Sunday Life Country And Western Column Brendan Quinn

Local man Brendan Quinn has been doing his thing on the Irish music scene for longer now than probably even he cares to remember. In that time he’s built up a reputation as one of this countries most respected and versatile performers. The son of a blacksmith he left school at 15 to become a welder but quickly abandoned his trade for a life on the road. At 19 he joined the legendary Irish showband Robin & The Breakaways and toured constantly across the dancehalls of Ireland until the mid seventies. From there he formed Bluebirds, a more American country influenced collective, that played endlessly both at home and in America. After knocking that on the head in the mid nineties he fronted an excellent bar band The Kickin Mules and embarked on a solo career that threw up the superb Small Town album in 2001 and some seriously impressive live shows into the bargain.

Now with such an impressive track record behind him you could forgive the Magherafelt man for being just a little bit jaded. I mean all those decades plying your trade on the local music circuit would take its toll on anyone wouldn’t it? If The Mighty Quinn’s latest album is anything to go by though he’s never been in better form.

Sinner Man is a fantastic collection of songs that remind you just how good a singer and guitarist Brendan really is. The man himself has already claimed that this is the best album he’s ever made and I must say with material and performances this strong I have to agree with him. There are great Quinn originals on here like Till My Dying Day and Let The Music Flow that really hold their own against quality covers like John Prine’s Glory Of True Love and Neil Diamond’s Morningside and the standard of musicianship is extremely high from the very start.

Much of the album’s charm can be attributed to some seriously impressive guest appearances from the likes of Portstewart guitarist supreme Henry McCullough and Van Morrison collaborator Arty McGlynn. Both Arty and Henry are old muckers of Brendan’s and you can hear that friendship in every shared note here. Not content with just contributing Arty also produced the album at Amberville studios in Co Antrim with help from the cream of Ireland’s session musician talent and the results are seriously impressive.

Players like Rod McVey, Nicky Scott, Ted Ponsonby, Nollaig Casey and Liam Bradley add a real sheen of quality that a lot of local country music just can’t boast and the vocal contributions of Tanya McCole shouldn’t be underestimated either. As anyone lucky enough to have witnessed the band’s performance at the recent album launch in Belfast will testify they’re every bit as good live as they are in the recording studio.

The first single from the album Days Gonna Come, written by Donegal writer Jody Gallagher, captures the spirit of the whole project perfectly. Upbeat and catchier than the common cold Brendan’s in great voice relating a heartfelt tale of mankind’s crimes against planet earth. Like the entire Sinner Man album it’s powerful, soulful and straight from the heart. Check it out for yourself today.

Ralph presents the evening show on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and the award winning McLean’s Country every Friday between 8 and 10pm on BBC Radio Ulster. Listen again at www.bbc.co.uk/radioulster.

Sinner Man Album Review - Irish Times

Having ploughed up the roads with The Bluebirds for more than two decades, country singer Brendan Quinn has sawed and planed, honed and polished his voice and songwriting skills to their essence, and this slickly produced collection owes more to Johnny Cash and JJ Cale than it does to the heyday of the showband era. Arty McGlynn's restrained production sets a tone that's pitched perfectly close to Quinn's no-nonsense vocals, which excel on the JJ Cale cover Ride The River. With a band that includes Henry McCullough, McGlynn, Rod McVey and Ted Ponsonby on guitars, keyboards, dobro and vocals, this is not so much wide-open prairies as hatches battoned down on salty stonewalled acres. A home brew that reeks of local flavour.

Brendan Quinn New TV show and Tour

With his brand new album Sinner Man getting rave reviews, and the single Day’s Gonna come riding high in the charts, country legend Brendan Quinn embarks on short Irish tour and a new television show for TG4.

The tour begins on 11th Sept at The Marketplace theatre in Armagh and continues through September with shows at the Terrace hotel in Magherafelt Sept 12th, The Black Box Belfast 17th, the Riverside theatre Coleraine 19th, the Alley theatre Strabane 20th and Sandino’s in Derry on the 28th.

