Brendan Quinn

The son of a blacksmith, Brendan Quinn left school at age 15 to pursue a career in welding, but was soon to abandon the traditional blue collar life for that of a working musician. At 19, he joined up with Robin & the Breakaways, a showband that, in the tradition of the genre, included a brass section, drums, bass, guitar, piano, and a vocalist, and who played Top 20 hits in local bars and dancehalls. It was within this setting that Quinn developed his skills on guitar and vocals. He stayed with the Breakaways until 1975, when he formed the American country music influenced Bluebirds. Touring virtually non-stop in Ireland, Britain, and North America, the Bluebirds stayed together until 1994, when Quinn decided to go back to the roots of what had inspired him as a boy in Magherafelt: honky tonk and rock & roll. The band with which he carried out this passion was Kickin' Mule, a bar band that had formed in 1990 for a sole jam session. Along with old friend and Van Morrison Band member Arty McGlynn, Quinn began playing in the smaller venues that were conducive to the looser format cultivated by Kickin' Mule. In 1994, Quinn put out his first solo effort, The Mystery, and in 2001, he released Small Town on Deep Cove Records, which operates out of his hometown Magherafelt, where he resides. ~ Travis Drageset, All Music Guide