Andy Irvine (musician)
Andrew Kennedy Irvine (born 14 June 1942) is an Irish folk musician, singer-songwriter, and a founding member of Sweeney's Men, Planxty, Patrick Street, Mozaik, LAPD and Usher's Island. He also featured in duos, with Dónal Lunny, Paul Brady, Mick Hanly, Dick Gaughan, Rens van der Zalm, and Luke Plumb. Irvine plays the mandolin, mandola, bouzouki, harmonica, and hurdy-gurdy.
Andy Irvine
Andrew Kennedy Irvine
14 June 1942
St John's Wood, London, England
Musician, singer-songwriter
1962–present
He has been influential in folk music for over six decades, during which he recorded a large repertoire of songs and tunes he assembled from books, old recordings and folk-song collectors rooted in the Irish, English, Scottish, Eastern European, Australian and American old-time and folk traditions.
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,[1]: 20 he further developed his playing of this instrument—and, later, of the mandola and the bouzouki—into a decorative, harmonic style,[2]: 38 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,[3] and he sometimes plays a hurdy-gurdy made for him in 1972 by Peter Abnett, another English luthier.[4]: 119, 170
Although touring mainly as a soloist, Irvine has also enjoyed great success in pursuing collaborations through many projects that have influenced contemporary folk music. He continues to tour and has performed extensively in Ireland, Great Britain, Europe, North and South America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.[5] In October 2018, he received the first Lifetime Achievement Award bestowed at RTÉ Radio 1's inaugural Folk Music Awards.
Influences[edit]
Music[edit]
Irvine loved music from the earliest time he could remember. His mother had a stack of old, cracked 78s that he used to play on a wind-up gramophone. "They were mainly songs from long forgotten musical comedies but I wish I had them now."[4]: 36 [16] At thirteen, he studied classical guitar for two years,[16] initially with Julian Bream and later under one of Bream's pupils[4]: 36 but switched to folk music after discovering Woody Guthrie during the Skiffle boom of the 1950s.[4]: 39
Guthrie was to become an enduring influence on his music, on his choice of additional instruments (mandolin and harmonica) and general outlook on life.[4]: 38–40 In a 1985 interview, Irvine expanded on how, in the mid-1950s, he discovered Woody Guthrie through Lonnie Donegan's recordings on the EPs Backstairs Session[16][37]: 37 [38] and Skiffle Session:[16][39]