With a career that has spanned five decades, with all its highs and lows, Red Hurley is “really enjoying his life again.” His new gospel inspired show coming to Limerick reminds him why he got into the business in the first place.
RED Hurley’s tour last year sold-out all its Irish dates and this time around, the singer brings his evening of spiritual, gospel and pop hits to Limerick for the first time this weekend. Now celebrating 43 years in showbusiness, Red Hurley has been enjoying renewed success in both the UK and USA with his musical forays into inspirational gospel recordings, with luminaries such as Terry Wogan, Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Maya Angelou, America’s Poet Laureate numbered among the admirers. “The show is over two hours with my band and two wonderful local choirs, it is a joy to sing and the audience seem to like it an awful lot,” Red Hurley told Limerick Post.
Red was in a “wet and windy” Portugal when he took the call this week to give Limerick Post some background to this new inspirational show.
“I’ve been singing gospel all my life, the new dimension is I’m now singing traditional black American songs that date back to the time of slavery in the US. Songs like ‘Motherless Child’ and ‘Steal Away To Jesus’. These new songs in Red’s repertoire were brought to him by Maya Angelou who has received a medal of honour from President Barack Obama. “She’s a dear friend of mine and when she heard me singing ‘How Great Thou Art’ she suggested that I do an album of spiritual/gospel songs.” Angelou suggested the songs to Red and he recorded up to 25 tracks, many of which feature on his album ‘Sings My Soul’.
When Terry Wogan played Red’s rendition of ‘How Great Thou Art’ on BBC radio, it received a huge response. Wogan’s producer Alan Boyd said at the time, “I have never received so many emails about any track that we have played!” Terry Wogan is quoted as describing Red Hurley as a “magnificent, tremendous voice”.
“I am eternally grateful to Terry, who played ‘How Great Thou Art’ for his ‘Pause for Thought’ package on the show. He had eight million listeners and he got a wonderful response to the song and invited me to perform at the People in Need concert at Abbey Road Studios.”
Bringing his new show back to Irish audiences has given Red a joyful sense of achievement. “It’s extraordinary the capacity of Irish audiences to take in and understand what I am trying to do with this gospel music. We had a wonderful response in the concert hall in Dublin and in the opera house in Cork to the show, it reminded me why I got into the business in the first place.”
Red agrees that these traditional songs inform much of current popular music. Pop music in recent decades from Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Whitney Houston to Beyoncé Knowles has at its core soulful gospel music. “Most of pop music these days has church music patterns at its roots.”
Red Hurley’s singing career has spanned five decades. Principally known as a solo artist, he has performed with some of Ireland’s top showbands. In 1976 Hurley represented Ireland at the Eurovision Song Contest with the song ‘When’, composed by Brendan Graham.
In 2010 he celebrated 40 years in show business with a sell out tour of Ireland with special guest, US Singer Rita Coolidge. The highlight for Red was the show at Dublin’s Grand Canal Theatre. A compilation CD ‘Red Hurley – The Hits’ reached the Irish top ten in 2009. He also starred in a coast to coast TV special for PBS in America in 2006, filmed before a live audience in Dublin’s Olympia Theatre. .
Red Hurley performs ‘How Great Thou Art’ with soprano Sandra Oman and choir at University Concert Hall this Friday October 4.
