The second release by singer/songwriter and musician Martin Leahy is ‘The Wolves In The Valley’. It is a co-write with the great songwriter Mary Greene who is part of the very successful folk group Greenshine. The song is about addiction, metal health struggle and trauma.
In December of 2020 Martin released his debut single as a singer songwriter called ’Song for Kirsty MacColl’. It received great local and national airplay and featured on all of the biggest music shows on RTÉ Radio One (Lillian Smith, Ronan Collins, John Creedon etc) It was very well received in many areas which included coverage on RTÉ Online, Hot Press as well as been shared on many large social media pages.
In the short time since releasing his debut single Martin’s songwriting has been receiving lots of attention. A song of his has reached the final stages of the International Songwriting Competition in the US. It is in the final 16 in the lyrics category out of an overall number of 26,000 entries. The entries that reach the final 16 in their categories are put before the celebrity judges that include Tom Waits, Coldplay and Dua Lipa! The winners are to be announced in May 2021.
Martin has worked as a session musician with some of Irelands greatest songwriters and musicians in the past including John Spillane, Christy Moore (on his No.1 selling album ‘Listen’), Cormac O Caoimh, Ger Wolfe, Jimmy McCarthy, Greenshine, Noel Brazil, Declan Sinnott among many others.
An accomplished multi instrumentalist, he has produced many albums including the most recent very successful album by Cormac O Caoimh called ‘Swim Crawl Walk Run’ which was awarded album of the week by many radio stations including RTE Radio One, RTE Lyric and BBC Radio Ulster. He also produced Ger Wolfe’s well received album ‘I Have Been Loved’. Other productions include Leah Sohotra, Some Rise Some Fall, John Neville and Tim O Riordan.As a member of the traditional Irish group North Cregg he has toured the world playing many major festivals including Glastonbury, Cambridge and Milwaukee. As a songwriter he has collaborated with a number of writers including Leah Sohotra, Mary Greene and more recently with Cormac O Caoimh on his successful single ‘Building My Ark’ which received substantial airplay around the country reaching over 1 million listeners nationwide!
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