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This is the archive of the combined Barking Spider and Andy Broad Portsmouth Blues Site mailing lists.
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RON KAVANA to receive THE IRISH MUSICIAN OF 2011 AWARD On October 29th, 2011 Ron is to be presented with the prestigious Annie McNulty Award as Irish Musician Of the Year (for service to Irish tradition and culture) by D.J./musicologist, Declan Coyne and Chris Miles, MBE, at the South Roscommon Singers Festival in Knockroghery, Co. Roscommon. Ron Kavana is a singer/songwriter/composer, multi-instrumentalist, band leader, producer, author, poet and film maker who has been at the cutting edge of the international folk scene for over three decades and been described as Ireland’s best kept musical secret. Since first coming to widespread attention in the late 70s as London-based producer, arranger and houseband leader for ACE Records (one of the world’s leading Jazz/R’n’B/Country/Blues labels) Ron has worked with or, in his own words, “studied under” some of the biggest names in those genres from Big Jay McNeeley and Clarence ‘Frogman’ Henry to Doug Sahm and Tim O’Brien. Meanwhile, he played a central role in the increasing influence and popularity of traditional Irish music with which he has been involved since the age of five, and for which he has received numerous awards particularly for his groundbreaking CD collections on Globestyle and Proper Records. Throughout the 80s, Ron worked mainly as a session musician, recording and playing on stage, TV, radio and film with a wide variety of musicians ranging from The Dubliners, Paddy Moloney, The Pogues and Sinead O’Connor to Sandy Denny, Donovan, Elvis Costello, Dr. John, Richard Thompson, Jack Bruce, Paul McCartney and various Rolling Stones. In 1988 he formed his own group, Alias Ron Kavana, to combine his two great musical loves - traditional Irish melodies and the rhythms of Black American music - with his flair for original composition. The Alias band were immediately hailed as the best new roots group on the international scene. By 1992 they had won the Folk Roots (now fROOTS) award as Best Live Act for an unprecedented three years in succession, had three albums in the UK’s independent charts at the same time and were described by Hot Press as “simply the best folk/roots fusion band ever” while Living Tradition declared Kavana “The genius of Irish music” and The Irish Post described his compositions as “the traditional music of the future”. Ron’s songs and instrumental tunes have been performed/recorded by a virtual Who’s Who of the folk world including The Pogues, Cherish The Ladies, Dick Gaughan, Niamh Parsons, Waterson-Carthy, Eileen Ivers, Paddy Keenan, Mary Coughlan, Aoife Clancy, Jimmy Crowley, Coope, Boyes & Simpson, The Voice Squad, Geraldine MacGowan, Sean Keane etc. Remarkably, for someone with such a reputation and flair for original composition, his seventeenth and latest album, The Last Of The Troubadours, is his first ever release of entirely original composition: “It’s the music fan in me ‘coz whenever I hear a great song I feel like singing it no matter where it came from” he explains. Nevertheless, it is for his original songs that Kavana is best known, One of these, 'Reconciliation', from his Topic/Green Linnet album "Home Fire" (MOJO magazine’s Most Highly Recommended Irish album in their book "1.000 Essential CDs") and re-released on his gold (i.e. over 100,000 copies sold) double CD 'Songs of Rebellion, Resistance and Reconciliation' (PRIMO PRMCD6015) is one of the most widely recorded songs ever written with more than 200 known recorded versions! 2007 saw the release of what a number of reviewers described as his “masterpiece” - a book and four CD box set - Irish Ways: The Story of Ireland in Song, Music & Poetry' (Proper PRDP4001) which spent months in HMV’s Top Ten charts for both Ireland and the U.K. and was a hugely ambitious live project with shows including a sixteen-piece band with multimedia slide/film show. Hats-in-the-air critical acclaim flowed in from all over the world (see attached sheet of press quotes). Kavana’s own reaction to the critical acclaim, high selling albums and worldwide tours has been to return to live in Ireland where he lives a quiet life, dividing his time between research, writing, recording and his passion for documentary film making. In a recent interview on American radio programme, The Celtic Show, he explained: “The Irish Ways thing got so big that it was like a millstone round my neck… there was no room in it to play any of the wide variety of music I like to perform and, because of the huge size of the full live production, we could only play festivals and