14 September 2019

Gerry Madigan - still packing them in

Two days ago the Cotton Mill Boys were mentioned on the BIB as the factor that gave Stephen Rosney his love of bluegrass music.

We're delighted to hear from one of the Cotton Mill Boys' founder members, Gerry Madigan - the first person, to our knowledge, to play bluegrass banjo at professional level in Ireland. Gerry, who now lives in Canada and (fifty years after the Cotton Mill Boys launched their career) is still very active in music, sends this poster image, and writes:

I just did my first gig with my friend, Katie Windt, as Dublin2Durban at Gravity here in Calgary last night – a sold-out show, great audience, and magic atmosphere.

An account, mainly in Gerry's own words, of the years with the Cotton Mill Boys is in chapter 8 of Kevin Martin's A happy type of sadness: a journey through Irish country music (Mercier Press, 2018).

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