Alan Doyle | |
|---|---|
 Doyle in 2023 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Alan Thomas Doyle |
| Born | May 17, 1969 Petty Harbour, Newfoundland |
| Genres | Folk rock |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, producer, songwriter, actor |
| Instrument(s) | Singing, mandolin, acoustic guitar, bouzouki, electric guitar, |
| Years active | 1993–present |
| Website | alandoyle.ca, www.greatbigsea.com |
Alan Thomas Doyle CM ONL (born May 17, 1969) [1] is a Canadian musician and founding member of the Canadian folk rock band Great Big Sea.
Alan Doyle was born and raised in Petty Harbour, Newfoundland, [2] in a Roman Catholic family. [3] He attended Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. It is also there that he met Séan McCann, Bob Hallett and Darrell Power with whom he formed Great Big Sea. He primarily plays electric and acoustic guitars, and the bouzouki for live performances, but he has been known to play mandolin and banjo.
He is married to Joanne; they have one son. [4]
Doyle has also been involved with a handful of stage, television and film productions. As a child, he appeared as an extra in the movie A Whale for the Killing , based on Farley Mowat's book of the same name, which was filmed in his hometown. He has also hosted regional arts awards shows in Atlantic Canada, appeared as a presenter on the Juno Awards and done a turn onstage in his hometown's "24-Hour Musical" performance of Grease . In 2005, he composed music for the CBC comedy Hatching, Matching and Dispatching , which stars Mary Walsh. In 2006, he worked on scoring the film Young Triffie's Been Made Away With , directed by Walsh.
Doyle has been linked to Russell Crowe and his bands 30 Odd Foot of Grunts and The Ordinary Fear of God, having produced and co-written several songs on Crowe's album, My Hand, My Heart, and played several shows with Crowe. In 2011, they released The Crowe/Doyle Songbook Vol.III with nine songs in both acoustic demo and finished format, for 18 tracks total. This friendship also led to Doyle's casting as Allan A'Dayle alongside Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Kevin Durand, and Scott Grimes in Ridley Scott's Robin Hood , released May 14, 2010. [5] He played Dingy in the film Winter's Tale , also with Crowe and Durand, as well as Will Smith and Colin Farrell.
He collaborated with Law & Order music composer Mike Post and wrote and performed a song named "Middle of Nowhere", written for the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Broad Channel". [6]
Doyle has guest starred on three episodes of the CBC Television series Republic of Doyle as the character Wolf Redmond. Season 2, episode 2 introduced him as an inmate sent to prison on charges of B&Es and a few robberies. Doyle guest starred with Russell Crowe, Kevin Durand, and Scott Grimes on the first show of Republic of Doyle's third season after the four had costarred on Robin Hood. His third appearance – the second with Grimes – was on season 4, episode 6. He appeared in an episode of Murdoch Mysteries' tenth season. [7]
In 2012, Doyle released his first solo album, Boy on Bridge . The title is a nod to Doyle's credit as the "boy on bridge" in the movie A Whale for the Killing, when he was a young boy. The first single from the album is "I've Seen a Little" and the album features collaborations with Canadian musicians Hawksley Workman, Jim Cuddy, Ron Hynes, and actor-musician Russell Crowe, among others. The video for the second single, "Testify", was nominated for a 2012 Juno. The creation of the album was captured by a film crew, resulting in a documentary also named Boy on Bridge [8] directed by Joel Stewart and John Vatcher.
Doyle, with Great Big Sea, was featured on Canadian country artist, Dean Brody's 2012 album titled Dirt , singing on the track "It's Friday".
In 2014, Doyle released a book entitled Where I Belong, about his youth growing up in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Doyle's second solo album, entitled So Let's Go , was released January 20, 2015. [9] [10]
In 2017, he guest starred in a Murdoch Mysteries episode, "A Murdog Mystery" as a man who claims to be a time travelling historian. Doyle reprised the role in the web series "Beyond Time".
Doyle's third solo album, A Week at the Warehouse , was released on October 13, 2017. His second book titled A Newfoundlander in Canada: Always Going Somewhere, Always Coming Home, was released on October 17.
During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, Doyle started remotely collaborating with several Newfoundland-based artists to create a special "isolation edition" EP entitled, 'Songs from Home', which was released in November 2020. Contributing artists included Fortunate Ones, Rachel Cousins, The Ennis Sisters, and The Once. Per Doyle, 'Songs From Home' is all about making and keeping connections at a time when it was so difficult to be connected.
