At Home and Abroad

Ciaran MacGowan at Folk Alliance international: My mother taught me to write and to sing; as a young girl she had won National competitions for singing in her native tongue, Gaelic. My father taught me to whistle! - and bought me a guitar at age 11. Classical music filled the house every day. Under these influences I began to write songs. I progressed from folk to jazz. I opened for Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, John Martyn, Arlo Guthrie, Janis Ian, Nancy Griffith and so on. . . I write and perform folk, jazz, bossa, blues, all of it original. I like to call it, ‘Irish Soul’. I grew up in the ‘Troubles’ in Belfast. I had been caught in cross-fire, often held at gun-point, been car-jacked occasionally and witnessed murder. I got on a bus to Paris where none of that existed. I fell in love with a photographer. It didn’t last but I learnt photography. My pictures of Belfast were published around the world and from that moment I earned my living in photography. I worked in Los Angeles for Capitol, Sony and Polygram - so strangely I was in the music business, not as a singer, but with a camera around my neck! In time I became a full time College lecturer in San Jose, California teaching photography and video production. Throughout the years I never failed to fly home to Ireland at every opportunity; today photography takes a back-seat and I’m back to music full-time, so I oscillate between family in San Francisco and my heart's true home in Belfast, playing stages on both sides of the Atlantic. My latest CD is 'Irish Soul', a collection of studio work. The last time I made a CD was when opening for Bob Dylan some years ago! A single from that was made ‘Record of the Week’ on National Radio (RTÉ) with television appearances etc. This new CD, ’Irish Soul’, was recorded in Belfast, London, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Notable collaborators include Nick Scott on bass (bassist with Mary Black and Van Morrison’), Julian Littman and Richard Brunton (guitarists with Steeleye Span and Gerry Rafferty Band), Gerry McIlduff (The Pretenders), Steve Cooney (recipient of RTÉ Lifetime Award for contributions to Irish Music). https://ciaranmacgowan.com/home