PIERCE TURNER
Whelan’s Main Venue • Sun 17th Nov 2024
The unmissable annual Christmas Pierce Turner performance in Whelans. This is a chance to hear Pierce playing at his favourite venue. By his side, the amazing Donegal man Aongus Mac Amhlaigh, will be on Cello and Vocals.
Pierce Turner was born in Wexford, Ireland. The youngest of six children, his father Jem was a fireman, and his mother Molly had her own danceband and wrote her own songs. Pierce reckons that he became a musician because his mother wrapped the accordion around him when he was in the womb. He went from singing plainsong as a boy soprano to the tin whistle, and saxophone, to playing clarinet in The Holy Family Confraternity Brass and Reed Band. After teaching himself how to play piano, he discovered rock music and began writing his own songs, while working in the family record shop, where he also ran his own photography business. At seventeen, he got itchy feet and auditioned for an English/German soul band.
After playing organ and singing with seminal bands in Ireland and Germany, he set off for New York with his friend Larry Kirwan — “To escape the restrictions of Ireland and self-inflicted restriction.” In New York, Turner and Kirwan of Wexford were embraced by the legendary Pete Seeger, who singled them out as ”the best new sound he’d heard” in an interview with Melody Maker (U.K.). Billboard Magazine deemed their debut “Absolutely and Completely “America’s new and noteworthy album of the week.”
Pierce later flew to London with the backing of the world’s most successful classical composer, Philip Glass, where they clinched a deal for Pierce’s solo career. His first solo album, It’s Only a Long Way Across, was nominated for best debut by the New York Music awards and included the radio hit “Wicklow Hills”. He followed up with what Geoff Wallis called the “Stunning 1989 album, The Sky and the Ground, after which a landmark Wexford bar is now named. Pierce continued to make another fifteen critically acclaimed albums, up to his latest Terrible Good (StorySound, 2023), produced by Gerry Leonard (David Bowie, Rufus Wainwright, Suzanne Vega)
In the mid 90’s, Pierce was voted “Ireland’s solo performer of the year” by a panel of national critics.
Terrible Good –
The Irish Times****- 2/25/22
* “Gestated in a tough, tenacious brew that begins with a bang, and offers no letup throughout…a rugged repast that’s part and parcel of Ireland’s old country attitude”
American Songwriter,
“Easily one of the most important Irish artists of the last twenty years”. The Irish Times
“Later in the evening the Irish man Pierce Turner performed the soaring Yogi With A Broken Heart, accompanied by Philip Glass on keyboard” Jon Pareles New York Times
At the same Carnegie Hall event “Pierce Turner…a cross between David Bowie and Joni Mitchell” Rolling Stone Magazine
CONNECT
Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Youtube
TICKETS
€30 available online from Whelan’s – 50c per ticket service charge applies.
Strictly over 18′s, I.D. may be required