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Featured Business Review: Danny Ellis – Storytelling and Healing Through Music
  by:  |  Sep 1, 2010
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Last updated on September 8th, 2017 at 05:31 pm

Danny Ellis LogoDanny Ellis was set upon the path of music early on in his life. His first memories were of himself as a wee lad, sitting around the hearth with his mother and sisters singing Irish ballads and American pop songs. Such memories may evoke a pretty, familial picture but, alas, for Danny those times were short-lived. At eight years old, about 3 years after his parents split up, he was placed into the care of the Christian brothers of the Artane Industrial School.

The Artane School ordeal was harsh for Danny (and for many boys who were sent to the institution). Feeling abandoned by his mother, and suffering through the bitter paradox of beatings and neglect meted out in the school, it was music that served as the young boy’s salvation. Music filled the empty spaces in his life.

The Artane Industrial School was home to the well-known Artane Boys’ Band, and it was there that Danny found his saving grace. He describes the experience in his song, The Artane Boys’ Band:

Discarded by my family I was giving up the fight

But music made me hers that day adopted me for life.”

Danny’s talent for music was developed in the band where the musical director, Bro. Joe O’ Connor assigned him to the trombone. This horn would remain Danny’s instrument of choice when he eventually leaves school and tours with several Irish showbands. It was the band, too, that allowed Danny to travel to New York where he met his father after many years.

In some ways, however rough his stay was in Artane, it was still instrumental to cementing Danny’s vocation as a musician first as a professional trombonist performing with Graham Parker and the Rumour; The Foundation; and The Miami Showband; and then later on as a songwriter.

In 2009, Danny wrote songs for, and released a CD called “800 Voices” a cinematic narration of his stay in the Artane institution. The album has been described by the American storyteller, Connie Regan-Blake as “the most powerful storytelling through music and stories I have ever experienced. …a riveting oral memoir …filled with clear images of pain, hope and humor.” This recognition from Ms. Regan-Blake is fitting as it is one of Danny’s goals to be a songwriter who makes music that affects people on a deeper, more personal level.

Interestingly enough, although Danny has a publishing deal with Big Secret Music as a songwriter, penning an entire album about life in Artane wasn’t something he actually planned on. Since he was already an adult, and he’d be out of that institution for a long time, felt that his experiences in Artane were irrelevant to his current life.Danny Ellis

However, one day after a late gig, a tired and lonely Danny just felt the words start coming. He says “it was as if the floodgates of my memories were opened, and all the songs came pouring out.” He started writing about living in the institution -the bad things, and the good things like the shenanigans they pulled, and the camaraderie the boys found among others like themselves.

Life was difficult in Artane but Danny felt lucky that music, which he discovered in himself during his stay, was able to heal him. Other survivors of the Irish orphanages did not have his fortune, and many of them still carry the anger and hurt from their experience. 800 Voices has become Danny’s way to help others find the same healing that he did.

Musically, 800 Voices is a blending of Celtic harmonies and tradition; and folk music. This is particularly obvious in “Tommy Bonner”, which begins with a haunting kyrie eleison (a Greek Orthodox invocation that means “Lord, Have Mercy”) and turns into a folk guitar song about a fellow survivor with an angelic singing voice.

Although Danny’s connection to his Celtic roots is apparent in his two albums (800 Voices and his earlier work, This Tenderness), Danny is able to write different kinds of music and has recently composed a song for the American blues-rock artist, Bonnie Raitt. He also records and produces other musicians in addition to teaching voice.

Apart from spending his days on musical endeavors which now involve performing his new songs (about two albums’ worth!), Danny enjoys hiking on the Blue Ridge Parkway and going to the ocean whenever he can. However, since Danny recently signed a book deal, part of this time is now being devoted to writing his memoir.

To invite more people to sample the same peace he found through music, Danny Ellis has had UPrinting produce his posters, postcards, and business cards. He says that with UPrinting “It’s very easy to place an order and the quality of the products is excellent. I get exactly what I ordered. UPrinting definitely covers the three most important aspects of my marketing materials: Price, Ease, and Quality.”


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