DECEMBER 2011/JANUARY 2012
www.celtic-connection.com
Page 9
A Merry Merry Time of Year with The Irish Rovers
By JENNIFER FAHRNI
The Irish Rovers are back with their first Christmas album in over a decade! Merry Merry Time of Year has been released to several stations across Canada and the U.S. and is already in high rotations at many of them.
It's been a long wait, but this is their first Christmas album in 11 years with two holiday singles Have You Heard and Christmas Medley.
With the release of this new CD and production of their next television special, The Irish Rovers are truly spreading peace and good cheer.
This year they celebrate 45 years as recording artists. To mark this achievement, the lads are back on the small screen with a national television special Home In Ireland, which was filmed entirely on-location in Ireland.
Watch for it now on your local PBS network - they are broadcasting it nationally across the U.S. and Canada over the next few months.
The Irish Rovers have just completed filming several segments for another television special for release in 2012.
Just last week, An Irish Rovers Christmas was filmed at various locations at Banff National Park, including the Banff Centre and Sunshine Village ski resort where they were joined by Crazy Canuck Dave Irwin for some comedic sequences on snow.
The lads also filmed their concert at Chatham's beautiful heritage Capitol Theatre. A crew of nearly 70 people flew in from Canada, the U.S. and Ireland to transform the venue into a Celtic winter wonderland as the setting for a night that also generated funds for Chatham charities.
After hearing about a devastating fire that destroyed the city's food bank in March, the Rovers figured out a way they could help.
They donated funds from all ticket sales to the concert, to both Outreach For Hunger and the Ontario branch of the SPCA, in Chatham-Kent who are also in great need of funds.
In order that the entire city could be part of this extravaganza, a ticket price of just $10 was set.
This set off a near frenzy for tickets to see the iconic band, and Leslie Grand, from the management team of the Capitol Theatre said she hadn't seen anything quite like it.
After the event the band was able to donate over $ 10,000 to the charities.
Readers will remember the Irish Rovers had a massive Christmas hit, Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer which is still a holiday anthem today, both in Canada and the U.S.
The Rovers took an unknown little dittie by Randy Brooks and made it into a top 20 hit within a week of it hitting the airwaves!
The first single on their new CD, Christmas Medley will bring a rosy smile to your face once again, as the lads sing out Deck the Halls, Here Comes Santa Claus, Rudolph The Red Nosed-Reindeer, Sleigh Ride, and finish with a Hawaiian surprise, Mele Kalikimaka\
Have You Heard is a beautiful Christmas tune with an old world sound, but like with all the Irish Rovers songs, you'll want to sing along. It's written by George Millar who has written most
A CREW of nearly 70 people flew in from Canada, the U.S. and Ireland to transform the beautiful heritage Capitol Theatre into a Celtic winter wonderland to film The Irish Rovers concert in Chatham, Ontario.
Rogues.
Production duties were handled by George Millar for Rover Records. The CD was recorded at Rick Salt's Lois Lane Studios, Nanaimo, B.C. in Canada and Wilcil McDowell Studio in Northern Ireland.
The band is currently preparing for their 2011 Christmas tour of eastern Canada and the U.S.
The Irish Rovers band includes George Millar (guitar and vocals); Wilcil McDowell (accordion); John Reynolds (guitar, bass and vocals); Sean O'Driscoll (banjo, bouzouki, mandolin and vocals); Ian Millar (guitar, bass and vocals); Fred Graham (bodhran, percussion).
For more information and tour dates, visit their website at: www.theirishroversmusic.com.
of the Rovers' original music over the years.
An up-tempo, CD with a mix of traditional Christmas songs and their trademark rollicking Irish numbers including, Christmas In Killarney, Must Be Santa, Christ The King, Christmas At The Ale House, The Marvelous Toy, Down Among The Bushes Of Jerusalem, and Three Jolly
Foster and Allen lose appeal on huge tax bill
DUBLIN - Country singers Foster & Allen have admitted the group is "in limbo" after being hit with a EU6 million bill from the taxman.
They lost a High Court challenge to demands made by the Revenue Commissioners for around EU3 million each.
The bulk is made up of penalties and interest, with the tax portion estimated at approximately EU1 million each.
The musicians - Anthony (Tony) Allen (59) and Michael (Mick) Foster (64) -are now appealing that decision.
Speaking about the duo's financial situation, Tony Allen said, "There is nothing in the world we can do. We will have to hope at least that they will let us work.
"Our main issue is to be left working, making our records and to keep Foster & Allen alive," he added.
Allen said he believed he and his musical partner did not actually owe that much money. He said they had hired a tax barrister four or five years ago who had issued them with a statement assuring them their tax affairs were up to date.
He said the pair had always paid their taxes on tours and live shows but this issue was about royalties and record sales and had been going on for a few years.
They had hired an accountant to look after it. But it turned out after four years that he was a fraud and that money they'd given the accountant for the Revenue Commissioners "never actually got to Revenue."
He said, "We have been trying over the last few years to sit down and talk to the Revenue but they just refused to talk they just wanted to go to court and get a judgment against us."
He said they would obviously appeal the judgment and "try and get our side of it heard properly in court."
"That's what we were trying to do all along was to get Revenue to sit down and talk about the whole scenario in a civil manner..."
Asked if they had the money should the appeal not prove successful, Allen said, "Not at all. Where would we get EU6 million? We're not U2.
"We've been working very hard for the last 30-odd years and we've been selling records and all the rest, but it doesn't mean we're multi-multi, multimillionaires.
"We don't have this kind of money. I don't know what the answer is to that question. We just have to keep working to survive. Most working music acts, that's all they do - they live from year to year."
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