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18 May 2025
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Keith Donald (Photo: Jenni Doherty, Little Acorns Bookshop)
Reporter:
Domhnall MacDermott
18 May 2025 4:00 PM
Email:
news@derrynow.com
Sometimes, opportunities arise that we can’t say no to. One such opportunity happened in October 2021, when I walked into Cool Discs and Kevin Magee asked me if I wanted to take over from him writing the music column for the Derry News (I’ll let you guess what my answer was). Recently, another opportunity arose that was too good to pass up.
Jenni Doherty (owner of Little Acorns Bookshop in Great James Street) got in touch to say that Keith Donald, legendary saxophone player for Moving Hearts and Mary Coughlan, was coming in for a book launch and asked if I wanted to speak to him.
I met with Keith in the shop that evening and he told me about his seventy-year career and his new book ‘Music & Mayhem’ (available now in Little Acorns).
Speaking of the book: “I’ve been writing it on and off for about a dozen years, and in the middle of that I wrote a one man show, which is based on it. It’s all the main points of the book set to music and verse. I’ve done the show in theatres north and south, I’ve done it in Wales, I’ve done it in Brussels, and a few people came up to me asking how I got sober, and that gave me the impetus to finish the book, in the hope that my story, which is addiction, alcoholism and an awful lot of accidents that I didn’t cause, an awful lot of bad luck, but I came through the far end and I’m sober thirty-three years and I’m very content now. If that works for other people, if they get something out of the book, then job done.”
Next, we spoke about his music: “I’ve been playing in public for exactly seventy years this year. My first gig was on BBC radio when I was ten. I’m eighty at the minute and I’ve done about five and a half thousand gigs in between. I’ve done all kinds of music. I do classical, a lot of jazz, blues, some pop music, and I don’t know what you’d call Moving Hearts. It’s a mixture of a rock and funk rhythm section and traditional folk music.”
Speaking about his time with Mary Coughlan: “Moving Hearts had stopped full time work and Mary rang me in, I think, 1984, and I didn’t know her at all, but she sounded very nice, and she was very persistent. She said, ‘I want you to play with me on a record’ and I said ‘Okay, will we meet somewhere?’, and she said ‘I’ll come to your house.
READ MORE: MacD on Music
„Where do you live?’. She arrived on the bus, and we spent the afternoon together just talking about music, and I liked her a lot. I think she’s got great guts, drive and a beautiful voice. I toured all over the UK and Germany and a fair bit in Ireland with her, and I never had a bad experience.”
Next, it was Moving Hearts: “I was on holiday on a Greek Island with my then-girlfriend, and the only other people on the island, there was no tourism there, there were a bunch of Queen’s University students who were busking their way around the Mediterranean playing Irish trad music. One night, they were playing outside a Taverna.
„I’d gone in to get some drinks and heard Greek music inside and I was thinking about the indigenous Greek music and the music that these Queen’s students were playing outside, indigenous Irish music and I was thinking that it relates to the music I play, the indigenous music of the southern states of America, jazz and blues, and I wanted to examine that a bit further, so when I was back in Dublin I looked up an old pal, Donal Lunny, and had a chat with him about it. He said ‘Actually, we’ve been talking about expanding the band I have with Christy [Moore]. Do you want to come to a rehearsal’ and two weeks later, I was in Moving Hearts. I was the only person who has done every single Moving Hearts gig, from the start, right up to date. The only person.”
Unfortunately, that’s all the space I’ve got for Keith Donald, but he has plenty more stories to tell, so make sure you get his book from Jenni.
Now, onto other business. This Wednesday (21st May) sees the release of a new single from Rachel Craig. ‘Blameless’ was written around the same time as her previous single ‘The Ghost of You’ and, taking cues from her heroes Phoebe Bridgers, Joshua Burnside and SOAK, uses music to express pain and to seek catharsis.
Also, this Saturday (24th May) will see Wexford’s Foot Squeaker playing Bennigan’s following the release of their latest single ‘60 Beats’ (out now). The gig will feature support from TeleZura and Red Bishop. Doors are at 8 and tickets are £8 on the door.
Finally, time for the socials. Rachel Craig can be found on Instagram @rachelcraig_music, Foot Squeaker @footsqueakerband and Keith Donald @keithdonaldmusic.
Related topics:
Derry , derry news , MacD on Music
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