big halls whereas I always much preferred playing smaller, more intimate venues, you know - not pubs where you have to literally fight the audience for their attention - but real listening places like folk clubs and art centres. So lately I tend to go out with a small group of three or four pieces, or as a duo singing harmony duets with Anne Armstrong, my singing partner, and occasionally theses days I even get right back to basics and play some solo gigs, something I hadn’t done for 30 years”. Ron is available for gigs world wide - please contact John Roberts at Barking Spider Promotions now! Check out "Ron Kavana - musician" - on Facebook BARKING SPIDER PROMOTIONS (U.K & Eire) Email: spiderpromos@aol.com Tel: 00353 (0) 871 330954 Throughout the 80s, Ron worked mainly as a session musician, recording and playing on stage, TV, radio and film with a wide variety of musicians ranging from The Dubliners, Paddy Moloney, The Pogues and Sinead O’Connor to Sandy Denny, Donovan, Elvis Costello, Dr. John, Richard Thompson, Jack Bruce, Paul McCartney and various Rolling Stones. In 1988 he formed his own group, Alias Ron Kavana, to combine his two great musical loves - traditional Irish melodies and the rhythms of Black American music - with his flair for original composition. The Alias band were immediately hailed as the best new roots group on the international scene. By 1992 they had won the Folk Roots (now fROOTS) award as Best Live Act for an unprecedented three years in succession, had three albums in the UK’s independent charts at the same time and were described by Hot Press as “simply the best folk/roots fusion band ever” while Living Tradition declared Kavana “The genius of Irish music” and The Irish Post described his compositions as “the traditional music of the future”. Ron’s songs and instrumental tunes have been performed/recorded by a virtual Who’s Who of the folk world including The Pogues, Cherish The Ladies, Dick Gaughan, Niamh Parsons, Waterson-Carthy, Eileen Ivers, Paddy Keenan, Mary Coughlan, Aoife Clancy, Jimmy Crowley, Coope, Boyes & Simpson, The Voice Squad, Geraldine MacGowan, Sean Keane etc. Remarkably, for someone with such a reputation and flair for original composition, his seventeenth and latest album, The Last Of The Troubadours, is his first ever release of entirely original composition: “It’s the music fan in me ‘coz whenever I hear a great song I feel like singing it no matter where it came from” he explains. Nevertheless, it is for his original songs that Kavana is best known, One of these, 'Reconciliation', from his Topic/Green Linnet album "Home Fire" (MOJO magazine’s Most Highly Recommended Irish album in their book "1.000 Essential CDs") and re-released on his gold (i.e. over 100,000 copies sold) double CD 'Songs of Rebellion, Resistance and Reconciliation' (PRIMO PRMCD6015) is one of the most widely recorded songs ever written with more than 200 known recorded versions! 2007 saw the release of what a number of reviewers described as his “masterpiece” - a book and four CD box set - Irish Ways: The Story of Ireland in Song, Music & Poetry' (Proper PRDP4001) which spent months in HMV’s Top Ten charts for both Ireland and the U.K. and was a hugely ambitious live project with shows including a sixteen-piece band with multimedia slide/film show. Hats-in-the-air critical acclaim flowed in from all over the world (see attached sheet of press quotes). Kavana’s own reaction to the critical acclaim, high selling albums and worldwide tours has been to return to live in Ireland where he lives a quiet life, dividing his time between research, writing, recording and his passion for documentary film making. In a recent interview on American radio programme, The Celtic Show, he explained: “The Irish Ways thing got so big that it was like a millstone round my neck… there was no room in it to play any of the wide variety of music I like to perform and, because of the huge size of the full live production, we could only play festivals and big halls whereas I always much preferred playing smaller, more intimate venues, you know - not pubs where you have to literally fight the audience for their attention - but real listening places like folk clubs and art centres. So lately I tend to go out with a small group of three or four pieces, or as a duo singing harmony duets with Anne Armstrong, my singing partner, and occasionally theses days I even get right back to basics and play some solo gigs, something I hadn’t done for 30 years”. Ron is available for gigs world wide - please contact John Roberts at Barking Spider Promotions now! Check out "Ron Kavana - musician" - on Facebook BARKING SPIDER PROMOTIONS (U.K & Eire) Email: spiderpromos@aol.com Tel: 00353 (0) 871 330954