Andy Irvine (born Andrew Kennedy Irvine on 14 June 1942) is an Irish folk musician, singer-songwriter, and a founding member of a litany of renowned bands: Sweeney's Men; Planxty; Patrick Street; Mozaik; LAPD; and Usher's Island. In recording with many folk artists, he has recordings as Dick Gaughan and Andy Irvine, Andy Irvine & Davy Spillane, Andy Irvine and Luke Plumb, and Andy Irvine & Paul Brady. In line with being one of the best and most important Irish folk musicians of the modern era,...
Andy Irvine (born Andrew Kennedy Irvine on 14 June 1942) is an Irish folk musician, singer-songwriter, and a founding member of a litany of renowned bands: Sweeney's Men; Planxty; Patrick Street; Mozaik; LAPD; and Usher's Island. In recording with many folk artists, he has recordings as Dick Gaughan and Andy Irvine, Andy Irvine & Davy Spillane, Andy Irvine and Luke Plumb, and Andy Irvine & Paul Brady.
In line with being one of the best and most important Irish folk musicians of the modern era, Irvine was a founder of the band Sweeney's Men in the 1960s. He went on to form Planxty along with fellow Irish folk icon Christy Moore. After Planxty's demise came Patrick Street, a less influential but no less virtuosic ensemble that continues to perform and record today, more than 20 years after its founding by Irvine and brilliant fiddler Kevin Burke, who also remains in its ranks. An accomplished bouzouki player and guitarist, with a gorgeous tenor voice, Irvine has a repertoire that mixes Irish traditional songs; beautifully crafted originals such as "My Heart's Tonight In Ireland," a remembrance of his Sweeney's Men days; well-chosen work by other contemporary Irish songwriters; and the odd Americana selection -- from Woody Guthrie in particular.
As a child actor, Irvine honed his performing talent from an early age and learned the classical guitar. He switched to folk music after discovering Woody Guthrie, also adopting the latter's other instruments: harmonica and mandolin. While extending Guthrie's guitar picking technique to the mandolin, he further developed his playing of this instrument—and, later, of the mandola and the bouzouki—into a decorative, harmonic style and embraced the modes and rhythms of Bulgarian folk music.
Along with Johnny Moynihan and Dónal Lunny, Irvine is one of the pioneers who adapted the Greek bouzouki—with a new tuning—into an Irish instrument. He contributed to advancing the design of his instruments in co-operation with English luthier Stefan Sobell and he sometimes plays a hurdy-gurdy made for him in 1972 by Peter Abnett, another English luthier.
In 2015, Irvine launched his latest musical association at Celtic Connections in Glasgow: a band called Usher's Island (a reference to the Dublin quay), with Dónal Lunny (guitar, bouzouki, bodhrán, keyboards), Paddy Glackin (fiddle), Michael McGoldrick (uilleann pipes, flute and whistle), and John Doyle (guitar). Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
