The High Priest of Soul, AL GREEN is one of the greatest singers this century has known. Coinciding with his recent trail of magnificent shows in Dublin, the mercurial Rev granted this exclusive interview to KARL TSIGDINOS.
Pics: Bernard Walsh.
Dublin soul singer James Vincent McMorrow has been invited to support the legendary Al Green on his upcoming Dublin dates, this coming Sunday October 26 and Monday October 27.
He's the original soul brother number one love machine (with respects to the late James and Issac) and he's got the kind of honeyed voice that could charm the knickers off a nun.
Thank god for small mercies. This is not one of those guest-infested albums featuring Rod, Eric et al hatched by some opportunistic label exec in cahoots with a modish producer keeping one eye on the meter and the other on a Grammy. It’s the Reverend Al doing pretty much as he’s always done.
From the ashes of BAWL, a new band, FIXED STARS, has arisen. And they re even better. Frontman MARK CULLEN tells GEORGE BYRNE about posing in bordellos, singing songs about wife-beating at the BBC Radio One Roadshow, and how he got to write a song with Al Green!
From Blonde Bob to Big Star to Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billie, the smartest of avant standard-bearers always knew the value of going south. Cat Power (Chan Marshall to the IRS) is the latest: for this record she’s decamped to Memphis’ Ardent studios, an erstwhile Stax second base, and hired a bunch of Al Green alumni in order to salt her fairest airs with old-timers’ licks.
Damien Dempsey is a soul singer in the truest sense of the word. OK so he's no Al Green, but the 23-year-old from Donaghmede is incapable of being anything other than honest and giving anything less than 100% every time he opens his mouth to sing.
Having been widely mooted as one of Ireland’s most promising young artists, Laura Izibor delivered the goods earlier this year with her debut album, Let The Truth Be Told, a sparkling collection of R&B and hip-hop tunes. Critically well-received, it also performed well commercially, hitting the number two spot here, and – perhaps even more impressively – charting in the US top 30.
Video interview: Tim Burgess and Mark Collins of THE CHARLATANS tell us about their latest album, Wonderland, and about how having a singer that lives 5000 miles away in L.A. helps to focus the band's energies. Well, it would, wouldn't it
When not touring with Republic Of Loose, Mick pyro is free to kick back in his basement pad in a 1960s Swedish-style Terenure house, where he indulges his love of CDs, books and movies – and ponders the aesthetic similarities between Shakespeare and hip hop.
Now in its second year, Cork Live At The Marquee is one of the highlights of the Irish music calendar. Here, Hot Press presents a complete preview of what's in store for music fans in the southern capital - and looks at the great legacy of Cork music.
Having survived classical and punk obsessions, not to mention an Adam Ant gig when she was 14, Joan Wasser may have finally found her true self in the role of Joan As Policewoman.
29% | 22 Nov 2009
Tim Burgess and Mark Collins of The Charalatans chat to Stuart Clark about the new album Wonderland, and how having a singer that lives 5000 miles away in L.A. helps the band to focus
On the eve of an Irish tour to coincide with the latest single release 'You're So Pretty, We're So Pretty, the show The Ambassador, Dublin on February 13th , with tickets for shows in The Ambassador on 14th and Belfast's Waterfront Hall on 15th in increasingly short supply
Also forthcoming is 'Songs From the Other Side,' an album of Charlatans' B-sides, dating from 1990 - 1997, which will be released in the U.S. on May 7th, and in Europe on May 20th.
Cornershop have re-opened for business with a little help from Noel Gallagher and none at all from the BBC. Stuart Clark finds Tjinder Singh is less than miffed
He rose up through the techno ranks, but the only thing that Jamie Lidell has going for him is his voice. On Multiply, he makes token nods to his experimental techno roots, but only his vocals really matter.
When blues legend B.B. King came to town for his recent bash at College Green, as part of the Guinness Blues Festival, BILL GRAHAM caught up with the man whose extraordinary career has spanned many decades and which shows no sign of abating.
Pix: CATHAL DAWSON.
And why is young America going overboard about over-weight, over-30 jazzers? john walshe forgoes the pleasures of Dublin versus Kildare to pop across the Atlantic and investigate one of the most unlikely success stories of recent years.
They've got the songs, the attitude and the neatest line in Oxfam chic since The Smiths but when will Pulp be famous? Niall Crumlish delves into the seedy twilight world of Sheffield's new sex gods.
The Stunning's new EP, Deja Voodoo, features cover versions of Beatles, Byrds, Dylan and Captain Beefheart tracks. But what about the more intriguing and embarrassing records that lurk within Steve Wall's collection? Olaf Tyaransen investigates and unearths a few surprises like The Goons, BBC sound effects albums, and ...Barry White?!
Ted Hawkins, in Dublin recently to play a never-to-be-forgotten gig in Whelan’s, talks about his journey down the long and winding road which led him from an early, joyless life of petty crime and racial discrimination to his belated fame as one of the most respected of contemporary blues men. Interview: Gerry McGovern.
We are going to spare you all the obvious puns about going back to basics, catching this particular fish in the raw or even the irrefutable truism that fins ain t what they used to be. But as you can see from the accompanying pictures, there is something particularly vulnerable about people when they re naked. Dropped by Atlantic Records, stripped of all the corporate support, funding, and of course bullshit this is how An Emotional Fish stand before the public, on the launch of their independently-produced Sloper album. Not that either the band or lead singer are without the support of people who matter. Ger is photographed with his wife Lorraine . . . Interview: Colm O Hare.
