Loudest Whisper
Encyclopedia
Loudest Whisper are an Irish folk rock
/progressive folk
group formed in the early 1970s and led by songwriter and guitarist Brian O'Reilly. They are best known for their 1974 debut album, The Children of Lir
, a folk opera based on the Irish legend of the same name
. The original LP
release of the album became one of the most sought after records in Ireland, and ranks among the top 100 rarest records in the world.
Loudest Whisper made several albums and over a dozen singles
. The group became dormant in the mid-1980s, but reformed in the mid-1990s with a revival of The Children of Lir. They released a new album in 2004.
, Ireland
in the early 1960s as The Wizards, a cover band
consisting of Brian O'Reilly (guitar, vocals), Michael Clancey (guitar, vocals), John Aherne (bass guitar, vocals) and Jimmy Cotter (drums, vocals). The Wizards played Beatles
, Hollies
and Spencer Davis songs, before progressing into "heavier blues territory" when Jimi Hendrix
and Cream
appeared. In the early 1970s, the band changed their name to "Loudest Whisper", chosen to reflect both sides of their music, "the folky and the heavy". Soon after, several personnel changes took place: Cotter left, and Brendan Nelgian (vocals), Ron Kavanagh (guitar, vocals) and Brian O'Reilly's brother Paud O'Reilly (drums) joined.
Brian O'Reilly was also a songwriter, influenced by American folk-rock groups like The Lovin' Spoonful
and The Mamas & the Papas
, but in the early 1970s he began exploring Irish folklore
. O'Reilly was particularly interested in the Children of Lir
, and in 1972 he composed a Celtic musical based on the Irish legend. The Children of Lir developed into a stage production
, and it premiered in Fermoy on 7 January 1973, with Kavanagh performing in the lead role. The musical generated "a lot of regional attention" and Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTÉ
recorded a ten-minute feature, which it aired on prime time
. This exposure resulted in the production moving to other cities, and the Irish division of Polydor Records
signing a record deal with Loudest Whisper. Early in 1974 the group recorded their debut album, The Children of Lir
, a studio adaption of the musical with producer Leo O'Kelly
from Tír na nÓg
. The album was, however, rejected by Polydor in the UK and ended up being released in Ireland only in a limited edition of about 500 copies.
Kavanagh left Loudest Whisper during the recording of The Children of Lir, and Nelgian left after the album was released. O'Reilly then wrote a second musical, Perseus, based on the Greek legend
. For the stage production singer Geraldine Dorgan performed in the main role, and later joined Loudest Whisper as singer/guitarist. She also sang in O'Reilly's third musical, The Maiden of Sorrow in 1975. A live performance of The Maiden of Sorrow was recorded in 1975, but not released until 1995 on CD. Loudest Whisper recorded a number of singles
for Polydor Ireland during the mid- and late-1970s, but it was not until 1980 that the label released their second album, Loudest Whisper (later reissued on CD as Loudest Whisper 2), which consisted of some of their singles and new material. Unhappy with Polydor's lack of support, O'Reilly built his own recording studio in Fermoy in 1979 called Fiona. In 1982 the band recorded their third album, Hard Times at Fiona Studio with the addition of a new vocalist, Bernadette Bowes.
In 1985 Dorgan and Bowes left the band, and towards the end of the 1980s, Loudest Whisper began to dissolve. O'Reilly continued to write musicals, and staged Buskin in Fermoy and Cork
, which received "rave reviews". When Riverdance
made its appearance in 1994, and proved very successful, Brian O'Reilly decided to restage The Children of Lir, this time with a more "folky and Celtic veneer". It was also recorded and released in 1994 as The Children of Lir, credited to Brian O'Reilly and Donovan
. The original 1974 The Children of Lir recording was released in the UK for the first time by Kissing Spell on CD in 1994. In 2008 Sunbeam Records released Magic Carpet, a six-CD box set that included all the group's albums, singles and some of their early demos. The original 1974 LP release of The Children of Lir has become one of the most sought after records in Ireland, and ranks among the top 100 rarest records in the world.
