Pierce Turner
| Pierce Turner | |
|---|---|
| Genres | Folk, rock |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, musician, songwriter |
| Instruments | Piano, guitar, saxophone, tin-whistle, vocals |
| Years active | 1970s–present |
| Labels |
Beggars Banquet Sony BMG LoveCat Music |
| Associated acts | Philip Glass |
| Website | www |
Pierce Turner (born 1956) is an Irish singer-songwriter. After forming a duo with Larry Kirwan he went solo in the mid-1980s and has since released several albums to critical acclaim.
Turner grew up in the port town of Wexford, where his mother ran a record shop 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 (now the frontman of Black 47), and recorded several acclaimed 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 companion Larry Kirwan were offered to front a new version of The Ohio Express bubblegum band.
His first solo album, It's Only a Long Way Across (1987), was produced by American avant-garde composer Philip Glass. It was nominated for 'Best Debut Issued by an Independent Record Company' at the New York Music Awards. He went on to make two more albums for Beggars Banquet: The Sky and the Ground (1989) and Now Is Heaven (1991). The latter was released to great critical acclaim, with Hot Press dubbing him "Ireland's greatest living poet", and he was voted 'Irish Solo Performer of the Year' in the Hot Press Awards by a panel drawn from the national media. This album was produced by John Simon. In 1997 the Baltik imprint issued the album Angelic Language, the brainchild of long-time DJ/A&R mastermind Neil Kempfer Stocker. The Irish Times raved over it.
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Wikipedia