On June 14, 2022, he began starring in a musical comedy called Tell Tale Harbour at the 2022 Charlottetown Festival. [11] The story is based on the screenplay La grande séduction by Ken Scott that was made into the 2003 award winning [12] film Seducing Doctor Lewis . Doyle was co-writer of the production as well as co-writer of music and lyrics with Bob Foster. [13] Also credited as one of the authors for a book of the musical with award-winning writer Edward Riche. [11]
Doyle, with Keith Power, writes the music for the Canadian comedy series Son of a Critch , for which they have received Canadian Screen Awards nominations for Best Original Music, Comedy in 2023 and 2024.
| Title | Details | Peak chart positions | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CAN [14] | US Heat [15] | US Folk [16] | |||
| Boy on Bridge |
| 11 | 37 | 20 | |
| So Let's Go [9] |
| 13 | — | — | |
| A Week at the Warehouse |
| 26 | — | — | |
| Welcome Home |
| — | — | — | |
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart | |||||
| Title | Details | Peak chart positions | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| CAN [17] | |||
| Rough Side Out |
| 2 |
|
| Back to the Harbour |
| — | — |
| Year | Single | Peak chart positions | Album |
|---|---|---|---|
| CAN Country [21] | |||
| 2012 | "I've Seen a Little" | — | Boy on Bridge |
| "Testify" | — | ||
| 2014 | "So Let's Go" [10] | — | So Let's Go [9] |
| 2015 | "The Night Loves Us" | — | |
| 2017 | "Summer Summer Night" | — | A Week at the Warehouse |
| "Bully Boys" | — | ||
| 2019 | "We Don't Wanna Go Home" (featuring Dean Brody) | 43 | Rough Side Out |
| 2020 | "What the Whisky Won't Do" (featuring Jess Moskaluke) | — | |
| 2023 | "Welcome Home" | — | Welcome Home |
| Year | Single | Artist | Peak positions | Album |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CAN Country [22] | ||||
| 2017 | "Soggy Bottom Summer" | Dean Brody | 18 | Beautiful Freakshow |
| 2020 | "A Tennessee Whisky and a Newfoundland Song" | Various | — | Songs From Home |
| "It's OK" (isolation edition) | Various | — |
| Year | Video | Director |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | "I've Seen a Little" [23] | Margaret Malandruccolo |
| "Testify" | ||
| 2013 | "My Day" | Shehab Illyas |
| 2015 | "So Let's Go" | Margaret Malandruccolo |
| "The Night Loves Us" | Shehab Illyas | |
| "1,2,3,4" (with Ed Robertson) [24] | Sean Smith/Joel Stewart | |
| 2017 | "Summer Summer Night" | |
| 2018 | "Beautiful To Me" | Steph Young |
| 2020 | "It's OK" (Songs from Home) (with Fortunate Ones, Rachel Cousins, The Ennis Sisters, and The Once) [25] | Alan Doyle |
| 2021 | "Back Home on the Island" [26] | Cody Westman |
Russell Ira Crowe is a New Zealand-born actor, director and musician. He was born in Wellington, spending 10 years of his childhood in Australia and residing there permanently by age 21. His work on screen has earned him various accolades, including an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and a British Academy Film Award.
Shaye was a Canadian pop group, consisting of singer-songwriters Kim Stockwood, Damhnait Doyle and Tara MacLean. MacLean left the group in 2007 and the band folded by 2009. The band is named after MacLean's sister who died in a car accident in 2002.
Scott Christopher Grimes is an American actor and singer. Some of his most prominent roles include appearances in the TV series ER as Dr. Archie Morris, Party of Five as Will McCorkle, Band of Brothers as Technical Sergeant Donald Malarkey, and the animated sitcom American Dad!, voicing Steve Smith. He is also well known by cult movie fans for his role as Bradley Brown in the first two Critters films as well as his roles in the 1984 Christmas TV movies The Night They Saved Christmas and It Came Upon the Midnight Clear. From 2017 to 2022, he was a regular on the Fox/Hulu sci-fi comedy drama The Orville as Gordon Malloy.
Great Big Sea was a Canadian folk rock band from Newfoundland and Labrador, best known for performing energetic rock interpretations of traditional Newfoundland folk songs including sea shanties, which draw from the island's 500-year Irish, Scottish, and Cornish heritage. The band was very successful in Canada, with eleven of their albums being certified Gold in the country, including four being certified Platinum and two achieving multi-platinum certifications. Between 1996 and 2016, Great Big Sea was the sixteenth best-selling Canadian artist in Canada and the sixth best-selling Canadian band in Canada.
