Books
“When I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down, he has such a way with words, simple and light to the touch on the surface but with a deal of depth and musicality. I always like books that have a sense of being composed as much as written, and I guess I tried to do that with my huge Cohen tome.”
Sylvie Simmons (author of Leonard Cohen’s biography, I’m Your Man).
“Let me recommend it.”
Christy Moore
THERE IS A TIME is the story of Johnny Duhan’s journey into song. It begins with a vivid account of his formative years of growing up in Limerick under strained family circumstances. On the road like a 60’s Don Quixote – “my lance a guitar, my horsepower a transit van” – he becomes one of the original Irish pop stars, fronting a band of innocents called Granny’s Intentions. But his journey turns out to be a bug-infested, drug-injested odyssey leading to betrayal and a cul-de-sac. Later he reincarnates himself as a songwriter with an inspired calling.
“I read it over a cup of coffee that went cold as I could not stop to sip”
Eoghan Harris, after reading a chapter.
Waltons Publishing presents The Voyage – A Johnny Duhan Songbook, which gathers together, for the first time, fifteen of Johnny’s finest songs.
Johnny’s songs have been recorded by a diverse range of singers, including Christy Moore, Tommy Fleming, Mary Black, Mary Coughlan, Dolores Kerane, The Dubliners, The Irish Tenors, Eleanor Shanley. He has scored music for film and TV. ‘The Voyage’, one of his most popular songs, is performed regularly at weddings and anniversaries all over the world.
“It’s unlikely you’ll read a better book this year.”
Tony Clayton-Lea, The Irish Times
“I’m constantly amazed that the world hasn’t found out how good his meditations on love and loss really are.”
John Boland, Irish Independent
“There are lovely moments sprinkled throughout the book…..these short excerpts form the illuminating little starbursts which give the book its most potent and vigorous moments.”
Padraig Kenny, Sunday Tribune
“It is curiously indefinable and this sole fact is perhaps the essence of its charm and power….It should, however, carry a health warning as nobody will leave it down unmoved.”
Des Kenny
“A true artist, and if there exists an inner stillness, To The Light suggests that that state has been hard earned by resolute faith in the human spirit.”
Gerry Quinn, Irish Examiner
“Perfectly guaged…perfectionism of pitch and cadence.”
Norma Prendiville, Limerick Leader
Johnny Duhan’s life is laid bare in TO THE LIGHT. It is a unique achievement in that it is the only full-scale autobiography that we know of that has been written in song. Johnny is well aware that song lyrics rarely achieve the heights of true poetry but he has paid as much diligence to the pure word as to the pure note in his long career as a songwriter. The stories, prose-poems and song-journal extracts that inspired the lyrics add continuity and cohesion to the work and make it a colourful and entertaining read.