Black 47

Black 47 took its name from 1847, the bleakest year of Ireland’s potato famine, and formed as a New York ensemble of Irish expatriates under the direction of songwriter and playwright Larry Kirwan. Alongside Kirwan, who handled vocals and guitar, the lineup featured Chris Byrne on uilleann pipes, tin whistle, and vocals; Fred Parcells on trombone, tin whistle, and vocals; Jeff Blythe on saxophone; Thomas Hamlin on percussion; and David Conrad on bass. The group fused traditional Celtic folk with rock & roll, rap, and reggae, all shaped by Kirwan’s singular songwriting and stage presence. During a long-running engagement at Manhattan’s Paddy Reilly’s pub, the band issued its self-titled debut on the independent BLK imprint in 1992, then secured a deal with SBK/EMI that yielded a five-track EP, likewise titled Black 47, in November of that year and the widely praised full-length Fire of Freedom the following March. Extensive touring occupied 1993 and 1994, after which Home of the Brave appeared in October 1994; although it earned favorable notices, the album failed to register with buyers. Green Suede Shoes, released on Mercury in 1996, likewise met with neither critical nor commercial traction. Trouble in the Land arrived in early 2000, after which Byrne departed to devote himself to the Celtic folk outfit Seanchai. The remaining members carried on, documenting a 2001 concert on the live album On Fire and issuing New York Town in 2004. In 2005 they released Elvis Murphy’s Green Suede Shoes as a counterpart to Kirwan’s memoir Green Suede Shoes: An Irish-American Odyssey. The politically charged Iraq followed in 2008, succeeded by Bankers and Gangsters in early 2010.