Newfoundland and Labrador is an Atlantic Canadian province with a folk musical heritage based on the Irish, English and Cornish traditions.
Allison Louise Crowe is a Canadian singer, songwriter, guitarist, and pianist born in Nanaimo, British Columbia, whose home is Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Play is the third studio album by Canadian band Great Big Sea, released in 1997. Between 1996 and 2016, Play was the ninth best-selling album by a Canadian band in Canada.
Danielle Spencer is an Australian actress, singer, and songwriter.
RobertHallett is a Canadian musician, author, producer, and entrepreneur, best known as a founding member of the Canadian folk rock band Great Big Sea (1993–2013). He is also a native of St. John's, Newfoundland, Hallett co-founded Great Big Sea in 1993, with Alan Doyle, Sean McCann, and Darrell Power. The band sold over a million and half records around the world, over a twenty-year period. Through his company, Kilbride Music, Hallett has managed bands and produced records, radio specials, and live concerts. Hallett is a vocal proponent of talent development within the Newfoundland and East Coast Music Industries, and has authored a career guidebook for aspiring musicians. He works with the producers of the Broadway musical Come From Away as a Music Consultant, and has also worked at the Stratford Festival as a Composer & Music Director. As an author he has written dozens of magazine articles, essays and several books, including the best-selling memoir Writing Out The Notes. He is the owner of Erin's Pub and Tavola Restaurant in downtown St. John's. Hallett currently plays accordion and other instruments in the band Kelly Russell and the Planks; he has also been associated with The Once, The Dardanelles, Fabian James, and the Irish Descendants, in various capacities.
Fortune's Favour is the eighth studio album released by Canadian folk rock band Great Big Sea. The album was released on June 24, 2008, debuting at No. 5 on the Canadian Music Charts and also includes a DVD. The album was certified gold in Canada.
Ron Hynes was a folk singer-songwriter from Newfoundland and Labrador. He was especially known for his composition "Sonny's Dream", which has been recorded worldwide by many artists and was named the 41st greatest Canadian song of all time on the 2005 CBC Radio One series 50 Tracks: The Canadian Version.
Darrell Power is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter, music producer, and former member of Canadian folk rock band Great Big Sea (1993–2003). He is a guest host of VOCM Nightline and Open Line. Power currently works as a substitute teacher. He lives in downtown St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
Petty Harbour–Maddox Cove is a town of approximately 950 people located on the eastern shore of the Avalon Peninsula in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It is nestled deep in the heart of Motion Bay about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) south of St. John's. The present town is approximately 200 years old, though the site has been continuously occupied since at least 1598. During King William's War, the village was raided by French forces in the Avalon Peninsula Campaign.
Shawn Doyle is a Canadian actor known for his roles in The Expanse, The Eleventh Hour, Big Love, 24, Desperate Housewives, and Star Trek: Discovery.
"Sonny's Dream" is a folk song written by Newfoundlander Ron Hynes in 1976. It tells the story of a man who wishes to fulfill his dreams, but is bound to his rural homeland by his family, particularly his lonely mother. Hynes wrote the song while on a roadtrip with his band in western Canada and based it on his uncle, Thomas "Sonny" O'Neill, who had taught him how to play guitar and had pushed him to play music professionally. It was first recorded by The Wonderful Grand Band on their eponymous album, but appeared re-recorded on their second album Living in a Fog in 1981. Subsequent to the songwriter Ron Hynes' death, a crowd was organized for a singalong in Bannerman Park, St. John's in remembrance and celebration of his life.
Republic of Doyle is a Canadian comedy-drama television series set in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, which aired on CBC Television from January 6, 2010, to December 10, 2014.
"Ordinary Day" is a song by Canadian folk band Great Big Sea. It was released in October 1997 as the second single from their third album Play. It peaked at No. 3 on the Canadian RPM adult contemporary chart and at No. 30 on the Canadian RPM Top Singles.
Boy on Bridge is an album by Alan Doyle, released in 2012. It was his first solo album. Until then, he had not released a solo album in the 19 years he had been in Great Big Sea.
Sean Panting is a songwriter, musician and actor based in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Perry Lawrence Chafe is a Canadian television writer, producer and bestselling author most noted as a creator of the television series Republic of Doyle.
Media related to Alan Doyle at Wikimedia Commons
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