Biography
Born Margaret Boyle on 24 December 1956 in Battersea, London, England, the singer and multi-instrumentalist passed away on 6 November 2014. Raised within London’s Irish community amid a traditional Irish household, she received her earliest instruction in singing and instrumental performance from her father, Paddy Boyle, born in County Donegal, Ireland, with additional guidance from County Monaghan vocalist Oliver Mulligan. Her public debut occurred at age eleven, when she began appearing at Irish clubs and concerts; soon afterward she joined siblings Paul on fiddle and Kevin on banjo and guitar to perform as the Boyle Family. Professional engagements commenced in 1984 when she served as onstage vocalist and musician for the Ballet Rambert production Sgt. Early’s Dream, a folk ballet in which her husband Steve Tilston also participated. Once the company ended its run around 1986, the couple shifted their focus to folk-club work. The following year Run River Records issued Reaching Out, an album that featured a reading of Robin Williamson’s “October Song” alongside traditional and contemporary selections and included contributions from both brothers as well as Bert Jansch; the recording earned favorable notices throughout the folk press. At roughly the same period, John Renbourn invited Boyle and Tilston to join flautist, piper, and reed player Tony Roberts in the ensemble Ship Of Fools; the group toured the United States, Italy, and England before releasing an album under its own name. Boyle next composed and arranged the score for the Gothenburg Ballet’s In The Eye Of The Storm, a work drawn from Jennifer Johnston’s novel Fool’s Sanctuary and choreographed by Eileen Jones, which received its premiere in Gothenburg in 1990. In May 1991 she revisited Sgt. Early’s Dream alongside the Chieftains in Cincinnati, Ohio. Together with Lynda Hardcastle, formerly of the Mountain Ash Band, on vocals and recorder, and Helen Hockenhull on vocals, keyboards, and lap organ, she established the trio Grace Notes, whose repertoire embraced both contemporary and traditional material; the group’s debut album appeared in 1993. Boyle maintained an active partnership with Tilston, issuing All Under The Sun in 1996. She succumbed to cancer at the age of fifty-seven.
Albums
