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IF YOU WANT TO HEAR SOME MORE IRISH SOUNDING SONGS GO TO OUR ALTER EGO PAGE myspace.com/diversisters OR CLICK ON DIVERSISTERS ON OUR TOP FRIENDS LIST.....................but read on first.........
We are 4 sisters who come from Bundoran, Co.Donegal in the Northwest of Ireland. Our mother Kathleen was the singer in her brothers ceili band (The Richard Fitzgerald Ceili Band) so when we were young our uncle Richie would come down to the house every Fri. evening to teach us Irish music. They were still making albums so there was always music in the house.
When we hit our teenage years, we decided that we wanted to play rock music so we formed the Screaming Orphans. At first we played around locally at Surf Festivals (Bundoran is a major surfing destination in Ireland) playing covers of bands such as the Red Hot Chilli Peppers to the Indigo Girls. Then we started writing our own music and we travelled to Dublin to play in the Baggot Inn, Slattery's, Whelans and Mean Fiddler. From there,we started to tour Europe and appeared on numerous T.V. stations and signed a publishing deal with Blue Mountain Music (owned by Chris Blackwell of Island Music). Then Luka Bloom invited us to play at a St. Brigid's day concert in Kildare. There were many of the top Irish artists playing at this concert including Maire Brennan (Clannad), Christy Moore, Liam O'Maonlai and Sinead O'Connor etc. That was our first meeting with Sinead and a couple of months later she asked us to appear on a childrens programme she was making for Channel 4. The following year she asked us to be her back-up singers for her forthcoming 'Gospel Oak 'tour in 1997. We also became the opening act for the show as the "Screaming Orphans" and then returned to sing as part of her band. During this time we toured all over Europe, North America and Canada and we appeared on the "David Letterman" show and "Sessions on 54th St" as well as numerous other T.V. shows.
After that we toured the following year with Babba Maal and sang at his homecoming concert in Dakar, Senegal as well as his recorded concert in the Festival Hall in London. We also recorded with Peter Gabriel and the Afro Celt Sound System and we were the backing vocalists on the Joni Mitchell track on the Chieftains album "Tears of Stone."
The following year we signed a deal with WEA (Warner UK) and went to Normandy, France to record our debut album with legendary producer Mike Hedges (Siouxie and the Banshees, Manic Street Preachers, Texas, Travis, U2). Just before the release of the album the M.D of WEA was sacked (she had worked for Warner for over 20 years and had signed the Pretenders, as was our A&R guy (previously the bass player in Wang Chung) and the head of promotions resigned in protest!!! WEA was then dissolved and East West became the major Warner label in the UK. Needless to say we were the last signed so we were one of the first to go. Undeterred we released a single off the album which made it to the top 10 in Ireland.
America had been a place that we had loved when we first visited it in '97 so we packed a bag, grabbed our instruments, hopped on a plane and landed in NYC on Sept 4th 2001. I know!!!... a great time to arrive but for us that terrible tragedy created a pleasant introduction to a city where we knew no one.People were so kind after 9/11 and we travelled home quite a bit in those first couple of years as we still had a touring circuit established in Ireland.
Since 2003/2004 we have been here on a pretty permanent basis and we love every minute of it although we do get homesick at times. One of our favourite places in the U.S has been Florida where we go almost every month to play. The people of Ft. Myers and the surrounding area have been really supportive. We have sung at many of the Red Sox games in Florida and have met many baseball players (we sadly must admit that we still can't follow the game). Oh,I nearly forgot, we recorded our 2nd album in Nashville, TN with Jay Joyce whose credits include Patti Griffith, Chantal Kreviazuk and it's brilliant!!! We are also working on some new tracks at the moment so I'll keep you all posted....
The Orphans
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