Danny Guinan

Danny Guinan has obviously taken his time recording his new album ‘The Rise ans Fall of John Doe’ given a gap of three years between this and his last release. This is the album he knew he was destined to make and therefore it required all the time and care necessary to tell the story that unfolds in it’s eleven songs. It is a story of life and death, the story of John Doe. But who is John Doe? “You, me, my neighbour, the girl across the street, it could be anybody really” says Danny. “John Doe is involved in this constant struggle with life as an adventure. He is known to many and there are many who know exactly how he feels”. A somewhat naive and cautious boy grows to accept and be satisfied with himself as a young man before a kind of anger takes over as he grows older, twisting his sanity until John Doe leaves the stage without a whimper forever. End of story, end of cd. Mysterious? Maybe, but certainly familiar too. You could call John Doe an ordianary man, a description that both does and does not fit Danny Guinan. This effervescent Irishman has been making music all his life. Born and raised in the village of Ferbane in Co. Offaly in a family of six children music was the focal point of the Guinan family home. “We listened to loads of radio and played so much music amongst ourselves – television hardly got a look in” Guinan remembers. He took to the stage at the age of 6, had his first guitar lesson aged 9 and wrote his first ‘original’ when 14. In 1986 he left with his schoolbooks and guitar for Dublin city where he graduated from DCU with a BA in Communications Studies. In 1989 he donned the guise of singer, songwriter and frontman of the band Speranza with whom he toured relentlessly all over Europe and North America. He achieved enough notoriety hereby to be asked to sit on the Irish jury for the 1991 Eurovision Song Contest! Not forgetting his studies he also wrote for magazines such as Hot Press in between releasing the album ‘About Time’ with Speranza in 1995. Not long thereafter Guinan decided to split with the band and go it alone. He opted to settle in Holland for a while and before he knew had found himself a home and a load of inspiration – enough to release four albums between 1998 and 2003 all of which were warmly received by fans and critics alike. However, seemingly trapped in that deadly zone between constantly gigging and little help from the powers that be in the business Guinan finally got mad. Mad at the lack of recognition yes, but more much more so at himself for being too easily satisfied, self-critical as he is. And suddenly there was the John Doe within him and the album that had to be made. It is an album that demanded time, lots of it. Not just the writing but also the arrangements (together with Siard de Jong) and the recording process itself. The cd would simply not be released until it was ‘finished’ and so what began in early 2004 did not see the light of day until late 2006. Guinan’s style is not easy to describe because throughout all of his songs you will hear folk, country, bluegrass, rock ‘n roll and so on constantly playing with and around each other. On ‘The Rise and Fall of John Doe’ all of these styles and influences come together in a perfect kind of jigsaw puzzle. Take the time to hear and see how it was put together…. You should create your own MySpace Layouts like me by using nUCLEArcENTURy .COM's MySpace Profile Editor !