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| Singing
for world statesmen, singing in French, performing in South Africa, Russia, Switzerland,
the United States, England or in her own beloved Emerald Isle of Ireland remains
a way of life for Ireland's First Lady of Country music Susan McCann, after over
a quarter of a century as an international star. | |
The current US President George W. Bush, and his father George Bush Senior, are
only two of the thousands of fans who have met and been entertained by Susan during
her ascendant international career. She continues to amass new fans as well as
retaining a loyal long standing fan base in the four corners of the world. |
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Her first single on Spin Records, "Santa and the Kids", was a big success
but it was her second release "Big Tom is still the King",
which took her to No. 1 in the Irish Pop Charts in May 1977 and the song remained
in the Top 20 for 11 weeks. Up to then Susan did not want to travel any further
than a 60-mile radius of her Co. Down, Northern Ireland home. The success of that
No.1 song changed all that forever! It was a tribute to Tom McBride; one of Ireland's
most successful country music performers. This hit was the turning point in her
career, which launched Susan to stardom. |
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1979 Susan was an artist with international appeal and on October 8th of that
year she made her first appearance at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. It was to be
the first of many appearances at the Mother Church of Country Music in Music City
USA. | |
In the US Susan has appeared at the prestigious Florida Strawberry Festival
on 6 occasions. This festival attracts in the region of one million people over
the 11-day period. Susan had the pleasure of singing first for President George
Bush (Snr) and General Norman Schwarzkopf and in more recent times the present
US President George W. Bush came to her show and met her afterwards at the Florida
festival. She has appeared in concert at New York's Carnegie Hall. and made numerous
guest appearances on American television, both network and regional. |
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the Southern Hemisphere Susan has a huge following and has made three highly successful
concert tours of South Africa and three appearances on SABC TV "Good Morning South
Africa". Her records are also available in neighbouring Namibia. In Eastern Europe
in June 1994 Susan appeared at a multi - cultural extravaganza called the White
Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia. Susan sang her brand of country & Irish
to 5,000 people, including leading Russian statesmen. |
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Easter 1980 Susan made her first appearance at the Wembley International Country
Music Festival, rubbing shoulders with some of her idols - Tammy Wynette, Crystal
Gayle and Emmylou Harris. Susan's subsequent appearances at the Wembley Festival
were in 1981, 1985, 1989 and 1991. Her acceptance as an international star was
well proven in 1982 when she won two major awards in Europe and the USA. She won
the European Gold Star Award beating off competition from a dozen or so other
European countries. Later that year, Susan won the top international female accolade
presented by the International Country & Western Music Association at its awards
presentation in Fort Worth in Texas. Susan repeated this success the following
year. |
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1995 Susan teamed up with popular Irish singer Sean Wilson and they had
many highly successful UK tours. Their album "King and Queen of Irish Country
Music" attracted a gold disc for sales in excess of 250,000. "String of
Diamonds" also proved to be a hugh success for Susan. With the help of
veteran producer Liam Hurley they succeeded in coupling together some of the all
time great songs into a new and exciting medley package. Success followed success
with the first "String of Diamonds", which was relaesed as a CD single,
and a number of different versions were then recorded and likewise they had that
magic touch as album tracks. | | Now
in her 30'th year as a professional entertainer, Susan McCann - Ireland's First
Lady is still a highly respected personality with both the public and media in
her homeland and overseas. She is certainly one of the most travelled and consistent
performers to emanate from the Emerald Isle. | |
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many years Susan's recordings had been available on different record labels -
sometimes being released in a haphazard way without consultation, by record companies
Susan did not even know. In 2006, after a lot of negotiation she was able to acquire
control of these recordings and selected a new UK based label, H & H Music
to act as the umbrella orginisation for all of her recordings. A series of Double
CD releases have been planned under the heading "The Susan McCann Collection".
The first being her earliest recordings "The Blayney Years",
followed by "Sentimental Journey" and in July 07 her first DVD
titled "My Story" hit the market. The DVD is narrated by Susan
herself and includes clips from some of her finest TV shows and performances -
such as The Wembley Country Music Festival, The Gold Star Award in Holland, The
Porter Wagnor show from Nashville, The White Nights Festival in Russia, The Rose
of Tralee Festival and of course The Sound of Music. |
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recent times Susan has slowed down a little on touring - so she can enjoy the
growing up of her four grandchildren, Sinead & Emma Heaney, and Josh
& Laura Turley. However in the last year she has branched out into a new challenge
and now presents her own Country Radio show on Five FM www.fivefm.co.uk
. More recently this radio show has been transmitted simultaneously across all
the radio stations within the Northern Media Group, which covers most areas of
Northern Ireland. | | To
conclude with a quote from the book "The A to Z of Country & Irish stars" by T.V.
personality Brian Carthy, Susan is set to reach ever greater heights on the world
stage in the future. "Susan McCann has made an invaluable contribution to Country
music and will surely remain a star attraction on the international scene".
That sentence sums up the international singing success story that is Susan McCann. |
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