Brendan will be joined on the tour by the legendary Henry McCullough (Paul McCartney Joe Cocker), Dermot Byrne, accordion player from the great traditional band Altan, Tyrone singer/songwriter Anton Glackin and his own band featuring Jerome McGlynn on Guitar, Nicky Scott (Van Morrison, Brian Kennedy), on Bass and Brendan’s son Stephen Quinn on percussion

Brendan and the band will also record a new TV show at the Quays venue in Galway on Sept 23rd for RTE TG4. The show will be broadcast in the autumn

To coincide with the tour Brendan has just released a new single. ‘What A Joy love Is’, a beautiful ballad was written by Brendan himself, and has just been published by Hornall Bros Music London, who publish the likes of Mark Knophler and Paul Brady. The single is receiving heavy airplay all over Ireland and the UK. Over the next few weeks Brendan will be promoting ‘What A Joy love’ Is on all local and National media outlets

Album Launch

Brendan's brand new studio album SINNER MAN wil be released on April 24th with a launch at the John Hewitt bar in Donegal St Belfast. Special guests will include Henry McCullough, Arty McGlynn and many more.

New Single - Days Gonna Come

Quinn one of Ireland’s most respected and eclectic performers has finally come off the road to record his much awaited follow up to his critically acclaimed 2001 album Small Town

Brendan has amassed the crème-de-la-crème of Irish musicians for this album, including his long-term buddies, the legendary Henry Mc McCullough (Joe Cocker’s Grease band, Paul Mc Cartney’s Wings etc) and Arty Mc Glynn (Van Morrison, JJ Cale etc). Brendan recorded 14 tracks in Amberville Studios and has just released two tracks as a new single.

Day’s Gonna Come by Donegal Writer Jody Gallagher is a comment on mankind’s crimes against global warming. What a Joy Love is is beautiful ballad written by Brendan. The single is set to receive heavy airplay on all radio stations and the album is set for release on April 4th 2008.

Brendan Quinn New Album

Veteran country singer Brendan Quinn has been around the music scene for 45 years.

From being a guitar player in a local showband ‘Robin and The Breakaways’ to leading his own country band ‘The Bluebirds’ for almost twenty years, Brendan has seen and done it all.

In the early Sixties, the Breakaways used to open for some of the bigger bands and that’s when he met his long time friend Arty Mc Glynn, then playing guitar with the Plattermen. ‘Arty was the man in that band, he had a big Fender Showman amp and a Gibson 335 and he played everything from the top twenty to country to Trad jazz’ says Brendan. He used to follow the career of another guitarist Henry Mc McCullough, then playing with Gene and the Gents but lost touch for over twenty years when Henry moved to England to star with Paul Mc Cartney and Wings and then Joe Cocker’s Grease Band and become the only Irishman to play at the famous Woodstock festival.

Brendan went on to have top ten hits all through the Seventies and Eighties, made regular TV appearances, toured The US, hung out with Merle Haggard and moved to Vancouver Canada for some years. In the early Nineties he and Arty, who played pedal steel on Brendan’s first record in 1969, formed The Kickin’ Mule. Sally O’s pub in Omagh was the place to be on a Monday night. Brendan recalls, ‘we never rehearsed, but we had some magic nights in there. I loved it because we had all these great players who wanted to play, and you never knew who might show up on any given night, it might be Arty or Ted Ponsonby or Henry Mc McCullough’.

These days Brendan has been in the studio along with Arty, Henry Mc McCullough, Rod Mc Vey, Nicky Scott, Nollaig Casey, Liam Bradley and Ted Ponsonby, and has recorded 14 new tracks. Says Brendan, ‘we did this record in Amberville Studio in Cullybackey which is the best facility in Ireland outside of Dublin. The vibe in there was just great. When you hear these two guitar masters playing off each other it was just magical’.

Brendan has released two tracks from the session as an promo for the album.’ Day’s Gonna Come’ is a comment on mankind’s crime against global climate, from the pen of Donegal man Jody Gallagher, and ‘What A Joy love Is’ is a beautiful ballad written by Brendan himself.

The album will be release on April 4th and Brendan will be accompanied on a short promotional tour by special guests Arty Mc Glynn and Nollaig Casey and Henry Mc McCullough with shows in Coalisland’s Craic theatre on May 3rd. Derry’s Playhouse, May 8th, Omagh’s Strule Arts Centre, May10th, Ballymena’s Braid theatre May15th, Ballyearl Arts Centre May 16th and The black Box Belfast on May 22nd.