Since the mid-1990s, Loudest Whisper have been performing on and off with different musicians, including as a trio of Brian O'Reilly (guitar, keyboards, vocals), his brother Paud (drums, backing vocals) and Brian's son, Oran (double bass). In 2004 the group released a new album, Our World on Fiona Records.
(1974, LP, Polydor Records
, Ireland) Loudest Whisper (1980, LP, Polydor Records, Ireland) – reissued on CD in 1995 as Loudest Whisper 2 Hard Times (1983, LP, Fiona Records, Ireland) The Collection (1995, CD, Fiona Records, Ireland) – a compilation album sponsored by Clonakilty Blackpudding Co. Maiden of Sorrow (1995, CD, Kissing Spell, UK) – live album recorded in 1975 Our World (2004, CD, Fiona Records, Ireland)
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
/progressive folk
Progressive folk music
Progressive folk or prog folk was originally a type of American folk music that pursued a progressive political agenda, but in the United Kingdom the term became attached to a sub-genre that rejects or de-emphasizes the conventions of traditional folk music and encourages stylistic or thematic...
group formed in the early 1970s and led by songwriter and guitarist Brian O'Reilly. They are best known for their 1974 debut album, The Children of Lir
The Children of Lir (Loudest Whisper album)
The Children of Lir is the debut album by Irish folk rock/progressive folk group Loudest Whisper. It is the studio adaption of the musical of the same name that was performed in Fermoy, Ireland in 1973...
, a folk opera based on the Irish legend of the same name
Children of Lir
The Children of Lir is an Irish legend. The original Irish title is Clann Lir or Leannaí Lir, but Lir is the genitive case of Lear. Lir is more often used as the name of the character in English...
. The original LP
LP record
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
release of the album became one of the most sought after records in Ireland, and ranks among the top 100 rarest records in the world.
Loudest Whisper made several albums and over a dozen singles
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
. The group became dormant in the mid-1980s, but reformed in the mid-1990s with a revival of The Children of Lir. They released a new album in 2004.
History
Loudest Whisper began in FermoyFermoy
Fermoy is a town in County Cork, Ireland. It is situated on the River Blackwater in the south of Ireland. Its population is some 5,800 inhabitants, environs included ....
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
in the early 1960s as The Wizards, a cover band
Cover band
A cover band , is a band that plays mostly or exclusively cover songs. New or unknown bands often find the cover band format marketable for smaller gigs, and these bands may be known as a wedding band, party band and function band. A band whose covers consist mainly of songs that were chart hits is...
consisting of Brian O'Reilly (guitar, vocals), Michael Clancey (guitar, vocals), John Aherne (bass guitar, vocals) and Jimmy Cotter (drums, vocals). The Wizards played Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, Hollies
The Hollies
The Hollies are an English pop and rock group, formed in Manchester in the early 1960s, though most of the band members are from throughout East Lancashire. Known for their distinctive vocal harmony style, they became one of the leading British groups of the 1960s and 1970s...
and Spencer Davis songs, before progressing into "heavier blues territory" when Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
and Cream
Cream (band)
Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup consisting of bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, guitarist/vocalist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker...
appeared. In the early 1970s, the band changed their name to "Loudest Whisper", chosen to reflect both sides of their music, "the folky and the heavy". Soon after, several personnel changes took place: Cotter left, and Brendan Nelgian (vocals), Ron Kavanagh (guitar, vocals) and Brian O'Reilly's brother Paud O'Reilly (drums) joined.
Brian O'Reilly was also a songwriter, influenced by American folk-rock groups like The Lovin' Spoonful
The Lovin' Spoonful
The Lovin' Spoonful is an American pop rock band of the 1960s, named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. When asked about his band, leader John Sebastian said it sounded like a combination of "Mississippi John Hurt and Chuck Berry," prompting his friend, Fritz Richmond, to suggest the name...
and The Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas were a Canadian/American vocal group of the 1960s . The group recorded and performed from 1965 to 1968 with a short reunion in 1971, releasing five albums and 11 Top 40 hit singles...