We are going to spare you all the obvious puns about going back to basics, catching this particular fish in the raw or even the irrefutable truism that fins ain’t what they used to be. But as you can see from the accompanying pictures, there is something particularly vulnerable about people when they're naked. Dropped by Atlantic Records, stripped of all the corporate support, funding, and of course bullshit, – this is how An Emotional Fish stand before the public, on the launch of their independently-produced Sloper album. Not that either the band or lead singer are without the support of people who matter. Ger is photographed with his wife Lorraine . . . Interview: COLM O’HARE. Pix: MICK QUINN.
JASON PIERCE of SPIRITUALIZED comes on down to talk about mythology versus reality, art versus autobiography and the economy inherent in a cast of hundreds.
Interview: PETER MURPHY
IN THE FIRST PART OF A WORLD EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW IN THE LAST ISSUE OF HOT PRESS, BONO UNVEILED THE NEW U2 ALBUM, SPOKE ABOUT ITS GENESIS IN CYBERPUNK LITERATURE AND THE BAND'S HUNGER TO PUSH ROCK'N'ROLL TO ITS LIMITS. HERE HE ELABORATES ON HOW U2 GO ABOUT WRITING THEIR SONGS AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF GLOBAL CHAOS, HIS ARTISTIC REFERENCE POINTS OUTSIDE MUSIC, THE SUBVERSIVE POWER OF HUMOUR, AND HOW HE ADMIRES THOSE WHO 'PARTICULARLY AGGRESSIVELY' DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD. AND THEN THERE'S THE STORY ABOUT JOHNNY CASH AND THE EMU. CAN THIS MAN BE FOR SURREAL? INTERVIEW:JOE JACKSON.
Don’t go, they said. but they didn’t follow their own advice. Now, after much professional and personal upheaval, the Hothouse Flowers are back, once more in love with the idea of “ringin’ the bell”.
Though he was busking in Grafton Street at 14, it s taken Glen Hansard more than a few shakes of the lamb s tail to reach the plateau of success which his songwriting talents have, for so long, threatened to take him but after the colossal success of Revelate , The Frames are, finally, set fair to enjoy their day in the sun. Here, Glen and guitarist, Dave Odlum, put Niall Crumlish in the picture.
Though he was busking in Grafton Street at 14, it s taken Glen Hansard more than a few shakes of the lamb s tail to reach the plateau of success which his songwriting talents have, for so long, threatened to take him but after the colossal success of Revelate , The Frames are, finally, set fair to enjoy their day in the sun. Here, Glen and guitarist, Dave Odlum, put Niall Crumlish in the picture.
John Walshe had a ringside seat for all the music, speeches, laughs and tears that made the 2002 hotpress Irish Music Awards in Belfast a night to remember.
When the offer came to produce the new Rolling Stones album in Dublin what answer could Don Was give but a resounding ‘Yes’. Mick, Keef & Co. are the latest in a long and impressive list of the man’s studio credits which includes Bob Dylan, The B-52’s, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt and Paula Abdu. But throw in the small matter of the career of Was (Not Was) and the musical rehabilitation of errant Beach Boys’ genius Brian Wilson and we’re talking major industry player here. Bill Graham takes up the story . . .
A purveyor of classic sweet soul of the old school, Hall looked set to follow in the footsteps of Seal as the saviour of UK Soul following the release of his debut Medicine 4 My Pain.
Judging by the ecstatic cheering that accompanied him off stage when he finished, it won’t be too long before James Morrison is back. Most likely with a hit album to promote.
Still in the deathlike grip of their own top pedigree legacy (it's impossible to reference De La Soul without some mention of the still-mighty 3 Feet High And Rising), Bionix is the sound of three men flailing around and trying to escape their own history.
It’s a classic story, the once great but now slightly washed up band turning to the new kids on the block to give them a shot in the arm, hoping to recapture past glories and boost a flagging career. Then there was the time that Aerosmith made a record with Run DMC…
They go in search of the holy grail and come back laden with embroidered bell bottoms, cowboy boots and Nudie suits – tourists bedazzled by the gimcrack knick-knacks in Beale Street souvenir shops.
For what it’s worth, this writer was never convinced by Joss Stone. Folk eulogised about old soul in a young body, but I always thought she was playing dress-up, in R&B clothes that didn’t fit yet.
There is no question about it. He may look as if he's been dipped in a bottle of red ink but it is Adam who stands there bollock naked before the camera and the world on the back sleeve of the latest, long playing opus from the band whose name begins with U and ends with 2. And is that Eve who hovers topless behind Bono on the front?
When we last left U2, at the conclusion of 1997’s Pop, they were marooned on a spaghetti Golgotha, shouting, “Wake up dead man!” at a god who had apparently reneged on his promise to live forever. Well pilgrims, here’s the resurrection shuffle.
Olaf Tyaransen reports from the Birthday JD set in Lynchburg, Tennesse, which featured performances from such acts as Hugh Cornwell, Roisin Murphy and Ash's Tim Wheeler.
