CONCERT FOR APPALACHIA
Featuring
Rhiannon Giddens and Niwel Tsumbu • Mary Coughlan • I Draw Slow • Loah • Enda Scahill and Simon Crehan • Erin Fornoff
All funds go to mutual aid org Beloved Asheville leading Hurricane Helene recovery
Whelan’s Main Venue • Mon 16th December 2024
On 16 December Ireland is offering support for the Appalachian mountain region destroyed by Hurricane Helene with a night of music and poetry benefitting Beloved Asheville, a mutual aid social justice charity leading recovery efforts and creating housing for thousands of people displaced by the raging flood waters and landslides.
This event is led by Grammy, Pulitzer Prize, and MacArthur Genius Grant winner Rhiannon Giddens, who recently featured on Beyonce’s ‘Texas Hold ‘Em.’ Based in Limerick, Giddens is a visionary musician who co-founded the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and is a two-time GRAMMY winner, with eight additional nominations for her work as a soloist and collaborator. She will be performing with Ireland-renowned Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu.
Other contributing artists include Irish soul vocal royalty Mary Coughlan; I Draw Slow, a Dublin-based group sitting squarely at the intersection of Irish and Appalachian music; Enda Scahill, four-time All-Ireland Champion in banjo with Simon Crehan Loah, creator and queen of ‘Art Soul’ music which blends West African, soul, and Irish traditional music, and Erin Fornoff, Appalachian Irish poet.
Rhiannon Giddens
Acclaimed folk musician Rhiannon Giddens uses her art to excavate the past and reveal bold truths about our present. A MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and 2023 Pulitzer Prize winner, Giddens co-founded the GRAMMY Award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, and is now a two-time GRAMMY winner, with eight additional nominations for her work as a soloist and collaborator. Her newest album, You’re the One, is her third solo studio album and her first of all original songs. This collection of music written over the course of Giddens’ career bursts with life-affirming energy, drawing from the folk music that she knows so deeply, as well as its pop descendants. Featuring some of Giddens’ closest musical collaborators from the past decade including multi-instrumentalists Francesco Turrisi and Dirk Powell, bassist Jason Sypher, Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu, and drummer Attis Clopton, You’re the One captures the inclusive spirit that channels through all of her work. She also featured on Beyonce’s ‘Texas Hold ‘Em.’
“I hope that people just hear American music,” says Giddens. “Blues, jazz, Cajun, country, gospel, and rock—it’s all there. I like to be where it meets organically. They’re fun songs, and I wanted them to have as much of a chance as they could to reach people who might dig them but don’t know anything about what I do. If they’re introduced to me through this record, they might go listen to other music I’ve made and make some new discoveries.”
“Is there anything Rhiannon Giddens can’t sing?…[she] sings with inflections that bridge mountains and deserts.”— The New York Times
“The electrifying singer and banjo player gives fresh voice to old American traditions.”— Smithsonian Magazine
“For nearly a decade, Giddens has been heralded as a luminary in the world of Americana, and for some time, she was one of the few African-American faces represented.”— American Songwriter
Mary Coughlan
Mary Coughlan is arguably the greatest female singer to have emerged from Ireland in recent times, the equivalent of Irish vocal royalty. The word ‘legend’ is not one to be used lightly, but in this case is entirely appropriate. Whether into folk, blues or jazz, no one can fail to be moved by the emotional depth, expression & power in her voice, forged from an extraordinary life.
Born in Galway in 1956, Mary has battled and overcome childhood trauma, near-death from alcoholism and drug addiction. After hitting rock-bottom and extensive periods in psychiatric hospitals and rehab centres, she literally pulled herself out of the dregs of a vodka bottle to confront the foundations of her problems head-on and sort out her life, and has been sober since 1993. Since her first album ‘Tired and Emotional’ rocketed her to overnight fame in 1985, she has recorded 15 further solo albums, most recently the searing song cycle ‘Scars on the Calendar’ with Erik Visser. Throughout 30 years of her quite extraordinary life and recording career Mary has drawn heavily from her legendary heroes: the grievous, teary outpourings of Billie Holiday (to whom she devoted a double album of her songs), the husky flirtations of Peggy Lee, Van Morrison’s soulful wails, the defiant chanteusery of Edith Piaf. All are present and correct in her delivery. Even so, Mary, with her naked honesty makes every song her own; they belong to her and nobody else.
I Draw Slow
I Draw Slow is one of the most unique bands on the Americana scene. Fronted by brother/sister songwriting team Dave Holden (guitar/vocals) and Louise Holden (vocals), this Dublin, Ireland-based group sits squarely at the crossroads of Irish and Appalachian music and has received critical praise for an original sound that bridges the gap between traditional Irish and American roots music. With the release of their new album, I Draw Slow further cements their reputation as one of the most interesting groups on the Americana/roots scene. Coaxing the past into the present, they have created a very personal sonic tapestry that has drawn fans on both sides of the pond and earned them slots on some of the most important festival stages across North America including MerleFest, Edmonton Folk Festival, Rocky Grass and Wintergrass. With the expansive musical platform of their newest release as a launching point, the possibilities for where I Draw Slow’s musical journey will take them next is limitless.
Enda Scahill
Enda Scahill is a four-time All Ireland Champion banjo player from Corofin, Co. Galway. He began playing music at the tender age of six, and has shown an unbridled enthusiasm for it ever since. He has guested with The Chieftains, recorded with Grammy winner Ricky Skaggs, toured with Frankie Gavin and Stockton’s Wing, was an original member for 10 years of Instrumental Band of the Decade The Brock McGuire Band and is a founding member of Billboard #1 mega band We Banjo 3.
LOAH
Loah is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist of half-Irish, half-Sierra Leonean extraction. Across her solo career she has released 3 EPs of a hypermodern fusion genre she nicknamed “ArtSoul”.
Loah’s music spans a wide berth of great loves which include Irish folk music and literature, West African rhythms and guitar, the singer-songwriter balladeer tradition, US soul music and modern production, all woven with regular nods to her Kildare childhood playing fiddle and violin in Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann and Youth Orchestras.
Being raised across Kildare and West Africa, Loah seeks to authentically marry all that she is with all that inspires her. “This Heart” (2017), “Sweet Sorrow”(2020) with Bantum and When I Rise Up (2021 – a work of 1920s poems she set to music) were all released to critical acclaim.
She is currently in the final stages of her debut album. Loah have co-written and performed with such artists as Hozier, the Wainwrights, Lisa Hannigan, Narolane, Kormac, Crash Ensemble, Paul Brady, Cassandra Wilson, the Wainwrights and Bas.
TICKETS
€27.50 available online from Whelan’s – 50c per ticket service charge applies.
Strictly over 18′s, I.D. may be required
AFTER THE GIG
Whelan’s Silent Disco from 10:30pm – 2 DJs, just pick the one you like best (€5 cover charge), plus Late Bar