Danny Doyle   •   Act One - Live in New Orleans

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  • Act One - Live in New Orleans
    • 2001 - DDCD Live One CD (USA)
  • Tracklist
    1. Where the Blarney Roses Grow
    2. Dublin, Me Darlin'
    3. Botany Bay
    4. Follow Me Up To Carlow
    5. The Leaving of Liverpool
    6. Songs From Out the Chimney Corner (Doyle, Folan)
    7. The Galway Races
    8. The Rising of the Moon
    9. Lone Shanakyle
    10. The Moon on Clancy's Wings (Stewart, Ashdown)
    11. The Foggy Dew
    12. The Rare Oul' Times (St. John)
    13. When the Boys Come Rolling Home (Sands)
    14. The Parting Glass

  • Musicians
    • Danny Doyle: Vocals & Guitar
    • Zan McLeod: Guitar, Bouzouki, Mandolin, Banjo & Bass
    • Billy McComiskey: Accordian
    • Fergus Kennedy: Keyboards
    • Tad Marks: Fiddle
    • Myron Bretholtz: Bodhran
  • Credits
    • Produced & Arranged by: Zan McLeod
    • Recording Engineer (New Orleans): Allen Wehner
    • Assistant: Misha Kachkachishvili
    • Additional Recording, Mixing & Mastering: Zan McLeod, Tonehouse Studio, Potomac MD
    • Photography: Janet Buck-Marusov
    • Design: Taffy Millar
    • Liner Notes: Terry Folan
    • All tracks: Trad., unless otherwise noted.
    • Live at O'Flaherty's Irish Pub 514 Rue Toulouse New Orleans LA 70130
    • This recording was made possible with the help of the following: Danny O'Flaherty, with his encouragement, commitment and true friendship; Zan McLeod, generously sharing his abundant musical and technical talents; Allen and Misha, a job well done; the staff at O'Flaherty's; and, most of all, the wonderful audience, without whom there would be no show.

Sleeve Notes

"He is one of that rare and cherished group of Irish singers whose voices are instantly recognizable. Doyle is an international treasure." — Irish Echo, New York

"Doyle is indeed Ireland's finest balladeer. His voice is beautiful, his guitar playing never overshadows the lyrics and his stage patter is warm, engaging and often hilarious." — The Irish Times


In an impressive concert career that has spanned more than three decades, Danny Doyle has been bringing the ballads, history and stories of Ireland to audiences around the world. He has a way of conjuring up the Irish island with songs and vivid tales. Somehow, after you've heard this quintessential Irishman you can nearly taste the salt aroma of a west Clare gale, you can faintly hear the distant call of a Kerry shepherd to his dog, and you can almost feel the mist falling on Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge. If Danny (in the words of the 19th century Belfast poet Samuel Ferguson) is a folksinger who aspires "to link his present to his country's past and live anew in knowledge of his sires," then his songs and deep affection for Ireland's dramatic history offer profound evidence that he indeed sings with the blood and defiance of the Irish flowing through his veins.

The music on which Danny was raised came from Dublin's street singers, his mother and great-grandmother, and poets Brendan Behan and Patrick Kavanagh, both of whom were neighbours. Behan and Kavanagh encouraged his singing, giving him pocket change in return for a tune or two. After leaving school at fourteen, Danny started doing odd jobs in Dublin's Pike Theatre, where he began to pick up from the traveling players ballads from the Irish countryside.

After living for two years in England and playing in the folk clubs there, Danny returned in 1966 to a Dublin squarely in the midst of a folk music revival. He soon had three hit singles and an album that sold over 100,000 copies. The next year his ballad "Whiskey On a Sunday" was No. 1 in Ireland for three months and stayed on the charts for over a year. Shortly thereafter, Oscar-winning composer Elmer Bernstein brought Danny to Hollywood to sing the sound track songs on one of his movies, an event which allowed Danny to undertake his first American tour. After several more years as the toast of Irish folk music, with a number of hit records and television series to his credit, Danny had won every major Irish music industry award. Further tours in the U.S. had inspired in him a deep affection for America, and eventually he decided to emigrate.

Always a passionate student of Irish history, Danny continued to choose material which was reflective of the rich Irish ballad tradition through which much of the country's history has been preserved, while adding to his repertoire the best works of a new generation of songwriters. The sense of showmanship and the infectious joy in his singing that made him a star in Ireland has stayed with him. Wherever he goes, he's really singing of himself each time he sings "I'm a part of what was Dublin in the rare auld times."