Seamie O'Dowd

Seamus O'Dowd aka Seamie O'Dowd is an Irish musician, he is a native of Maugheraboy, Sligo and a former member of the band Dervish. He is the son of noted Irish musicians Sheila O'Dowd (nee. Regan) and fiddle player Joe O'Dowd.

Growing up he began attending Irish music competitions and music sessions where he made contact with and learned from other musicians. Among those musicians were a young accordion player called Shane Mitchell and a tin whistle and accordion player called Liam Kelly. A few years later Seamus, along with his father Joe, was a regular of the music sessions in a Sligo venue called the Trades Club where he could hear musicians from all over the world, other parts of Ireland and of course, from Sligo. Again he found himself playing with Shane and Liam (who was playing the flute by this time) and a mandola player who had recently moved to Sligo called Brian McDonagh.

Early influences in Seamus musical life were his parents. Both from musical families in the Irish music stronghold of South Coounty Sligo. Going to sessions as a youth brought him into contact with musicians from the area such as Verona and Johnny Henry, John Joe Gardiner, P.J. Hernon, Carmel Gunning, Fred Finn and Peter Horan as well as a group of Californian musicians living in Sligo, called Pumpkinhead where he heard Appalachian, American folk and Irish music played by them.

Other influences on Seamus' early musical life were recordings by Planxty, De Dannan, The Bothy Band, Horslips, Sean McGuire, Paul Brady, Kevin Burke, Christy Moore, Thin Lizzy , Rory Gallagher and Scottish folk musician Dick Gaughan.

O'Dowd was noted for playing the mandolin, fiddle and bodhran but it was through the guitar that he started to explore his interest in rock and blues. Sligo's diverse music scene enabled him to get involved with musicians from electric rock, acoustic bluegrass, or country blues.

O'Dowd played in various bands and in the mid to late 80's he began to play some in traditional Irish ceilis with Shane Mitchell, Liam Kelly, Brian McDonagh and Michael Holmes.

O'Dowd and fellow Sligo guitar/singer Gerry Grennan then formed a duo that played bluegrass, Irish traditional and ragtime to blues and acoustic rock. They toured Ireland and Germany, sometimes as a trio with a mandolin/guitar player from County Roscommon called Brendan Emmett. This musical outfit lasted for about four years and after this, Seamus spent the mid 90's playing mainly around Sligo and the North West of Ireland, initially doing solo gigs, but some band work as well. One of the bands that used to get together occasionally had Seamus playing along with Cathy Jordan. He learned to play the harmonica by this time and began to play more traditional Irish music. He joined a Celtic rock band called the D.T.'s, an energetic but short-lived band that took Sligo by storm with the piping of Jarlath McTiernan (Sligo) backed with a powerful electric band.

After the D.T.'s split up, Seamus started to organise music classes. In early summer 1998 he joined Dervish, first as a fiddle player to replace Shane McAleer who had emigrated to New Zealand. With the subsequent addition of Tom Morrow's fiddle playing to Dervish melodic front-line, Seamus began to play more guitar as well as harmonica and fiddle.

'Midsummer's Night' is the first Dervish CD to feature Seamus. From then Seamus had great success with Dervish and has now since left the band.He recorded his first solo album "Headful Of Echoes" in 2006.It received critical acclaim from many sources and has been playlisted on radio programmes in Ireland,The U.K.,mainland Europe and The U.S.He has been playing regularly with accordionist Mairtin O'Connor and Cathal Hayden,as well as playing with uillean piper Liam O'Flynn.He was the musical arranger for Mary Mc Partlan's critically acclaimed "Holland Handkerchief" album and has also produced a number of well received albums in the folk/traditional field.

References

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External links

* [http://www.seamieodowd.com/ Seamie O'Dowd]
* [http://www.dervish.ie/ Dervish] The hard-touring Sligo based conteporary Irish music collective.
* [http://www.irishtune.info/ The Irish Traditional Music Tune Index] A searchable database of traditional dance tunes which identifies sources for tunes on commercial recordings and in tune books.
* [http://www.thesession.org/ TheSession.org]
* [http://www.irishmusicreview.com/ The Irish Music Review]