Amelia Hogan sings traditional, Irish, Scottish, British, American and contemporary folk music with lilting grace, subtle power, and transports you with a spell into another time and place, where the beansidhe (banshee) cries and lovers embrace. Haunting melodies, stirring passion, and evocative storytelling are what you’ll find with Amelia’s music. Slàinte!

Amelia says:

I was born in the state of California in the United States of America—known the world over as The Land of Opportunity. By birth, I was fortunate enough to have been raised in a country of abundance and dreams. However, my story really begins with my ancestors in Ireland, Scotland and Britain more than a hundred years ago. Their languages and cultures were threatened by hardship and politics. They left their homes out of desperation—in search of a better future for themselves and their children. They left their families, their friends and all they knew in hopes of finding a better future in this new place.

With them they brought the stories, songs, dances and customs that might sustain them, body and mind, through long voyages, poverty, loneliness, lack of hope and the world they came to move through. In America, for many, there did not find much of the opportunity and possibility they had believed they would. They often found themselves in similar straits to the ones they’d left behind.

I’ll sing to you of the songs of their old ways, their new circumstances and to remind you of where we come from. This is an Irish-American story, and it’s all of ours.

Who would speak their story now that they’re gone? It’s ours to tell so that no one forgets what they our ancestors worked so hard to afford us. Thank you to every one of my family for these gifts of songs, tales, hopes, and possibilities. I couldn’t have done this without such a grand legacy.

I’ve been singing since before I could walk. My first performances started when I was about 10 years old and I’ve always loved weaving myth, magic, and hope into a story-song. I sing in the Irish music tradition of Sean-Nós, or Old Style. These songs are typically arhythmic and unaccompanied and were meant to be sung by the fire to a very intimate audience. But there’s so much more than Sean Nós to Celtic music.

My influences include: The Clancy Brothers, the members of the San Francisco Folk Music Club, The Beatles, Lisa Aschmann, Sadie Damascus, Ray Frank, Cathy Jordan, Fairport Convention, Leanne Hussey, and Niamh Parsons. My sound is very much my own, but it’s got notes of and similarities with Karan Casey, Pauline Scanlon, Maddie Prior, Lisa Aschmann, and Joni Mitchell. I hope you’ll find joy and sweetness in what I have to share.

So far, I have two albums with my former band Sheltering Sky; Keeping Watch Upon the Stars and Long Nights Journey. My third album, Transplants: From the Old World to the New, is a solo-directed but collaborative effort produced at El Mundo Bueno Studios. This album features the accompaniment of several leading instrumental talents including Ray Frank, ANANTA, Winter, Deirdre McCarthy, Paddy Keenan and Vince Wolf. Preview or purchase Transplants here.