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Tag Archives: Jazz


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Birth of Radiohead Guitarist Ed O’Brien

ed-obrien-radioheadEdward John O’Brien, English guitarist, member of the alternative rock band Radiohead and grandson of a Tipperary emigrant, is born in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England on April 15, 1968. In 2010, Rolling Stone names him the 59th greatest guitarist of all time. Along with the other members of Radiohead, he is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.

O’Brien grows up listening to post-punk acts such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Adam and the Ants, Depeche Mode, The Police and David Bowie. His earliest guitar influence is Andy Summers of The Police, particularly his use of delay and chorus effects on “Walking on the Moon.” His other influences include Peter Buck of R.E.M., Paul Weller of The Jam, Johnny Marr of The Smiths, John McGeoch of Magazine and Siouxsie and the Banshees, and The Edge of U2. He attends Abingdon School, an independent school for boys, in Oxfordshire, England, where he meets the other members of Radiohead. In 1985, they formed On a Friday, the name referring to the band’s usual rehearsal day in the school’s music room. O’Brien also studies economics at the University of Manchester.

In 1991, On a Friday signs a six-album record contract with EMI and changes their name to Radiohead. They find early success with their 1992 single “Creep“. Their third album, OK Computer (1997), propels them to international fame and is often acclaimed as one of the best albums of all time. O’Brien becomes depressed during the extensive OK Computer tour. After the tour, he returns to Oxford and falls further into depression.

Radiohead’s next albums, Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001), are recorded simultaneously and mark a dramatic change in sound, incorporating influences from electronic music, classical music, jazz and krautrock. O’Brien keeps an online diary of Radiohead’s progress during the recording and initially struggles with the band’s change in direction. At the suggestion of Michael Brook, creator of the Infinite Guitar, he begins using sustain units, which allow guitar notes to be sustained infinitely. He combines these with looping and delay effects to create synthesiser-like sounds. By 2011, Radiohead has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide.

O’Brien releases solo music under the name EOB. His first solo track, the ambient composition “Santa Teresa,” is released on October 4, 2019. His first solo album, Earth, is announced in December 2019 and is due for release in April 2020 on Capitol Records. Recording for Earth begins in late 2017 and ends in early 2019. It is produced by Flood, Catherine Marks, and Adam “Cecil” Bartlett and is mixed by Alan Moulder, with contributions from drummer Omar Hakim, The Invisible members Nathan East and Dave Okumu, folk singer Laura Marling, Portishead guitarist Adrian Utley, Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche and Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood. He begins a North American tour in February 2020.

O’Brien lives in London with his wife, Susan Kobrin, who worked for Amnesty International. The couple have a son, Salvador, born in January 2004, and a daughter, Oona, born in 2006. He is a cricket fan and supports Manchester United Football Club. Around 2000, he gives up alcohol and takes up meditation. In 2011, he and his family move to Brazil and live for a year on a farm near Ubatuba. In 2020, he announces that he believes he has contracted COVID-19 but is recovering in isolation.


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Birth of Barney McKenna, Founding Member of The Dubliners

File source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barney_001.jpgBernard Noël “Banjo Barney” McKenna, Irish musician and a founding member of The Dubliners, is born on December 16, 1939 in Donnycarney, Dublin. He plays the tenor banjo, violin, mandolin, and melodeon. He is most renowned as a banjo player.

McKenna plays the banjo from an early age, initially because he cannot afford to buy the instrument of his choice, a mandolin. He is a member of The Dubliners from 1962 and is the only living member of the original formation at the time of his death. Prior to joining the Dubliners, he spends a few months in The Chieftains. In addition to his work on traditional Irish music, he also plays jazz on occasion.

McKenna uses GDAE tuning on a 19-fret tenor banjo, an octave below fiddle/mandolin and, according to musician Mick Moloney, is single-handedly responsible for making the GDAE-tuned tenor banjo the standard banjo in Irish music.

McKenna remains a great favourite with live audiences, and some of the loudest and most affectionate applause follows the tunes and songs on which he is the featured performer. He is well known for his unaccompanied renditions of songs such as “South Australia” and “I Wish I Had Someone to Love Me.” His banjo solos on tunes such as “The Maid Behind the Bar,” “The High Reel” and “The Mason’s Apron,” where he is usually accompanied by Eamonn Campbell on guitar, are often performed to cries of “C’mon Barney!” from audience or band members. Another featured spot in Dubliners performances is the mandolin duet that he plays with John Sheahan, again with Eamonn Campbell providing guitar accompaniment. As he often points out to the audience, “It’s an Irish duet, so there’s three of us going to play it.”

McKenna’s tendency to relate funny, and often only marginally believable, stories is legendary amongst Dubliners fans and friends. These anecdotes become known as Barneyisms, and his friend and former Dubliners bandmate Jim McCann collects them for the book An Obstacle Confusion: The Wonderful World of Barney McKenna.

McKenna dies unexpectedly on the morning of April 5, 2012 after collapsing in the kitchen of his home in Howth, County Dublin. He is buried at St. Loman’s Cemetery in Trim, County Meath, on April 9, 2012. Initially it is unclear whether The Dubliners will continue their 50th Anniversary Tour in the wake of McKenna’s death. However they soon confirm that they would “do their best to honour all the concert dates for the rest of the year [2012].”


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Birth of Singer-Songwriter Van Morrison

Sir George Ivan Morrison, best known as Van Morrison, Northern Irish singer-songwriter, instrumentalist and producer, is born on August 31, 1945 in Bloomfield, Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is the only child of George Morrison, a shipyard electrician, and Violet Stitt Morrison, who had been a singer and tap dancer in her youth.

Known as “Van the Man,” Morrison starts his professional career when, as a teenager in the late 1950s, he plays a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone for various Irish showbands, covering the popular hits of the time. He rises to prominence in the mid-1960s as the lead vocalist of the Northern Irish R&B band Them, with whom he records the garage band classic “Gloria.” His solo career begins under the pop-hit oriented guidance of Bert Berns with the release of the hit single “Brown Eyed Girl” in 1967. After Berns’ death, Warner Bros. Records buys out his contract and allows him three sessions to record Astral Weeks (1968). Though this album gradually garners high praise, it is initially a poor seller.

Moondance (1970) establishes Morrison as a major artist, and he builds on his reputation throughout the 1970s with a series of acclaimed albums and live performances. He continues to record and tour, producing albums and live performances that sell well and are generally warmly received, sometimes collaborating with other artists, such as Georgie Fame and The Chieftains.

Much of Morrison’s music is structured around the conventions of soul music and R&B, such as the popular singles “Brown Eyed Girl,” “Jackie Wilson Said (I’m in Heaven When You Smile),” “Domino” and “Wild Night.” An equal part of his catalogue consists of lengthy, loosely connected, spiritually-inspired musical journeys that show the influence of Celtic tradition, jazz and stream of consciousness narrative, such as the album Astral Weeks and the lesser-known Veedon Fleece and Common One. The two strains together are sometimes referred to as “Celtic soul.”

Van Morrison has received six Grammy Awards, the 1994 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, and has been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2016, he is knighted for his musical achievements and his services to tourism and charitable causes in Northern Ireland.

(Pictured: Van Morrison performing at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on January 26, 2015 | Image: Getty)