Search Results for 'Bill Monroe'

ONE EVENING in 1951, in the Massachusetts town of Dedham, a young Irish-American teenager happened to tune in to the local radio station as a country band called The Confederate Mountaineers were playing.

A bluegrass music legend from the US is set to perform at the Ballina Arts Centre this February.

The Galway Sessions music festival swings into gear next week and one of the definite highlights is the appearance by bona-fide bluegrass great Curtis Blackwell, one-time sidekick of Bill Monroe and, with his band The Dixie Bluegrass Boys, one of the most popular acts on the US bluegrass scene for over 40 years.

THE GALWAY Sessions festival, a celebration of the music of Ireland, Scotland, and America, and the historical, cultural, and ethnic links between the three nations, returns next month.

SPECIAL CONSENSUS are a bluegrass band, but one with a difference. Instead of coming from the music’s heartland of the Southern US States, they come from Chicago.

“I DON’T think of our band as a folk band - many of the other members would disagree with me - I think we’re a punk rock band,” O’Death bassist Jesse Newman, tells me over the phone from New York. “We know how to have a good time on stage and off.”

The festival is named in memory of Irish musician Johnny Keenan, who died in 2000.

“I DON’T think of our band as a folk band. I think we’re a punk rock band. We know how to have a good time on stage and off,” so declares O’Death bassist Jesse Newman.

The words “Italian” and “He plays a mean guitar” don’t go hand in hand naturally. After all how many Italian guitar wizards can you think of?