Mary black is back in castlebar for st valentines night show
To coincide with the launch of her autobiography, entitled Down The Crooked Road, Mary Black has announced a date at the Royal Theatre in Castlebar this Saturday - St. Valentine’s night.
This is Mary’s first Irish tour in four years and she is looking forward to getting back to her Irish audiences. She will be joined on stage by her band, featuring Bill Shanley, Pat Crowley, Nick Scott and Richie Buckley.
For the last quarter-century, singer Mary Black has been a dominant presence in Irish music, both at home and abroad. She has shared stages, TV shows and recording studios with some of the most revered performers of her time.
She has also played a frontline role in bringing Irish music, past and present, to an increasingly appreciative and ever-growing global audience. The San Francisco Chronicle has described her as ‘one of the best interpretative singers around’.
Coming from an intensely musical family - with her mother a fine singer and her father an entertaining fiddle player - Mary first came to the music public’s attention in the late ‘70s as a member of the group General Humbert (which played regularly in The Humbert Inn, Castlebar), with whom she recorded and toured.
In 1983 Mary teamed up with guitarist/producer Declan Sinnott (later to become Christy Moore’s musical sidekick) and released her eponymously-named debut solo album. It reached number four in the Irish charts and is ranked among the best Irish albums of the early 1980s. It won her the Irish Independent Arts Award for Music, the first in a staggering sequence of awards that continue to come her way.
The year 2008 marked the 25th anniversary of Mary’s first solo album, and to celebrate the momentous occasion she released a special compilation double album, 25 Years/25 Songs. The album went straight to the top of the Irish charts, where it remained for a staggering five weeks, spending over seven months in the Irish top 40.
In an industry noted for its fickleness and its almost insatiable need for fresh novelties, Mary Black’s enduring successes have proven that her depth of talent and her love of singing transcend the generations, as well as national and musical boundaries too. She is indeed a real Irish treasure and her talent a gift from this small Ireland to a grateful world.
Tickets cost €30 and are available in person from the Royal Theatre box office and Ticketmaster outlets nationwide, by phone on (094) 9023111 or 0818 300 000, or online at www.royaltheatre.ie or www.ticketmaster.ie.