It is hard to believe (as I update this introduction in 2021) that more than 70 years have passed since Ewan MacColl wrote his second best known song, Dirty Old Town. MacColl composed compellingly on many subjects, from the challenges... Read more →
We knew Damien Dempsey was a powerful, gutsy songwriter and song interpreter (see Pete Sixsmith's pieceon his gripping version of Ewan MacColl's Schooldays Over.) We did not know he was also a life-saver. After a show in the Irish town... Read more →
What a heroine and what a tribute. Moonlighting from her band, Rachel Unthank joined another North-eastern artist, Paul Smith, for a short tour, which our Andrew Curry caught at the Bush Theatre in London. The heroine? Linda Thompson, once famously... Read more →
Here's one for the media studies class. How do you get a complimentary piece about a radical leftwing enemy of the capitalist system into a newspaper nicknamed the house journal of the Conservative party? Do you damn with faint praise,... Read more →
On St Patrick’s night, I was privileged to be present (as Gerry Logue's guest) at an excellent and enthusiastically received performance by Three Men and a Dog at the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith, west London. There is more on... Read more →
Salut! Live is immensely grateful to Andrew Curry for his series of outstanding reports from the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow. See all instalments by clicking that link. It has clearly been a tremendous event and Andrew has found some... Read more →
For the fourth part in his superb series looking back at the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow, Andrew Curry considers the important role played by performers whose names and music may be less familiar than the event's headliners …. Herkja:... Read more →
Andrew Curry's retrospective reports from the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow have been much appreciated and widely read. I am glad to say there is more to come after this look at the work of Jim McLean ... THE SONGS... Read more →