, but in the early 1970s he began exploring Irish folklore
Irish mythology
The mythology of pre-Christian Ireland did not entirely survive the conversion to Christianity, but much of it was preserved, shorn of its religious meanings, in medieval Irish literature, which represents the most extensive and best preserved of all the branch and the Historical Cycle. There are...
. O'Reilly was particularly interested in the Children of Lir
Children of Lir
The Children of Lir is an Irish legend. The original Irish title is Clann Lir or Leannaí Lir, but Lir is the genitive case of Lear. Lir is more often used as the name of the character in English...
, and in 1972 he composed a Celtic musical based on the Irish legend. The Children of Lir developed into a stage production
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
, and it premiered in Fermoy on 7 January 1973, with Kavanagh performing in the lead role. The musical generated "a lot of regional attention" and Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTÉ
Raidió Teilifís Éireann
Raidió Teilifís Éireann is a semi-state company and the public service broadcaster of Ireland. It both produces programmes and broadcasts them on television, radio and the Internet. The radio service began on January 1, 1926, while regular television broadcasts began on December 31, 1961, making...
recorded a ten-minute feature, which it aired on prime time
Prime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
. This exposure resulted in the production moving to other cities, and the Irish division of Polydor Records
Polydor Records
Polydor is a record label owned by Universal Music Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom.-Beginnings:Polydor was originally an independent branch of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. Its name was first used as an export label in 1924, the British and German branches of the Gramophone...
signing a record deal with Loudest Whisper. Early in 1974 the group recorded their debut album, The Children of Lir
The Children of Lir (Loudest Whisper album)
The Children of Lir is the debut album by Irish folk rock/progressive folk group Loudest Whisper. It is the studio adaption of the musical of the same name that was performed in Fermoy, Ireland in 1973...
, a studio adaption of the musical with producer Leo O'Kelly
Leo O'Kelly
Leo O'Kelly is an Irish singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer. He is mainly known as a member of the Irish folk duet Tír na nÓg....
from Tír na nÓg
Tír na nÓg (band)
Tír na nÓg are an Irish folk band formed in Dublin, Ireland, in 1969 by Leo O'Kelly and Sonny Condell. They are often considered as one of the first progressive folk bands with other artists like Nick Drake or group like Pentangle...
. The album was, however, rejected by Polydor in the UK and ended up being released in Ireland only in a limited edition of about 500 copies.
Kavanagh left Loudest Whisper during the recording of The Children of Lir, and Nelgian left after the album was released. O'Reilly then wrote a second musical, Perseus, based on the Greek legend
Perseus
Perseus ,Perseos and Perseas are not used in English. the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Perseid dynasty of Danaans there, was the first of the mythic heroes of Greek mythology whose exploits in defeating various archaic monsters provided the founding myths of the Twelve Olympians...
. For the stage production singer Geraldine Dorgan performed in the main role, and later joined Loudest Whisper as singer/guitarist. She also sang in O'Reilly's third musical, The Maiden of Sorrow in 1975. A live performance of The Maiden of Sorrow was recorded in 1975, but not released until 1995 on CD. Loudest Whisper recorded a number of singles
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
for Polydor Ireland during the mid- and late-1970s, but it was not until 1980 that the label released their second album, Loudest Whisper (later reissued on CD as Loudest Whisper 2), which consisted of some of their singles and new material. Unhappy with Polydor's lack of support, O'Reilly built his own recording studio in Fermoy in 1979 called Fiona. In 1982 the band recorded their third album, Hard Times at Fiona Studio with the addition of a new vocalist, Bernadette Bowes.
In 1985 Dorgan and Bowes left the band, and towards the end of the 1980s, Loudest Whisper began to dissolve. O'Reilly continued to write musicals, and staged Buskin in Fermoy and Cork
Cork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
, which received "rave reviews". When Riverdance
Riverdance
Riverdance is a theatrical show consisting of traditional Irish stepdancing, notable for its rapid leg movements while body and arms are kept largely stationary. It originated as an interval performance during the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest, a moment that is still considered a significant...
made its appearance in 1994, and proved very successful, Brian O'Reilly decided to restage The Children of Lir, this time with a more "folky and Celtic veneer". It was also recorded and released in 1994 as The Children of Lir, credited to Brian O'Reilly and Donovan
Donovan
Donovan Donovan Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music...
