DANIEL O’DONNELL

Can You Feel The Love

PBS Television Special - Debuted in March, 2007
DVD and 2-CD Set – Available at Retail August, 2007

If ever there was a natural theme for a Daniel O'Donnell show, it would have to be love. A versatile performer who weaves pop standards, country, rock, Irish ballads and inspirational songs into a seamless and uplifting whole, Daniel is well-known for his captivating way with songs of love and romance. Now, following the success of the CDs From Daniel With Love, which features vintage love songs, and Until The Next Time, a group of romantic new songs written by Daniel, he has for the first time brought a concert comprised exclusively of love songs to “the small screen.”

Recorded with the Daniel O'Donnell Band and an additional eight-piece string section, Daniel O’Donnell Can You Feel The Love is the seventh in the series of acclaimed concert specials Daniel has recorded for public television.

"We've done concept shows before, like the rock 'n' roll and inspirational shows," says Daniel, "and I've recorded a lot of love songs over the years, and so the idea came to put together a DVD of love songs for a show for public television."

Taped in his native Ireland at the Gleneagle Events Center in Killarney, "Can You Feel The Love" finds Daniel performing in an intimate cabaret setting that hearkens back to his beginnings as an entertainer.

"In the early days," he says, "I performed in a lot of cabaret-style places where people could have dinner and dance, and so the show took me back quite a bit from that point of view."

Adding an even more personal touch is the inclusion of nine originals, which demonstrate this multi-talented entertainer's continuing growth as a songwriter. They range from the Spanish-influenced tale of love "(Mi Carina) Maria" to the contemporary pop hit "Crush On You," and include "Tonight I've Held My Future," a lovely ballad inspired by Irish singer/co-writer Sean O'Farrell's wife and baby, and "My Love For You," an upbeat tune Sean and Daniel began writing while on different continents, with Daniel's phone answering machine serving as a secretary.

The DVD opens with the title cut, a song that drew inspiration from one of Daniel's musical heroes.

"I had watched 'Coal Miner's Daughter' many times," he says, "and saw how Loretta Lynn wrote songs on the bus while touring with Patsy Cline, and so [Daniel O'Donnell Band keyboard player] Raymond McLaughlin and I wrote this while we were on the bus touring the States. At first we weren't sure we were even going to record it, but when we got in the studio and started to sing it with the band it just came to life. We have started the show with it for the past six months or so and it really is amazing that a song we almost didn't bother to record became the title to a DVD! And it seems like an absolutely perfect title for the show."

Perhaps nowhere is Daniel's connection to his audience more in evidence than in "Until The Next Time," a song he wrote expressly for them.

"I said to [Irish singer/songwriter and frequent collaborator] Marc Roberts one day that I wanted to do a song that would express to the audience how I feel about getting the opportunity to do what I do, because I love it, and all of the people that I've met, the friendships I've made, and how I've gotten to know many of the audience. That's where the song started. I think we were able to capture that and it seems like the perfect ending for the show."

Between those opening and closing numbers, the show takes a wide-ranging journey through that most wonderful of human emotions, with more than two dozen songs that cross the romantic spectrum.

"I was amazed at the number of love songs there were to pick from," says Daniel, and, true to form, he chose a wide variety from across the decades. They range from the yearning of "Halfway to Paradise" and the lovely Irish traditional ballad "Mary From Dungloe" to uptempo expressions of the joys of love like "Never Ending Song Of Love" and "Hello Mary Lou." Daniel revisits classic writers and songs like Kris Kristofferson's poignant "For The Good Times" and, in a duet with longtime partner Mary Duff, Hank Williams' buoyant "Hey Good Lookin'."

The concert features in different ways the three most important ladies in his life. First, it offers a rare opportunity to see his lovely wife Majella ("the best thing I've ever done in my life"), who sings Patsy Cline's dramatic "Walking After Midnight" and joins Daniel in a duet of "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You," both from her recent album, "At Last." Mary Duff, who recently celebrated 20 years of musical partnership with Daniel and who will be joining him for an upcoming album of duets, sings five numbers, including three duets with Daniel--that spirited version of "Hey Good Lookin'," as well as "Harbour Lights" and "Are You Teasing Me." And finally there is his mother, whose poem about her beloved island of Owey, on which she grew up, became the song "My Lovely Island Home," which Daniel features here. The tiny island had no electricity or running water, and the last families living there left for good in the 1970s.

