Biography
Born on 20 December 1944 in Glenarm, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, Len Graham is a traditional singer whose powerful voice is matched by an encyclopedic command of Ireland’s indigenous song heritage. His extensive discography has supplied material to numerous prominent performers, among them Altan, Battlefield Band, Boys Of The Lough, Cherish The Ladies, Chieftains, De Dannan, Dick Gaughan, Andy Irvine, Delores Keane and the Voice Squad. Growing up in a musical household, he absorbed both unaccompanied hearth singing and the 78-RPM discs of Delia Murphy and Richard Hayward that played on the family gramophone.
In 1964, at the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Clones, Monaghan, Graham first encountered Cathal McConnell; the two men formed a durable friendship, and when McConnell later joined Boys Of The Lough, Graham frequently appeared with the band. Five years afterward he claimed first prize in the All-Ireland senior traditional singers competition at the Fleadh Cheoil hÉireann held in Listowel, County Kerry.
Graham’s recording career opened in 1975 with the duet album Chaste Muses, Bards & Sages, made with Joe Holmes; their second collaboration, After Dawning, was finished in 1978, only a fortnight before Holmes’s death. Between those projects Graham issued his debut solo album, Wind & Water. Prior to releasing the chart-topping Irish folk set Do Me Justice he contributed to Boys Of The Lough’s 1989 album Regrouped. Following his third solo record, Ye Lovers All, he co-founded the group Skylark in 1986. The ensemble—Graham together with fiddler Gerry O’Connor, multi-instrumentalist Garry O’Briain on mandocello, guitar and keyboards, and, from 1989 onward, button-accordionist Mairtin O’Connor—issued several albums and toured extensively.
Graham also compiled a book-and-cassette collection drawn from his fieldwork among earlier northern Irish singers and musicians, an endeavor that earned him the Sean O’Boyle Cultural Traditions Award. In addition he has recorded an album of children’s songs with his wife, sean-nós singer Pádraigin Ní Uallacháin, and has collaborated with storyteller and singer John Campbell. As Ciarán Carson observed: “By definition, any traditional singer is obliged to the past; but he assimilates the songs in the here-and-now, and re-makes them in his own voice, continually... I have heard Len praised for the ‘spontaneity’ of his voice; but there is no spontaneity without recollection. To be here, you must have been there, and Len has, many times.”
In 1964, at the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Clones, Monaghan, Graham first encountered Cathal McConnell; the two men formed a durable friendship, and when McConnell later joined Boys Of The Lough, Graham frequently appeared with the band. Five years afterward he claimed first prize in the All-Ireland senior traditional singers competition at the Fleadh Cheoil hÉireann held in Listowel, County Kerry.
Graham’s recording career opened in 1975 with the duet album Chaste Muses, Bards & Sages, made with Joe Holmes; their second collaboration, After Dawning, was finished in 1978, only a fortnight before Holmes’s death. Between those projects Graham issued his debut solo album, Wind & Water. Prior to releasing the chart-topping Irish folk set Do Me Justice he contributed to Boys Of The Lough’s 1989 album Regrouped. Following his third solo record, Ye Lovers All, he co-founded the group Skylark in 1986. The ensemble—Graham together with fiddler Gerry O’Connor, multi-instrumentalist Garry O’Briain on mandocello, guitar and keyboards, and, from 1989 onward, button-accordionist Mairtin O’Connor—issued several albums and toured extensively.
Graham also compiled a book-and-cassette collection drawn from his fieldwork among earlier northern Irish singers and musicians, an endeavor that earned him the Sean O’Boyle Cultural Traditions Award. In addition he has recorded an album of children’s songs with his wife, sean-nós singer Pádraigin Ní Uallacháin, and has collaborated with storyteller and singer John Campbell. As Ciarán Carson observed: “By definition, any traditional singer is obliged to the past; but he assimilates the songs in the here-and-now, and re-makes them in his own voice, continually... I have heard Len praised for the ‘spontaneity’ of his voice; but there is no spontaneity without recollection. To be here, you must have been there, and Len has, many times.”
Albums
