Exceptional Irish Songwriters: Damien Rice
In this series I take a look at some of my favorite Irish songwriters. Some you may know, others you may not. With any luck you’ll make some new musical friends along the way… Please enjoy… Mr. Damien Rice
Damien Rice – Manhattan.
photo by Lisa Carpenter Photography
There Once Lived a Beast and Beauty
I remember it well… The first time that I saw. He was wearing a duffel coat the color of sand, hood-up like a monk. It was a winter night in Mullingar and Damien Rice was opening a show for a songwriter called Hally, who had just released an album called “A fascination with Poppy”. I was around seventeen years old, with a great love for music, but no particular interest in songwriters. But something about this Rice guy caught my attention. It may have been his intensity? his voice? the songs? Probably all three. There was a sense of mystery about him, a story… That story was that he had walked away from a band seemingly on the edge of success (Juniper), travelled around Europe, and even spent some time living as a farmer in Tuscany. So far, so romantic. Read More