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This is an example of one of the websites programmed by Janice Wiegley. This was John's first website, his current website is being maintained by another company and can be found at http://www.johnwhelan.com |
Although John Whelan grew up near London in Dunstable, England, he was raised on the fiddle and pipe music of Ireland. Dunstable had a large Irish community, and his father, Denis, was from Ireland's County Wexford. "Ours was a very traditional household," John says. "My father didn't have any major vices - his only addiction was to Irish music." Denis carried a reel-to-reel tape recorder to many shows, collecting hours of live music. Songs of home elicited sentimental tears even when the words were not in English. "It was not the words but the emotion of the music that moved me," John says.
At age 14, already a seasoned winner of numerous accordion championships, John recorded his first album. Named in honor of his father, PRIDE OF WEXFORD was no passing fancy - the album is still in print and selling steadily.
John's artistry blossomed in America. He moved to the U.S. in 1980 and soon was performing with Riverdance fiddler Eileen Ivers (who also performed with Hall and Oates) in one of the most celebrated Irish duos of the decade. His solo album FROM THE HEART became a 1991 finalist in the Celtic/British Isles category of the National Association of Independent Record Distributors and Manufacturers (NAIRD) awards. In New York John befriended Irish guitarist and kindred spirit Pat Kilbride, and they formed the popular trad-based rock group Kips Bay Ceili Band.
Meanwhile, John's name was turning up on Narada compilation recordings such as CELTIC ODYSSEY (1993) and CELTIC LEGACY (1995), two of Narada's best-selling releases. In 1996 he signed with Narada and released his first solo album on the label, CELTIC REFLECTIONS. His next release, CELTIC CROSSROADS - featuring American country singing star Kathy Mattea and Nashville stalwarts Tim O'Brien and Jerry Douglas as well as such Celtic luminaries as singer Mary McLaughlin, multi-instrumentalist Seamus Egan, and fiddler Johnny Cunningham - spent more than two months in the top 10 of Billboard's world music charts.
The Whelan musical purview continued to expand with his 1998 album FLIRTING WITH THE EDGE, a world-flavored mix of such diverse artists as Samite on kalimba and vocals, Latin guitarist Oscar Lopez, Celtic songstress Connie Dover, and a dramatic vocal by longtime Whelan fan and friend Bernadette Peters.
The John Whelan Band enjoyed a milestone year in 1998, thrilling audiences at such major American music events as the Philadelphia Folk Festival and Washington Irish Folk Festival, as well as throughout Europe on a junket sponsored by Virgin Records, Narada's parent label. Going solo, John appeared in the critically acclaimed "Once Upon an Accordion" North American tour. Additionally, he worked on or appeared in three major motion pictures to be released in 1999: Ride With the Devil, directed by Ang Lee (Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm); The Drowning Plains, based on a David Johnson story; and an untitled documentary by Johnson featuring concert footage of John performing in Connecticut and Missouri.
Named Traditionalist of the Year by Irish Echo magazine, John won high praise from Celtic music authority Earle Hitchner: "As an instrumentalist, composer, producer, and arranger who brings both passion and playfulness to his music while respecting the tradition that it's rooted in, John Whelan has richly earned the Irish Echo's highest honor for traditional music in 1998."
John's latest album for Narada, COME TO DANCE, serves notice to genre purists that the seven-time All Ireland accordion champion is as instrumentally agile as ever. It also reveals his innate understanding of a centuries-old repertoire.
"This is me doing my thing - straight-ahead music, solid rhythm, and very little embellishment. the idea was not to showboat - not that I would, anyway - but to let the traditional melodies express themselves through the dance."
The album was recorded live in his hometown church, St. Gabriel's, in Milford, Connecticut. John says, "There were no fixes, no second chances, no overdubs - everything is as live as it can be. Sometimes I would check the tracks by dancing to them. If the rhythm is there, if the feel is there, people are going to enjoy the dance.
"It's not that you wouldn't play these tunes without somebody dancing, but you have to play them right for that dance to happen. If you played them differently the steps wouldn't be right. You can play Sweets of May anytime you want, but it has to be played a certain way for the dance to tell its story."
"Many of these tunes have a personal significance to me. The Concert Reel is a tune I played for my first All-Ireland championship, and Father O'Flynn is the first tune I ever learned to play. When you're that young and you're struggling to learn this music, you don't have a full appreciation of the compositions. Now 28 or 29 years later, I have a different outlook on what these tunes mean, what they represent to Irish music. They're beautiful melodies - that's why they're still around."
While assuring loyal fans that his Celtic allegiances remain firm, John continues to bring them new music as well. "If you open you ears and your mind you can appreciate my music for what it is, not what kind of music it is. When you see lots of different groups enjoying it, you begin to see a bigger picture. I like to work both sides of the street, to appear at traditional festivals and play music that a larger audience can enjoy.
"All these things - my childhood memories, my father's love of music , the way I can relate to an audience, the different styles I incorporate - are why I love to perform."