World-travelling street minstrel and poet, Felix Sonnyboy Wilson, comes to Skelly’s, Ballymahon for a free gig this Sunday November 29.
After graduating from high school at aged 17, Felix took his mother’s banjo from the wall and moved to Burlington Vermont, collecting old records and learning a few songs on the five string banjo.
At 19 he landed in Bellingham, Washington, still busking in the streets, and began working at a preschool starting a program he called Interactive American Folk Songs for Children. That summer he went to Europe with a friend, Mr Jones, where busking as a duet, singing gospel and country music, they moved from Paris to Barcelona and on to Florence. Felix then headed north to Ireland, busking from Grafton Street in Dublin to Shop Street in Galway.
After extensive travelling, hiking, and hitch-hiking, Felix returned to Burlington and recorded a solo album Take a Walk Opie. Later that year he went back to Bellingham to form a country rock band called the Muddy Boots band, playing weekly gigs around western Washington. The spring of 2008 brought the debut of two new albums American Folk Songs for Families and the Muddy Boots album entitled How Has It Come To Be?. Since the summer of 2008 he has returned to Europe playing shows at venues around Ireland and continues to busk on Grafton Street with the banjo and kazoo.
Supporting Felix in Skelly’s will be Ciarán O Neill from Cavan. Ciaran is embarking on a tour of Ireland over the next few weeks to test out new material for his forthcoming album, due for release next year. Recorded over two weeks in an old schoolhouse in the West of Ireland, the album comprises 10 very different tracks ranging in style from folk to rock and...country? The album features contributions from a host of local musicians, including Jamie Byrne and Martin Donohoe.
Check out www.myspace.com/felixsonnyboywilson and www.myspace.com/coneillmusic for further information.
