dennis caraher
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dennis caraher

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"Eddie Russel"

"Radio Boy" is excellent. Has the rare occurrence of having every single track worthy of airplay. One of the best that I've ever received in 16 yrs of radio production . - Radio Producer


"Folk and Acoustic Music Exchange"

round a year ago, I picked up a CD by Jeff Talmadge titled Blissville which totally floored me. The first track was an acoustic piece called 40 Days of Rain and it has never left my head, for the first thing I thought when the first bar of Dennis Caraher's In the Rain was Talmadge. The styles, very similar, somehow strike a note deep within me and I respond. While In the Rain is the only such styled track on Radio Boy, it was enough to pique my interest and here I am, weeks later, still putting on Radio Boy between playings of Maggi, Pierce and E.J. and Antje Duvekot and Jennifer Greer and, yes, Jeff Talmadge, and finding it more enjoyable each time.

Somewhat of a straight folkie, Caraher steps out here and there to go beyond the genre and it keeps the CD fresh. Right Here and Louisiana Sea are actual steps beyond, in fact, deep reflections on personal and emotional matters, presented here masterfully with the aid of Chris Haynes' production and keyboards. Gonna Be a Cowboy is a nod to country music and an objective look at the future, career-wise. Kindergartner In Love captures real first loves seen through the eyes of the extremely young with the voice of maturity, if that be possible.

And Picture On the Fridge is downright funny, a lyrical coup, with lines like "Got your picture on the frigerator/That's a big deal/It's a real fine indicator/The way I feel/I'm not a good communicator/Honey, don't quit/Don't say see you later/Honey, you're it". A bit of Dylan with humor and a splash of Larry Norman's 6 O'Clock News.

To tell the truth, I may have heard better singers but only a few have been able to pull of the variety of moods and styles Caraher does here. It helps, of course, to have the likes of Haynes, Tracy Grammer and Jeff Potter in the studio, but in the end, it is Dennis Caraher, songwriter, who makes the difference. If I was a performer, I would look at anything Caraher has written—closely. - Frank Gutch Jr.


"Springfield (ma) Union"

With the release of his latest CD "Radio Boy," local singer-songwriter Dennis Caraher moves from the realm of children's performer to more "adult" fare.
Previously, Caraher had delivered children's CDs like "Bow Wow Baby" and "Dog Bone Town," and he joked that the musicians he worked with, "gently pushed me into this abyss."
The abyss he must be referring to is the lyrically poignant "Radio Boy" which features a depth of songwriting that deserves to be heard.
"I just really care about words and I have a passion in wanting to emotionally affect people," he said via e-mail. "My goal in song-writing is to engage an audience; to write songs where words are paramount and the music, the tune, is the icing."
Caraher engages with a combination of stark lyrical landscapes and well-timed comic relief. Songs like the dark "In the Rain," the story of a man losing his son to war that would have fit on Springsteen's "Devils and Dust," are juxtaposed with "Kindergartner in Love" in which a man's first love becomes a nun.
- Donnie Moorehouse


"Tuscon Radio"

An absolutely terrific album that will be getting regular airplay from me. - Henry Hallett


"Highway 61 - Italian Radio"

have been very impressed by your music and the result is that "Radio Boy" is a stunning album, it has echoes of some luminaries lie John Prine and Chuck Brodky and it with no doubts one of the best debuts I heard from a singer-songwriter in recent times (along with the one of Sam Baker from Texas). In fact not only I started playing it immediately in my radio show of American roots based music, as you can see from the alleged playlist, but also I included in my list of the best CD's of the month for the FAR Chart of John Conquest.
For your knowledge, "Kindergartner In Love" was the first song to be played in my radio show (called "Highway 61") but surely more from "Radio Boy" will be on air in the next weeks! - Massamino Ferry


Discography

Practicing Dying
Bow Wow Baby (kids)
Dog Bone Town (kids)
I Miss the Mud (kids)

Photos

Bio

Caraher's songs are short stories of the ordinary and the renowned. From an anonymous woman facing her final hour to Ginger Rogers on the night Fred Astaire dies.

There is wisdom here...and leavened with humor.

Tremendous breadth of style and subject.

Caraher also writes for children and in the multiple winner of Parents' Choice Gold Medals.

He lives with his wife and daughter in Northampton, Ma.