Storybook - The Songs of Brendan Graham
It’s been nearly three decades since I first met songwriter Brendan Graham. Brendan asked me to record some demos of newly composed songs associated with his first novel - The Whitest Flower.
Up until that point I never really gave much thought to the songwriting process having sung mostly traditional songs where the author was unknown.
This collaboration, however, was to become one of the most important in my career. It became a mentorship and masterclass in songwriting, as well as a cherished friendship, for many years.
Over the years, myself and pianist Feargal Murray recorded dozens of first time demos and in the process. Brendan taught me about the significance of each word and syllable and their importance within the lines of a song. His patience and attention to detail have always been an inspiration to me. It has been an honour to be the first to give voice to Brendan’s newly penned gems.
This album has been inspired by those demos myself and Feargal made over the years. It forms a link between the old tradition, which I’ve long been part of, and more modern ‘folk tradition’. It is my hope that these songs will be the traditional songs of the future. That they will form part of the deep well of songs that give us a window into our past on subjects such as love, loss, leaving, elemental things, shifting seasons and desires, and country, emigration, and blessings.
Mention You Raise Me Up or the songs Rock ‘n Roll Kids and The Voice and most people will know the artists who have recorded them. Less so, that they were all written by the same songwriter, Mayo-based, Brendan Graham.
Described as ‘touched by genius’ by Con Houlihan in the Evening Herald; ‘Musical Midas’ by The Irish Times and as One of the most in demand songwriters in the world’ by Hot Press, Graham’s songs have been performed across the world from Olympic Games to the Nobel Peace Prize, at the opening of the Northern Ireland Assembly, for the Queen’s 90th Birthday, as a lullaby for the arrival of Prince George and at this last year’s National Famine Commemoration Day. His songs have been recorded by Aretha Franklin, Opera’s Sumi Jo, Liam Neeson with the Chieftains, Westlife, ANUNA, Sean & Dolores Keane.
His association with Cathy Jordan goes back some 30 years, and with musician Feargal Murray almost as far, working together on most of the first demos of his songs, just with voice and piano. The trio came together to record Story Book, an album of Graham’s songs, with some special musical guests.
Jordan has forsaken the hits and dug into Graham’s more intimate body of work – Sleepsong, a lullaby to the songwriter’s twenty-one year old daughter, written the night before she left for Australia; the heart-wrenching Crucán na bPáiste, a burial ground for un-baptised children near Graham’s home in the Maamtrasna mountains; the enchanting mini-balletic Waltzing Alone, a love song set in the high Norwegian snows; tender The Fairhaired Boy, a song of emigration; and Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears, the story of Annie Moore, a song first demoed by Jordan in the mid-1900’s.
The album provides an unique insight into the reflective development of a songwriter’s journey through life. Graham’s songs are expressed with insight in the soulful vocal readings by Cathy Jordan supported by Feargal Murray’s sensitive piano, both sublimely carrying out the songwriter’s wish ‘to let the song speak’.