Mick Flannery

Mick Flannery (born 28 November 1983) is an Irish singer and songwriter. His debut album Evening Train resulted from his time spent studying music and management at Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa in Cork. It featured tracks which had previously won Flannery two categories at the International Songwriting Competition in Nashville, Tennessee. He was the first Irish musician to win in this event. In 2019 this album premiered as a musical by the same name. Flannery's second studio album White Lies was released on 12 September 2008, achieving a top ten position on the Irish Albums Chart. It later went platinum and was nominated for the Choice Music Prize. The Irish Times placed him at number forty-six in a list of "The 50 Best Irish Acts Right Now" published in April 2009. Also that year Flannery won Best Irish Male at the 2009 Meteor Awards. Influences include Kurt Cobain, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. Flannery grew up outside Blarney, County Cork. Coming from a family with a keen musical interest, Flannery was introduced to folk and blues music at a young age. My mother's side were big into music, more than my dad's side. My mother is a singer and she plays the guitar. She recorded an album of her own actually two years ago. And it was her brothers and sisters that kind of got me into music. [...] At those family nights there was a good bit of Tom Waits, a bit of Dylan. Most of the singers would be female, my aunts, and they would sing Tracy Chapman and Joni Mitchell. Flannery cites an encounter with the music of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana as a direct influence on his desire to become a musician. Seeing Cobain perform "The Man Who Sold the World" on MTV Unplugged he promptly purchased a copy of MTV Unplugged in New York. He soon bought the album Blonde on Blonde as well. Flannery claims to have written his first song at the age of fifteen. His first completed song was called "Mad Man's Road", a tale of a murder which took place on the road in which he lived. He has been dismissive of his earlier material, referring to it as "tripe". However, he is keen to express his fondness for stonemasonry and its position alongside his music: "I wasn't going to sit in a room and write songs seven days a week and live on bread and beans. I liked doing stonemasonry as well". He still does it on an occasional basis: "We wouldn’t be carving gravestones or anything. We’d do the fronts of houses, entrance walls, stuff like that". While undergoing a music and management course at Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa in Cork, Flannery commenced writing the album that would become Evening Train, an eleven-track concept album about the exploits of two brothers. His original intention had been to write a musical but this endeavour proved unsuccessful. Before its release Flannery and a friend who worked alongside him in the stonemasonry business embarked on a three-month trip to the United States, living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Flannery spent his time performing in New York. His sister was present for one of the months and assisted him with organising his performances. Evening Train was received positively by critics in Ireland and the United States. Reviewers noted its "astute and sophisticated lyrics", its "strong, imaginative melodies", its Tom Waits sound. The RTÉ Guide later said, "His voice was like Tom Waits meets the howling of a grizzled freight train hobo". entertainment.ie reviewer Lauren Murphy described it as "an album dripping with maturity, poise and potential" and that "the most astounding thing" was his age of 21 years. Flannery signed with EMI Records in 2007. That same year he was the subject of a programme called Mytunes, broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 on 29 November. He performed on RTÉ Two's Other Voices television programme in 2008. This appearance led to increased interest in Flannery's music in Ireland. In June 2019, as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival, The Everyman and Rosa Productions presented the world premiere of Evening Train, a new musical inspired by Mick Flannery's acclaimed concept album of the same name. Flannery’s album, written from different character perspectives, suggests the main figures: two divided brothers, Frank and Luther, and a spirited, forlorn young woman, Grace, all dreaming of some form of escape from dusty realities and unpromising futures in a small town of gamblers and strivers. Playwright Rani Sarma developed this theme into a love triangle saddled with questions of debt and fate, where parents are either haunting absences or demanding presences, and a younger generation stews in fragile promises and ruinous addiction. Gambling being a focus of the musical, the game of bluffs and tells, requires working out characters within a strict economy of expression. The cast of Irish actors consisted of Charlie Bonner, Brian Doherty, Deirdre Donnelly, Ger Kelly, Ian Lloyd Anderson, John McCarthy, Kate Stanley Brennan, with a live band accompanying them consisting of Mick himself. Flannery's second studio album White Lies was released on 12 September 2008, achieving a top ten position on the Irish Albums Chart and later going platinum in Ireland. On the day of the album's release Flannery performed "Tomorrow's Papers" on The Late Late Show. The song contributed to the increasing popularity of the singer-songwriter. entertainment.ie's Lauren Murphy said: "White Lies may not be a perfect album, but it's certainly a promising step forward for a real talent". RTÉ reviewer Harry Guerin commented: "If you're adamant that Ireland may sink with another singer-songwriter on tour, then this is a record to seek out; you won't notice the time passing and the nation will remain afloat". Flannery began a tour of Ireland after the release of White Lies. He performed a duet of "Christmas Past" with Lisa Hannigan in December 2008 after Today FM's Tony Fenton paired them together for a radio show broadcast from a rooftop. He joined Hannigan at a show in Vicar Street to perform the same duet that month. "Tomorrow's Paper" was translated into the Irish language for a CD titled Ceol '09, an annual compilation released by Seachtain na Gaeilge. The Irish version was recorded in forty minutes at a studio in Dublin's Merrion Square. Flannery performed a cover version of "The River" on The Ray D'Arcy Show's Discover Ireland Feel Good Tour stopover in Carlingford and Cooley Peninsula in March 2009. A deluxe edition of White Lies, which featured a duet of the song "Christmas Past" with Kate Walsh, was released in 2009. Flannery's largest headlining performance in Dublin at this stage occurred at Vicar Street on 25 May 2009. He performed alongside John Spillane at Live at the Marquee in Cork on 9 July 2009. Flannery said being asked to perform there was "daunting [...] In many ways I have drifted into this career and still have to pinch myself regularly to make sure I am not imagining it all". He also performed at the Bloom Festival as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of The Rose of Tralee in 2009. He made an appearance on the Crawdaddy Stage at Electric Picnic 2009. On 31 December 2009, he performed a date at the Cork Opera House as part of celebrations marking the end of the decade. He has sold out several other venues around Ireland and has also toured the UK. Flannery released his third studio album, Red to Blue, on 30 March 2012. It spent three weeks at number one in the Irish Albums Chart and singles "Gone Forever" and "No Way To Live" enjoyed a lot of airplay. His song Up The Hill was covered by Shawn Colvin and Emmylou Harris. The Red to Blue tour was a major success for Flannery, featuring sold-out shows all over Ireland, most notably the Olympia Theatre in Dublin, one of Flannery's biggest venues to date. The tour finished with two sold-out shows at the Róisín Dubh in Galway. By The Rule Flannery's fourth album reached number one in the Irish Album Charts. The fifth instalment from Mick Flannery was released on 14 October 2016. The album is described as having