. The original 1974 The Children of Lir recording was released in the UK for the first time by Kissing Spell on CD in 1994. In 2008 Sunbeam Records released Magic Carpet, a six-CD box set that included all the group's albums, singles and some of their early demos. The original 1974 LP release of The Children of Lir has become one of the most sought after records in Ireland, and ranks among the top 100 rarest records in the world.
Since the mid-1990s, Loudest Whisper have been performing on and off with different musicians, including as a trio of Brian O'Reilly (guitar, keyboards, vocals), his brother Paud (drums, backing vocals) and Brian's son, Oran (double bass). In 2004 the group released a new album, Our World on Fiona Records.
Albums
The Children of Lir (Loudest Whisper album)
The Children of Lir is the debut album by Irish folk rock/progressive folk group Loudest Whisper. It is the studio adaption of the musical of the same name that was performed in Fermoy, Ireland in 1973...
(1974, LP, Polydor Records
Polydor Records
Polydor is a record label owned by Universal Music Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom.-Beginnings:Polydor was originally an independent branch of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. Its name was first used as an export label in 1924, the British and German branches of the Gramophone...
, Ireland) Loudest Whisper (1980, LP, Polydor Records, Ireland) – reissued on CD in 1995 as Loudest Whisper 2 Hard Times (1983, LP, Fiona Records, Ireland) The Collection (1995, CD, Fiona Records, Ireland) – a compilation album sponsored by Clonakilty Blackpudding Co. Maiden of Sorrow (1995, CD, Kissing Spell, UK) – live album recorded in 1975 Our World (2004, CD, Fiona Records, Ireland)
Singles
- "William B" / "False Prophets" (1974, 7" vinyl, Polydor RecordsPolydor RecordsPolydor is a record label owned by Universal Music Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom.-Beginnings:Polydor was originally an independent branch of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. Its name was first used as an export label in 1924, the British and German branches of the Gramophone...
, Ireland) - "Come Back Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff" / "Wrong or Right" (1976, 7" vinyl, Polydor Records, Ireland)
- "You and I" / "Lord Have Mercy" (1976, 7" vinyl, Polydor Records, Ireland)
- "Rock 'n' Roll Child" / "Pied Piper" (1977, 7" vinyl, Polydor Records, Ireland)
- "You and I" / "Satisfaction" (1979, 7" vinyl, Polydor Records, Ireland)
- "Magic Carpet" / "Tangerine" (1979, 7" vinyl, Polydor Records, Ireland)
- "Name of the Game (Parts 1 & 2)" (1980, 7" vinyl, Polydor Records, Ireland)
- "Home" / "Wheel of Fortune" (1980, 7" vinyl, Polydor Records, Ireland)
- "William B"/"Fiona" (1981, 7" vinyl, Polydor Records, Ireland)
- "Loudmouth" / "Hemlop's Hammer" (1981, 7" vinyl, Polydor Records, Ireland)
- "Guitar Man" / "In the Dark" (1983, 7" vinyl, Polydor Records, Ireland)
- "Oh Lord Above" / "Poete de la Nature" (1983, 7" vinyl, Fiona Records, Ireland)
- "Marianne" / "505" (1983, 7" vinyl, Fiona Records, Ireland)
- "Hey Marian" / "Daffodil" (1984, 7" vinyl, Fiona Records, Ireland)
- "Old Devil Blues" / "Man Hunter" (1985, 7" vinyl, Ritz Records, UK) – from the musical Buskin by Brian O'Reilly
- "Johnny (Where Are You Now)" / "Old Devil Blues" (1986, 7" vinyl, Fiona Records, Ireland)
- "Who's Gonna Rock You" / "Petuina" (1986, 7" vinyl, Fiona Records, Ireland)
- "Mean Man" / "Beat of the Drum" (1989, 7" vinyl, Fiona Records, Ireland)