"I remember coming home one day from school," he says, "and she was quite upset, knowing people would be leaving the island. She read me this poem with tears in her eyes. She recited it on my Christmas video, and when I was doing the album I thought I should find the poem and put it to music. I wrote the chorus and it became 'My Lovely Island Home.'"

"Can You Feel The Love" documents yet again Daniel's flair as a performer, showing him as a gifted and versatile singer and a showman of the first order. They are attributes he has honed over more than 20 years as one of the most popular performers in Ireland and England and, more recently, in the United States and Canada.

His interest in singing came early in life, in the seaside village of Kincasslagh in Ireland’s County Donegal. He recalls a humble but happy childhood, with big pots simmering over an open-hearth peat fire, a tin outhouse across the road, and Saturday night baths in a big tub near the fireplace. His father, a hard-working farm laborer, died when Daniel was just 6, and he and his four older brothers and sisters were raised by their mother, with whom Daniel remains close to this day. He watched as his sister Margo achieved stardom as a singer while she was still a teenager, and he began appearing with her, joining her band full-time in 1980.

Daniel eventually formed his own band, finding the early going very tough—at one point he thought seriously about emigrating to Canada. Persistence and talent won the day, though, and he used his own savings to record the song “My Donegal Shore,” which led to his signing his first deal with Ritz Records in Dublin and London. The rapturous applause of 80,000 fans at the 1985 London Irish Festival assured him that his destiny lay in music. He toured tirelessly and formed an intimate and lasting bond with fans, and over the next few years he became a superstar throughout Ireland and Britain. North America would be the next step.

"I never thought I was going to achieve real success in the U.S. and Canada," he says, "because we had gone there for a number of years and the audiences were quite small. Sean, my manager, believed so strongly the States and Canada were there for us, and it turned out that public television was the best medium."

His breakthrough came when Detroit Public Television executive Diane Bliss attended a concert in London and became an instant fan. DPTV aired a concert performance locally as part of a pledge drive, and the overwhelming success of the venture spread to a national PBS presence that has been a boon to the network even as it helped Daniel gain widespread popularity throughout the U.S. and Canada – and 7.5 million albums sold worldwide. He has even had more albums (25) placed on Billboard’s World Music Chart than any other artist.

"The reaction to the PBS specials amazes me,” he says, “and what amazes me more is the longevity of this relationship with public television."

With each appearance, he expands his circle of dedicated fans--many of whom travel long distances to his concerts as part of tour packages. In 2008, as in recent years, Daniel will visit North America twice, this time with tour dates in May and June from the west to the east, including stops in Lethbridge (AB), Portland (OR), Vancouver, Seattle, Las Vegas, Palm Springs, Pasadena, Fresno, Chicago, Moline (IL), Ottawa, Toronto, Halifax, St. John’s (NL), Portland (ME), Wilkes Barre and Cleveland, and the month of November ’08 in Branson. He will also spend November 2007 in Branson, MO, followed by four dates at the Niagara Falls Memorial Arena in Ontario in December 2007. His new book, Daniel O’Donnell’s Ireland: Songs and Scenes From My Homeland will be published in North America in February, 2008, and his still-to-be-named new PBS Television special will begin airing here in March, 2008.

Daniel’s touring has taken him around the world. He has electrified audiences at major world venues like London’s Royal Albert Hall, Dublin’s Point Depot, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Sydney’s Opera House. At each stop, his audiences witness a master performer with the common touch, a singer who takes his audiences on a musical journey that is both familiar and magical. And "Can You Feel The Love," a journey focused on the joys of love and romance, offers convincing proof that Daniel's magic remains as strong as ever.

Go to www.danielodonnell.org or http://rspublicrelations.com/dod/index.html for more information. High-resolution j-pegs available at: http://rspublicrelations.com/dod/images.html

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