Legendary Irish accordion maestro Sharon Shannon brings a new live show to Milton Keynes in May, as part of a UK tour.
Joined by her band, Jim Murray acoustic guitar, Jack Maher electric guitar, vocals and Sean Regan, fiddle, percussion and beatbox, Sharon will perform music from her many albums throughout the years, including 2017’s Sacred Earth.
The button accordion player from Co. Clare has recorded and toured with a who's who of the Irish and Global Music Industry, including Bono, Adam Clayton, Sinead O’Connor, Jackson Browne, John Prine, Steve Earle, The RTE Concert Orchestra, The Chieftains, The Waterboys, Willie Nelson, Nigel Kennedy, Alison Krauss and Shane MacGowan.
Her 12 studio albums to date have all been very different and ground-breaking mixing traditional Irish with reggae, country, Native American, bluegrass, rap, dance, African, French Canadian.
The genre-defying star has had multi-platinum album sales and has had several number one albums, singles and DVDs in her home country.
Her album Galway Girl went 4 times platinum in Ireland with the title track winning her the Meteor award two years running for the most downloaded song.
Sharon grew up in a rural community and was part of a family that all play musical instruments and traditional Irish music. However, her career took a massive upward trajectory when in the late 80s she was asked to joined the seminal rock band The Waterboys. Her first show with that band, to an audience of 50,000 on main stage at perhaps the most well-known music festival on earth: Glastonbury.
Her subsequent debut album was released worldwide and was to become the biggest selling record by a traditional artiste in Ireland. She has entertained US Presidents Clinton at the White House and Obama in Dublin and Irish Presidents Robinson and MacAleese on presidential visits to Poland and Australia respectively.
She recently accompanied Irish president Michael D. Higgins on his official tour of China.
In March 2017, Sharon released her 10th studio album Sacred Earth. A ground-breaking album mixing Irish music with African and blues and features celebrated African Musicians Abass Dodoo and Seckou Keita as well as special guests including Finbar Furey and Alyra Rose.
Sacred Earth was inspired by a visit to New Mexico in early 2015, where Sharon performed with Native American musicians Arvel Bird and Steve Rushingwind.
Sharon was the first non-Native American artiste to perform at Acoma Pueblo, outside of Albuquerque. The Indian peoples’ philosophy had a profound effect on Sharon and she reconnected with Justin Adams (producer and guitarist with Robert Plant) who has worked closely with many African musicians over the years, to co-produce Sacred Earth.
A vegetarian for many years, Sharon recently adopted the vegan diet and is passionate about animal welfare, giving much of her spare time to this cause. Sharon is also an Ambassador to Missionvale Ireland, an agency based in South Africa which helps combat poverty and homelessness in that region.
To book tickets for the Stables show on May 7 click here
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