To warm up a dark winter evening Westport Folk and Bluegrass Festival presents legendary Cork musician John Spillane for a one-off concert in Westport.
Celebrating 33 years in music and launching his new album, The Man Who Came In From The Dark, Spillane will play in the 200-year-old Westport House farm buildings at Gracy’s Loft on Saturday December 13.
He will be ably supported by award-winning harper-composer and singer Úna Ní Fhlannagáin from Galway, who played on Spillane’s album and featured with him on TG4, and local singer, songwriter, and stalwart of the Clew Bay Folk Club, Derek McLoughlin.
Spillane is celebrating 33 years since the fateful day he left a full-time, permanent, and pensionable job as a bank official to become a full-time professional musician.
Over the intervening three decades, he has sold more than 100,000 albums, won two Meteor Irish Music Awards, played with musical luminaries such as Jimmy McCarthy, Baaba Maal and Christy Moore, and performed all over the world from Austria to Australia, Canada to China, Spain to Senegal.
His latest release – his 10th studio album – builds on last year’s hugely popular album Life in an Irish Town, which centred on songs from the TG4 series Spillane an Fánaí (Spillane The Wanderer ).
The Man Who Came In From The Dark includes songs from this year’s season of the show, which again saw him travelling around Ireland, writing songs about towns, rivers, legends, and people.
Tickets for the concert, which starts at 8.30pm, cost €15 or €12 for the unwaged and are available at www.westportfolkandbluegrass.com or on the door on the night.
