Sharon J Armstrong

Sharon Armstrong was born in the west coast fishing town of Ayr, where she grew up learning to play guitar, poach game, bang bodhrans and sing at local sessions and festivals. After graduating from Strathclyde University with a BA in English and Psychology, she moved to the beautiful city of Edinburgh where she worked for several years with various newspapers as reporter and arts reviewer, which enabled her to attend almost as many music festivals she could wish for and drink in almost as many fields as she could manage. Rubbing shoulders and occasionally sharing floors with local fabtradfolk as Shooglenifty, Talitha McKenzie and Mouthmusic instilled a deep and abiding love of fusion celtic music which, luckily enough, intertwined neatly with an deep and abiding love of music festivals and story-telling, in forms and guises. This led her across the Atlantic where she found a new home and a whole lot of new festivals and storytellers in New Orleans. Once in the Big Easy, in the heart of the legendary French Quarter, she worked at the Kerry Irish Pub and O’Flahertys, both renowned enclaves of celtic music in the Deep South, as both songsinger and drinkslinger, alongside such well known musicians as Betsy McGovern, Katie Smith, Clandestine and Jerry O’Bierne.O’Flahertys tragically closed its doors after Katrina but the Kerry Irish Pub keeps right on folking and, as Doris Bastien says, all roads lead to the Kerry.Singing in an honest ’sean nos’ style she has been involved with both the New Orleans JazFest and North Texas Irish Festival as well as being a regular player at local sessions in New Orleans, Greensboro and Chicago. Post-Katrina, Sharon dusted off her rucksack, put a leash on her New Orleans crack-hound Dougal and hit the road again, working as a journalist for YES!Weekly in North Carolina for several months before briefly relocating to the Windy City. She recently headed back across the pond to undertake a MSC in journalism at Napier University.If anyone can persuade British Airways to give her back her luggage that would be greatly appreciated. Dougal made it fine.if you would like to check out what is happening in Edinburgh...www.xanga.com/putakiltonit