Songs with stories….stories with songs
“Richly absorbing…an evening in his company was a rare pleasure.” Sue Wilson (The Scotsman October 2009)
“An unforgettable, wonderful performer. I've just seen him play to 2500 people in the Australian National Folk Festival's biggest venue and make everyone feel as if they were sitting in his lounge room. He's warm, witty, moving and funny” Steve Barnes Director Fairbridge Folk Festival
It could be said that three of Ireland’s most time honored citizens, the musician, the poet and the storyteller, all travel together as one when singer songwriter Colum Sands sets out on one of his many journeys around the world.
A member of the famous Sands Family from County Down, Colum grew up in a house where music, story and song was a way of life and it remains so to this day.
His performances, and indeed his songs, are laced with fascinating and often very funny stories of people he meets, the kind of people we all know but hadn’t really noticed before.
Colum’s unique style of performance has brought him to venues ranging from intimate folk clubs to the stages of Alte Oper in Frankfurt and Carnegie Hall New York. Along the way, on stage and in studio, he has found himself in all kinds of musical company from Joan Baez and Pete Seeger to the Chieftains and Billy Connolly. In fact it was after hearing him in a Glasgow concert a few years ago that Connolly spoke of Colum’s great gift for saying “hard things in a gentle way.”
There’s great warmth in his writing too, and his ability to observe the local scene and turn it into a universal picture has helped songs from his first four albums to turn up in many parts of the world in various languages and in the repertoire of artistes including Roy Bailey, Makem and Clancy, Andy Irvine, Enda Kenny, June Tabor and Maddy Prior.
Almost Every Circumstance, Lookin’ the Loan of a Spade, Last House in the Street, The Man with the Cap and Whatever you say, say nothing are just some of his well travelled songs on a list that grows by the day.
"Colum’s CV includes songwriter, singer, storyteller and radio presenter, but how do you list his humour, insight, perspective, concern for his fellow man, and appreciation and valuing of our differences, our pasts and our futures – go and see him, if you get the chance." John Reedman, Derbyshire Times
"Colum’s gift is of breaking down cultural barriers through choice words and eloquent music." John O Regan, Rock ‘n’ Reel
"..a wonderful evening of entertainment. A natural witty storyteller, Colum charmed the audience with his lively and evocative melodies, colloquial lyrics and gentle humorous tales of everyday life in the past and the present. Not only that, but the man has a wonderful voice and is no mean guitar picker." Jim Brough, Folk on Tap
"Colum’s songs can make you think, some make you laugh, others prompt a rueful smile, and then again some of them make you cry. These are not just sad songs - they are songs with depth, longing, understanding beyond the superficial, and those with downright powerful emotion." Tim Carroll