Kermit the Frog's "(It isn't easy bein') Green," but he bounced back with a powerful double live album, It's Too Late to Stop Now (February 1974), then made his most reflective album since Astral Weeks in Veedon
Fleece (October 1974) before disappearing from record stores for two and a half years, reportedly due to writer's block. He returned with A Period of Transition (March 1977), an R&B-tinged effort that paired him with Dr. John. More assured was Wavelength (September 1978), whose
title track was his biggest chart single in more than six years. Into the Music (August 1979) explicitly looked back on earlier styles and revealed an increasing religious interest, while the pastoral Common One (September 1980) was filled with references to English poets.
Morrison's albums of the 1980s and '90s largely repeated the musical styles and spiritual lyric themes he had developed in the 1970s, though they frequently contained moving performances. In 1984, Morrison switched from Warner Bros. Records to PolyGram, which had been
distributing his albums outside the U.S. since 1979 on its Mercury label. He recorded with the Chieftains on the traditional album Irish Heartbeat (June 1988), a change of pace. In 1990, he experienced a career resurgence when
Mercury/PolyGram released The Best of Van Morrison, which quickly became his biggest seller, at two million copies and counting. In his concert performances of the 1990s, Morrison increasingly relied on a band led by British jazz organist Georgie Fame and introduced guest singers,
among them his daughter Shana. A typical performance was captured on A Night in San Francisco (June 1994). Morrison also continued to release new albums almost annually: Days Like This (June 1995) was his 22nd studio album of new, mostly original material in 28 years. It was
followed at the end of the year by How Long Has This Been Going On?, a jazz album recorded with Fame. A year later, he assembled Songs of Mose Allison: Tell Me Something, a tribute record to the jazz pianist recorded with Morrison and his band, Ben Sidran and Allison himself. Early
in 1997, he released The Healing Game, which was his first album of original material since Days Like This. The Philosopher's Stone, a long-awaited collection of unreleased material, followed in 1998, and a year later Morrison returned with a new studio effort, Back on Top. ~
William Ruhlmann, All-Music Guide (From CD-NOW Biography)
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Irish Music Net Article
Recent Album: Storm
This band of Irish virtuosos has come close to cracking it big, and this album should do it for them. It's a completely instrumental collection including several original compositions as well as the band's distinctive arrangements of traditional tunes. More specifically, you'll
hear a fantastic blend of Irish folk influences, jazz and rock, with uillean pipes and whistles playing most of the melodies (and creating as much excitement as a battery of electric guitars) supported by a supple rhythm section. Keyboards and guitar add color to the arrangements
and fill out the texture. (From 1985 College Media album review - from CD-NOW) Moving Hearts emberged a successor to Planxty and included people like Christy Moore, Donal
Lunny, Declan Masterson and Davy Spillane. The Moving Hearts album is the only one listed by CDNOW. Some of the performers would get back to gether as part of the group Patrick Street.
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