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Barry Kinane Announces Details of Second Album

September 24, 2018

While in rock band Glyder, Barry Kinane toured all over Europe and opened for international acts like Metallica and Slash while releasing two albums with European rock label SPV/Steamhammer/Sony BMG.  Kinane’s interest in local history and original music were married together as he continued writing after Glyder split in 2010. A turn in musical direction saw Kinane winning the prestigious Sean McCarthy Ballad writing competition in Listowel, Co. Kerry in 2014.  This was followed up with release of ‘The Hills above the Valley’ in 2015, a collection of musical stories of his home village Ballyknockan, Co. Wicklow which was acclaimed in Irish music magazine.

“Kinane has a rare gift of taking the stories of life and relatively recent history to weave magical musical tales that are like short stories of the highest quality…” Nicky Rossiter – Irish music magazine

The music of ‘The Old Grey Cobblestone’ was performed on May 26th 2018 at the Pearse Lyons Distillery, St. James’ Street when Barry Kinane was selected to be part of the International Literature Festival Dublin. The album is themed around Dublin history and folklore. Kinane’s father’s family lived and worked in that area of Dublin city while Kinane worked there as a tour guide there for two years. Each song is a story, like Peg Plunkett the 18th century high society madam in ‘The Ballad of Peg Plunkett’, famous street characters like Thomas Dudley aka ‘Bang Bang’ in ‘The Day Bang Bang Lost His Gun’, the famous street poet Michael Moran aka Zozimus in ‘The Blind Bard Of The Liberties’, and relatively unknown tales of Dublin in ‘The ‘Sack Em Up’ Sexton Of St. James” and many more fascinating stories told in song and poetry.

The album features Paul Kelly on fiddle and mandolin and a guest appearance of one of Ireland’s greatest songwriters, John Spillane on guitar.  The album was produced by Kinane and Willie Headon at Poppyhill Studios, Naas Co. Kildare and recorded in April 2018. The cover art is by Beatrice O’Connell.

The album will be available on all digital platforms from October 31st

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