From: eamon@netcom.com (Charles E Taggart)
Subject: Re: Who are these guys?
Summary: A bit about the brilliant Ron Kavana
Keywords: Alias Ron Kavana
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 04:39:29 GMT

In article <1993Jan11.144223.6522@desire.wright.edu> 
ctodd@desire.wright.edu writes:
>Excuse my ignorance but can anyone enlighten me as to the history and/or
>musical affiliations of Ron Kavana and Terry Woods?

Ron Kavana is without a doubt one of my favourite artists!

He's Irish, from Cork, is a singer, songwriter, guitarist, bouzouki-ist, and
leads a band called Alias Ron Kavana.  They're based in London these days,
and have two albums out on the Chiswick label in Britain:  THINK LIKE A
HERO and COMING DAYS.

The Irish traditional influence is very strong in his playing, but Alias
RK absorbs influences from African to blues, and African musicians have
played with him and the band on his records.

He's also partially responsible for another album called FOR THE CHILDREN,
put together by L.I.L.T. (London Live Irish Trust), which is a voluntary
group of London based musicians, artists, poets, actors, etc., formed in
1985 to work for peace in the north of Ireland.  Among the musicians are
Kavana and members of his band and Shane MacGowan, Spider Stacy and Terry
Woods from the Pogues.

Kavana's most recent album is called HOME FIRE, which is out on Special
Delivery in Ireland and Britain, and was recently released in the States
on Green Linnet.  It's all acoustic, and it's fiery, passionate and spirited.
The premise behind the album was this:  Kavana felt that while much great
music was being made and recorded in Ireland of late, much of it felt, to
him, to be a bit sterile, perhaps owing to the overproduction that many of
Ireland's technically excellent recording studios lent themselves to.  He
wanted to recapture the spirit and spontanaiety of many Irish bands of the
seventies, like Planxty and the Bothies.  So he gathered many musicians
(including Terry Woods, Tomas Lynch,  Kevin Rowsome [grandson of Leo] and
Rod Stradling), some of whom had never played together before, and worked
out the tunes and his original songs with little or no rehearsal.  And it
was recorded live, no overdubs, all on acoustic instruments.  Powerful and
wonderful stuff.

_Folk Roots_ magazine in Britain has given him pretty extensive coverage,
and I believe he was voted Artist of the Year in '91.  But I've been
continually astonished an my trips to Ireland as to how little attention
he seems to get over there.  Can any Irish residents of the newsgroup
enlighten me about this?

I believe Terry Woods is covered in another article, but his work with the
Pogues and with the seminal Irish band Sweeney's Men (along with Andy
Irvine and Johnny Moynihan, both of whom were later in Planxty) was
very important in the "renaissance" of Irish music in the '60s and '70s. 

(BTW, you should all buy all of the aforementioned albums!)

Chuck
-- 
 C. E. Taggart / eamon@netcom.com / eamont@well.sf.ca.us / GEnie:  C.TAGGART
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