About Mary Black
Mary Black’s distinguished career has spanned over 25 years, from her early days in Dublin folk clubs through to her astonishing success and status as a true icon of Irish music today. To date, she has had 7 platinum-selling solo albums, one of which, No Frontiers, spent fifty-six weeks in the Irish Top 30. Needless to say, Mary is a seminal figure in Irish musical history, and one of the artists responsible for its recent global popularity.
Mary released her eponymous first solo album in 1983. It reached No.4 in the Irish charts and is ranked among the best Irish albums of the early 1980’s. It won her the Irish Independent Arts Award for Music, the first in a staggering list of Music Awards that she has received over the years.’ After a successful period working with traditional band ‘De Dannan’, she reunited with producer / guitarist Declan Sinnott to record her second solo album ” Without the Fanfare” in 1985. This established what has become a Mary Black trademark – her ability to discover some of Ireland’s finest contemporary song-writing talent and through her remarkable voice project the songs onto a world stage. The San Francisco Chronicle later called her “one of the best interpretative singers around”.
In 2005 Mary and her band started work in West Kerry recording new material – songs from, Noel Brazil, Sandy Denny, Bob Dylan, Shane Howard and Mary herself. The fruits of their labour, an album entitled ‘Full Tide’, were released in Ireland in 2005, Mary’s first studio album in 6 years and the last new material we have heard from her since.
