By Paddy McCarthy
Here I am introducing you to an entertainer that I have known for a very long time and he is Pierce Turner, who has been performing all over the world and is now heading to New York City to perform on Saint Patrick’s Day at the famous Joe’s Pub.
Turner grew up in the port town of Wexford, where his mother ran a retail outlet that sold recorded music, and led her own band.
A classically trained musician, by the age of seven he was a member of a traditional Irish tin-whistle group, and at eight, he was playing in a brass and reed orchestra.
He also sang in his local church choir, and the influence of hymn and plain-chant singing has been evident throughout his later career.
His first professional job was as a musician with the pop showband The Arrows.
He later moved to New York City and formed The Major Thinkers with fellow Wexfordian Larry Kirwan (former front man of Black 47), and recorded several albums, also performing as Turner and Kirwan.
Turner and Kirwan released two albums – Bootleg and Absolutely and Completely – the latter issued on the Cosmos label as well as a single “Neck and Neck”/”When Starlings Fly” recorded at Electric Lady Studios/New York and issued on the Audio-Fidelity subsidiary label Thimble in 1973.
In 1978, Pierce and Kirwan were asked to front a new version of The Ohio Express bubblegum band.
Now he will be here in the Big Apple New York City for the Saint Patrick’s Day festivities that you cannot miss.
Yes! Irish Singer songwriter Pierce Turner and his band The Terrible Good, to perform at Joes Pub on St Patrick’s Day, when he will premier his new single – a remake of the Irish Hymn “Hail Glorious St Patrick’, featuring a full horn section!
The award-winning Irish musician Pierce Turner is a dynamic live performer and consummate musician, who was voted Ireland’s solo artist of the year.
He has worked on numerous occasions with Philip Glass, including his debut album, for which Mr. Glass wrote string arrangements and produced.
When he performed at Carnegie Hall with headliner Iggy Pop and Patty Smith in 2015, The New York Times and Rolling Stone enthusiastically described it as, “soaring” and “a cross between Joni Mitchell and David Bowie.”
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, 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.
Pierce will debut the song on at Joe’s Pub. He will have a full horn section with him which will rock the house.
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.”
You have to go and see Pierce Turner as he is one of Ireland’s great talents so make sure you book your tickets early as it will be a sell out to hear this unbelievable Ensembles and you won’t be disappointed.
You can get your tickets at publictheater.org/productions/joes-pub/2024/p/pierce-turner