Liam Bailey
Gig Seeker Pro

Liam Bailey

| INDIE

| INDIE
Band Americana Pop

Calendar

This band has not uploaded any videos
This band has not uploaded any videos

Music

The best kept secret in music

Press


"Jim Motavalli, WPKN-FM"

"This album deserves to be widely heard and played on every radio station with open ears."

Jim Motavalli, WPKN-FM, Bridgeport, CT - WPKN-FM, Bridgeport, CT


"Sound Surfing - Mike Horyczun"


" Liam Bailey's new disc of originals, 'Flesh + Armor' on Mad River Records showcases nicely crafted melodic tunes that have shades of Steve Forbert and Squeeze's Glenn Tilbrook." - The Norwalk Hour


"Guitar Player Magazine"


GUITAR PLAYER MAGAZINE
JUNE 2006


LIAM BAILEY

Flesh & Armor


Liam Bailey is an excellent guitar player, but he’s equally adept on mandolin, fiddle, or whatever else he wants to pick up and play on Flesh & Armor, a heady mixture of bluegrass, pop, and American roots music. There is an unmistakable rawness and realness on Bailey’s album, as he touches thoughtfully on the mystery of life and even hints at religion’s elements. But what makes this record so powerful is the stripped down production, as Bailey and four additional musicians recorded the album in a mere two days, with only a handful of electric guitar and vocal overdubs afterwards. Bailey runs the gamut, from slow, emotive tearjerkers (“Handful of Gold”), to stomping with bluesy grooves (“A Castle for a Home”). Flesh & Armor sports only a handful of guitar solos, but Bailey nails them with pizzazz and unassuming technical prowess.

– Katie Garibaldi



- Katie Garibaldi


"Fairfield County Weekly"

"Liam Bailey has wrapped locals' hearts with his heart-wrenching melodies..."

"Bailey makes some of the realest music around these parts..." - Brita Belli


Discography

Liam Bailey: Liam Bailey - released January 2004

Liam Bailey: Flesh & Armor - Released January 2006 on Mad River Records.

Photos

Feeling a bit camera shy

Bio

Since moving to Lopez Island in Puget Sound last year, Liam Bailey has learned to simplify.

“I want to sing about the mystery of our brief and beautiful time on earth together. Its not that I want to understand it or define it for anybody else, but I need my listeners to know that I am in awe of our earthly circumstances and that they should be too.”

Sometimes Bailey’s dissection of the mystery can come across as religious examination, or at least flirting with those concepts, but really it’s just more evidence of the way that bluegrass, blues and other American music has seeped under his skin. While Bailey has always been comfortable playing a range of styles, he’s now loose enough in his interpretive abilities to experiment with instruments he’s not proficient in. He has abandoned the electric guitar for the mandolin, and has been playing the three-string tres in a Cuban band on Lopez.

After attending high school in Holland and the USA, Bailey attended college in Boston. “ I was shamed out of my heavy metal passion and my tastes changed very quickly,” Bailey recounts. “I got right into jazz and then bluegrass after that.” His biggest influence has been guitarist Bill Frisell. “He wasn’t ashamed of his roots in rock and roll. He incorporated them into his jazz playing and melded them with bluegrass and Americana. He has a unique approach and so do I.”

Like Frisell, Bailey didn’t want to be limited to one genre of music. “I became passionate about everything I heard,” Bailey admits. “If I listened to Django then I wanted to play swing, if I listened to Dave Douglas I wanted to play jazz and if I listened to Jeff Buckley then I wanted to play rock. It’s still that way.”
In addition to guitar, he took on the fiddle as well as the mandolin. He also began to sing.

His first label-released album, “Flesh and Armor” was released in early 2006 on Mad River Records in Connecticut. “The record is literally that,” Bailey says, “A record of that week. I always wanted to make a live recording and I feel that the magic of music is in the moment that you create with a live performance.” Bailey formed a band from musicians he’d played with in various guises previously and went into the studio after two days of rehearsal.

“I’m so into performing now,” he says. “Music is a real-time art form and my relationship with my audience is where the magic happens. I want everyone to feel this on my recordings.”

58 Side cut Road • Redding, CT • 06896 • 203 938 3707