Combine a wee Irish lass with a honeyed crystalline voice, a dynamic multi-instrumentalist and good cheer. What do you get? A whopping great time at the Snoring Sasquatch on Oct. 22!
Come let Mary Murphy’s Irish isle transport you across the Atlantic to a home of traditional, original and contemporary Irish songs. Murphy not only sings lyrics, she transcends them. Her penned originals are steeped in tradition, and one would be hard pressed to decipher the originals from the traditional ones.
The versatile and fiery singer-songwriter born in Dublin, Ireland, and residing in Canada, has built her own musical bridge on which she unequivocally invites all visitors to step across. It may be her gift of melody and lyric that is so attractive, or her rich and seemingly effortless vocal style, or perhaps her enticingly warm Irish nature — but whatever combinations move this woman, they promote and sustain fans from every age group and from every walk of life.
Murphy, the youngest of six children, has lived in Ireland, Canada and the U.S. Having lived in three countries makes for a woman of transcontinental life experiences. This attribute has served Murphy well and has shaped her as a woman that people naturally gravitate to on a personal level. These experiences have also shaped her writing, performing and interpreting style. She is especially adroit at unleashing spine tingling mid-tempo ballads.
A typical performance includes traditional, contemporary and original Irish/Celtic/folk songs as well as songs sung in the Irish language. Murphy’s Irish wit and storytelling also ring clear and proves to be yet another way in which her audiences find themselves feeling personally connected and drawn into her world.
Her producer-guitarist, Paul Keim, brings vibrant rhythmic guitar elements to Murphy’s overall sound both live and in the studio and is the owner/operator of Dove Creek Recording Studios in Courtenay.
Her seventh CD, A Painted Moon, is a bountiful work of art that continues to receive well deserved accolades and includes guest artist/Juno winner David Francey. In 2007, Murphy performed at the Ottawa Folk Music Festival, as well as the Live from the Rock Music Festival in Ontario, where she and her mixed band won best band by audience consensus.
Her newest release, Three Hand Reel, is an absolute showstopper. To quote one reviewer, “Three Hand Reel is infectious with the joy of making music. This release is a pure delight that, in the words of the title cut, ‘you’ll not want to let the music end,’ and you’ll be pressing the repeat button to have it ‘go around again,’ ”
She has written and performed music for film, including McGregor's Lament, which was recorded for a Charlie Sheen film with a 100-piece orchestra in Slovakia.
Her CD Thirty Waves Out won album of the year in an independent music award category. She has been an encore guest of the Chieftains, and has her music aired regularly on stations around the world, including Sheryl MacKay’s North by Northwest on CBC, Fiona Ritchie’s Thistle and Shamrock on NPR, the well loved Adrian Flannelly Show on WKDM New York, Harold Moenkediek's Radio Bremen on NPR Germany and the John O’Regan show on RTE Ireland, just to name a few.
Murphy can also add published novelist to her list of accomplishments with her acclaimed book, The Emerald Diaries — Secrets of an Irish Clan. As one review said, the book is “altogether engrossing. I was immediately transported to the crackling warmth of an Irish hearth fire and to the timeless stories one always finds there.”
Tickets for Murphy’s Oct. 22 show at the Snoring Sasquatch are $12 in advance at Kingfisher Used Books and Black Bear Books, and $15 at the door, which opens at 7 p.m.; the show starts at 8 p.m. The concert is a licensed event.
— CONTRIBUTED