Music
Press
"Harte cuts an imposing, dominant figure, and is manifestly in possession of that ineffable x-factor most commonly referred to as 'star quality'. Whoever said the Eurovision was a death knell to a serious music career obviously hadn't counted on the emergence of Mickey Harte. The album has been a roaring success. The two subsequent singles to 'We've Got the World' have also cracked the Irish Top 10 single charts. One gets the feeling that Mickey Harte is a name more than a few countries will become familiar with in the years ahead.'
- Music Quarterly, The IMRO Magazine, Winter 2003
Discography
Still working on that hot first release.
Photos
Bio
Mickey Harte is a singer songwriter from Donegal in Ireland. He has been a mainstay of the Irish songwriter & band circuit over the past 10 years. From his formative years as a musician, playing in local bands he was always highly regarded as an exceptional songwriter. Praised repeatedly by national press and media , in RTE Televisions song writing contests and by Irelands largest(and world-reknowned) music magazine Hotpress more recently..
In 2003 Mickey Harte signed a major record deal with Sony Music UK Ltd.,and he went on to have the biggest selling single of the year. In April 2003 Weve Got The World, Mickeys debut single shot straight into the No. 1 spot in the Irish charts and it remained there for 5 weeks going quadruple Platinum with sales of over 60,000 units.
Mickey Hartes debut album entitled Sometimes Right Sometimes Wrong was recorded in early 2003 in London and released in July. Working on the album was well known producer Jon Kelly who had previously produced Paul McCartney, Prefab Sprout, Chris Rea, Kate Bush and The Beautiful South, to name but a few. This resulted in a unique blend of Mickey and Jons ideas and styles. Time would later show how well this partnership would pay off. The album includes 6 of Mickeys tracks and 4 other tracks written by Josh Ritter, The Undertones, Paul Brady, and Martin Brannigan & Keith Molloy. In July 2003 Sometimes Right Sometimes Wrong hit the No.1 spot for three weeks on its release, with double platinum sales figures after only 5 weeks of release.
Mickeys second single Never Wanna Let You Down was more of a roots-rock song. It entered the charts at No.2 remaining there for 3 weeks being denied the No.1 spot by the world-wide success of Beyoncés hit single Crazy In Love. Mickey paid tribute to this by covering Beyoncés track on Ray Darcys (Today FM) compilation album entitled Even Better Than The Real Thing which peaked in the Irish charts at No.1. Mickeys third single released in November 2003 entitled There Must Be Love entered the charts at No.8 adding to another top 10 success story to have to his collection.
Mickey also represented Ireland in the 2003 Eurovision singing live to over 300 million viewers across the globe. In June Mickey took to the stage along with Westlife, LibertyX, Blue and Busted amongst others in front of a live audience of 85,000 people at the closing of the Special Olympics in Croke Park in Dublin and O2 in the Park in Dublin to over 80,000 people. In total Mickey performed over 140 shows in 2003 to promote his debut album. Other highlights for Mickey in 2003 was being voted the best new development in music in Ireland by a public in a survey ran by Irelands National TV broadcasters RTE in December. Mickey finished 2003 on a high when he was awarded one of The Irish Independent People of the Year awards.
In 2004 Mickey started the year by being nominated for 2 Meteor awards in Ireland,then he traveled with his band to the Midem Festival (Cannes) to perform some shows which led Mickey being picked up by Garvan Management in the US and Michael Bisping of A.S.S. in Germany. In March, Mickey and his band traveled to Germany, Holland and then to the US where they performed some shows that finished in Austin at the SXSW festival.
On returning to Ireland Mickey Harte parted company with music giants Sony. Inspired by the success of so many other Irish artists such as Damien Rice, the Frames and Gemma Hayes, Harte formed his own label Swerve Music Ltd and made a decision to take the independent route. His first independent release was recorded in Ireland with Swedish producer and co-writer Patrik Andren. The track A New Way to Fly was released in May 2004 went into the Irish charts at Number 14 receiving huge national airplay.
Later on Mickey started demoing tracks for his eagerly anticipated 2nd album. Mickey went back to his roots working with long time friend Terry Mc Ginty in Valley studios in Donegal where together they started going throughnew song ideas that Mickey had being working on. Mickey started working with other producers and writers such as Pat O Donnell (The 4 of Us) Billy Farrell (Corrs and Westlife) songwriters Jack Tempchin (The Eagles, Glen Frey) Kieran Goss (Mary Black, Francis Black), Ollie Cole (Turn) and Swedish writers Urban Robertsson, Fredrick Norberg and Ulf Turesson.
Since then Mickey traveled to Sweden and teamed up with Pontus Frisk and Lasse Morten whose success stories include Andreas Johnson and Eagle Eye Cherry. Pontus and Lasse started laying down tracks for Mickeys second CD and brought some new musicians onboard to play on the album including Brady Blade on Drums (Dave Mattews, Emmylou Harris, Jewel, Steve Earle), Clare Kenny on Bass (Erytmics, Indigo Girls, Sinead O Conner) and Matelas on guitar (Eagle Eye Cherry).
Mickey started off 2005 in Holland performing with his band at the Eurosonic festival in Gronigen.This led to US agency S
Links
