Photo: Kevin Byrne Photography
“STARTING out I was searching for the limelight. Now I search for a truer light”.
50 years in the game and writing songs, songcycles and a three-volume edition of his life have taught Johnny Duhan something. He is on the road again, coming home to Limerick’s Belltable on Saturday April 2 for a solo shot on stage, songwriter and wordsmith supported only by his guitar and tales of times past.
Based in County Galway this long time, he is from Wolfe Tone Street originally. Duhan has plenty of family in town and serious currency in music: The Dubliners, Christy Moore, Mary Black each had hits with his works.
“I played with a band recently and it was a total distraction from what I do,” he confesses. “I do a lot of talking usually and the musicians don’t appreciate it. Even in Granny’s Intentions, they told me they didn’t want me sitting on the stage and going through my reflections”.
For a soft soul, Duhan is sound at brutal self-awareness. His own man, concepts and albums have followed his dreams and family realities, the songs’ spiritual dimension ever present. Each album has rolled out in meaningful sequence. Gigs in Sligo (“a good poetic town”) and the Townhall in Galway were well received; John Duhan has a listenership and his is a life well-examined.
“This concert is roughly based on my last two albums, ‘Creation’ (2014) and ‘Highlights’ of so many years of songwriting. It is the story behind the song that brings the person straight into the song, unless you are Bob Dylan and everyone knows you.
“I have 50 years of stories to go with my song. I have been writing three chapters of a book since Christmas, the story of my life and it’s one of three volumes”.
All together this trilogy is ‘The Voyage’, also an album title of his. Parts one and two are written, respectively ‘There is a Time’ and then ‘After the Dream’, which turns over his years beyond Granny’s Intentions, mega-rockers in their day.
Book through www.limetreetheatre.ie for Belltable. See www.johnnyduhan.com for more.
