Please bear with us as we’re still working on several parts of the site
Terrible Good – the current album available now on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and streaming services
PIERCE TURNER – NEW SINGLE
‘HAIL GLORIOUS ST. PATRICK’ on StorySound Records – stream it here
“Easily one of the most important Irish artists of the last twenty years”. The Irish Times
Throughout a career spanning many decades, Irish singer songwriter, Pierce Turner, has produced a number of critically acclaimed albums. Critics have described him as a creator of music that is both “complex and accessible” as well as a “consummate lyricist.” His storytelling skills and his ability to create vignettes both delicate and profound round out his formidable creative arsenal. These gifts have been enriched by his way of life which sees him living roughly equal parts of each year in New York and his native Ireland. A man of two worlds, a man of music and a man of words, Turner combines his many experiences and talents to produce albums that are both idiosyncratic and beguiling.
Turner has been a musician and a performer since his childhood days when he sang in the church choir and played in the Confraternity Brass and Reed Band of his home town of Wexford. Echoes of the sacred music he encountered during these years, including Gregorian chant, and of Irish traditional music, are occasionally heard in his compositions and performances.
Based on a hymn that was first published in 1853, with words attributed to Sister Agnes, of the Convent of Charleville, County Cork, Turner has re-worked his version of the beloved anthem “Hail Glorious St. Patrick”. St Patrick becomes the protagonist in a plea for planet sanity and mocks the new norm of lying barefaced. For the lyrics, Turner kept the chorus and second verse, and rewrote the rest updating the song for the 21st century, for a world where “a new kind of evil has blinded our minds.” A world that now even more desperately needs the patron saint to “Look down with your love.” In essence, Pierce Turner turns the 19th Century Hymn in to a rock anthem for the times.
Of the music Turner says, “It is credited as being “ancient”—an apt description, as the melody is as familiar as your mother’s scent – it slips on like an old woolen winter coat, there is no avant-garde challenge. But it is like a beautiful river, you know where it’s going, and it goes there beautifully.”
Larry Kirwan musician and host of ‘Celtic Crush’ on SiriusXM says, “Pierce Turner is an Irish national treasure. So, what better man to reimagine Hail Glorious St. Patrick. This is a track for the ages. But don’t just take it out for the big day – it will sound great on the other 364 too. I’ll be playing it.”
“Hail Glorious St. Patrick” is out on StorySound Records and you can stream it here
MEDIA CONTACT: Anita Daly/ Daly Communications/ 917 751 7539/ anitadaly@yahoo.com