Danny Doyle

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For the baseball player, see Danny Doyle (baseball).

Danny Doyle is a solo Irish folk singer with an impressive concert career spanning almost four decades to audiences around the world.The songs on which Danny was raised came from his mother and great-grandmother and from the last of Dublin's street singers -- men who commented on the events of the day through their witty and often biting ballads, and from some of Dublin's finest literati, including poet Patrick Kavanagh and playwright Brendan Behan, who were neighbours.

Kavanagh and Behan were among the first to encourage his singing. Leaving school at fourteen years of age, he started doing odd jobs, including general factotum in Dublin's Pike Theatre, where he began to pick up from the traveling players songs from the Irish countryside.

In his teenage years an aching curiosity about what lay behind the Dublin mountains would impel him, alone, down the rural roads of Ireland, cycling and camping all the over the country. He journeyed into the Wicklow mountains, southwest to the grandeur of Kerry and West Cork, out onto the stony Aran Islands and Connemara, across majestic Yeats Country in County Sligo, to nearby County Mayo and stunning Achill Island. He began to hear and learn the folk songs of rural Ireland, and they made an indelible impression on the young Dublin lad, engendering an early passion for his country's songs and history that would become his life's joyful vocation.

Always a passionate student of Irish history, Danny continued to choose material which was reflective of the rich Irish ballad through which much of the country's past has been preserved, while adding to his repertoire the best works of a new generation of songwriters, as well as his own compositions.

His sense of showmanship and the infectious joy in his singing that made him one of Ireland's biggest music stars have stayed with him. He has recorded 25 albums, many of them critically acclaimed, and one of his favourites is "Emigrant Eyes", done with his sister Geraldine, for many years Australia's best-loved comedian.

Wherever he goes, he's really singing of himself each time he sings, "I'm part of what was Dublin in the rare auld times."

Among other locations, Danny Doyle has performed at:

  • Carnegie Hall, New York --
  • Kennedy Center, Washington DC --
  • Albert Hall, London --
  • Festival Hall, London --
  • National Concert Hall, Dublin --
  • Sydney Opera House, Sydney --
  • Ecole Musique, Monte Carlo --
  • Mariencanhas Stadium, Rio De Janeiro --
  • Symphony Hall, Brasov, Rumania --
  • Knights of Malta Auditorium, Malta --
  • Symphony Hall, Auckland, NZ --
  • Wolf Trap, Virginia, USA

Contents

[edit] Quotes

"The poetic ballads alone would have assured satisfaction, but Doyle made the performance exhilarating by encouraging participation in the lively numbers." --The Anchorage Times

"An inveterate collector of folk songs, be they traditional or contemporary, familiar or obscure." --The Washington Post

"Doyle is indeed Ireland's finest balladeer. His voice is beautiful, and his accomplished guitar playing never overshadows the lyrics." --The Irish Times, Dublin

[edit] Top singles

  • Step It Out, Mary
  • The Irish Soldier Laddie
  • Whiskey On A Sunday (1967 top single in Ireland October 28 - Dec 9, 1967)
  • The Mucky Kid
  • The Green Hills of Kerry
  • A Daisy A Day
  • The Rare Auld Times

[edit] Albums released include

  • Raised on Songs and Stories
  • The Highwayman
  • Twenty Years A-Growing
  • Collection Vol. 1 (Emerald Encore)
  • Collection Vol. 2
  • Folkmaster's Ensemble
  • Under a Connemara Moon
  • Classic Collection
  • St. Brendan's Fair Isle
  • Emigrant Eyes
  • The Wearing of the Green

[edit] Books

  • The Gold Sun of Freedom (with Terrance Folan)
  • Festival Legends, Songs & Stories (John O'Brien Jr.)

[edit] Film Credits

[edit] Television

  • Doyle's Corner, RTÉ, Ireland
  • Danny Doyle's Other Corner, RTÉ, Ireland
  • Songs For Ireland, UTV, Belfast
  • Pebble Mill At One, BBC, UK
  • Pam Ayres Show, ITV, UK
  • Tommy Cooper Show, ITV, UK

[edit] External links

  • Danny Doyle Home Page: [1]