MARY BLACK Sat 14th Feb, 2015 | Doors 7pm. Show 8pm | Tkts: €30.00

To coincide with the launch of her autobiography “Down the Crooked Road”, Mary Black is delighted to announce a date at The Royal Theatre, Castlebar on St Valentine’s Night 14th February 2015.

This is Mary’s first Irish tour in four years and she is looking forward to getting back to her Irish audiences. Mary will be joined on stage by her band - Bill Shanley, Pat Crowley, Nick Scott and Richie Buckley.

For the last quarter-century, singer Mary Black has been a dominant presence in Irish music, both at home and abroad. She has shared stages, tv shows and recording studios with some of the most revered performers of her time. She has also played a frontline role in bringing Irish music, past and present, to an increasingly appreciative and ever-growing global audience. The San Francisco Chronicle has described her as "one of the best interpretative singers around".

Coming from an intensely musical family, with her mother a fine singer and her father an entertaining fiddle player, Mary first came to the music public’s attention in the late ‘70s as a member of the group General Humbert with whom she recorded and toured. In 1983 she teamed up with guitarist/producer Declan Sinnott (later to become Christy Moore’s musical sidekick) and released her eponymously-named debut solo album. It reached No. 4 in the Irish Charts and is ranked among the best Irish albums of the early 1980’s.  It won her the Irish Independent Arts Award for Music, the first in a staggering sequence of awards that continue to come her way.

2008 marked the 25th anniversary of Mary’s first solo album, and to celebrate the momentous occasion Mary released a special compilation double album 25 Years/25 Songs. The album went straight to No. 1 in the Irish charts, where it remained for a staggering five weeks, spending over seven months in the Irish top 40!

The British magazine ‘What Hi-Fi?’ considers Mary Black’s voice to be so pure that they have repeatedly used it for comparing the sound quality of different high fidelity systems. In an industry noted for its fickleness and its almost insatiable need for fresh novelties, Mary Black’s enduring successes have proven that her depth of talent and her love of singing transcend the generations, as well as national and musical boundaries too. She is indeed a real Irish treasure and her talent a gift from this small Ireland to a grateful world.