Richard Rhys O'Brien

“A lifelong fan of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Loudon Wainwright III, I started writing songs in 2009, completely out of the blue. With the help of a great team of musicians – Bruce Knapp, Richard Sadler, Tony Shepherd, producer Matt Knapp and backing vocalists Callie Howard and Christine Axelle – three albums were written and recorded by 2014. The style is eclectic, mixing folk, rock, blues, country and tango and with an emphasis on clarity of delivery of the lyrics. The themes run from love and life through to some of today’s great issues – climate change, migration, poverty, consumerism, privacy, tolerance and ageing - I call them theme songs.
If you start writing songs later in life you are likely to have a considerable range of experiences to draw upon: not only in one’s personal life and of those around you but also in work: I spent half of my career as an international economist, especially travelling to many developing countries, and then the second half helping organisations – businesses, government, charities – thinking about the future and trying to anticipate change. Plenty of material there. I was a choirboy once – but it wasn’t until the new millennium that I started singing again with the great North London choir Eclectic Voices, an experience that demonstrated the value of tackling a wide range of styles and genre.
There’s more music on the way – but in the meantime I hope you enjoy the contrasts between all my songs, on the debut album I know a little place, on Anguneau sunset, and on the most recent release, Sense in our brains.”

Richard Rhys O'Brien