Cookstown tenor releases tenth album

Multiple Emmy® Award-winning Northern Irish pop tenor Eamonn McCrystal, who hails from Cookstown, has just released his tenth studio album, entitled '˜And So It Goes'.

Drawing from a voluminous mix of musical styles and influences (Barbara Streisand, Beatles, Beach Boys, Eva Cassidy) this album is a turning point in McCrystal’s catalog and easily his most ambitious and powerful work to date.

For this project, he enlisted the vocal help of multi-talented songbirds Rita Wilson and Chloë Agnew (formerly of Celtic Woman) and a stellar backing band including Nick Buda (Dolly Parton, Taylor Swift), Jeff Taylor (Time Jumpers), Larry Paxton (Grand Ole Opry, Vince Gill) and John Deadrick (Allison Krauss, Shawn Colvin).

The result is an explosion of talent - insinuating melodies and impeccable arrangements seamlessly integrated with McCrystal’s effortless charisma and sublime interpretive gifts.

Recorded in Nashville, ‘And So It Goes’ was co-produced by McCrystal and Grammy-Award winning studio veteran Casey Wood (Charlie Daniels).

Thematically, this project tells the perfect story of a relationship, covering a good deal of musical and emotional ground.

“From the first piano chord and the opening lyric of the verse, I instantly knew this was a special piece of music! That is a sensation that almost never happens,” explains McCrystal. “We are at a point in time where this song and its’ sentiment needs to be heard more than ever!”

McCrystal asserts that And So It Goes is an album that he’s wanted to make for a long time. “For years,” he explains, “people have approached me and suggested that I should sing a particular song. Over time I kept a list of all that material and even incorporated some of that music into my live shows.

“For this album we decided to put them all together, add a couple of new ones and the album was born! They are all songs that I love and enjoy singing so it’s very exciting that I’ve finally got them all together in this one project.”

Looking ahead, McCrystal and Agnew will embark on a 15-city tour starting December 3 in Los Angeles, CA at the Grammy Museum at LA Live and will crisscross the United States including stops in Santa Fe, Oklahoma City, Nashville and New York City.

The internationally renowned powerhouses will perform classic hits from Ireland, Christmas favourites and new, unreleased music for their fans. Following his December tour, McCrystal will finish out the year filming his first starring/lead role for the feature-length Christmas movie, Santa Fake.

2015 was a phenomenal year for McCrystal as he impressively won four Emmy® Awards for the highly touted PBS Special ‘The Music Of Northern Ireland with Eamonn McCrystal.’ The PBS Christmas special “Eamonn McCrystal: The Music of Christmas” airs on PBS beginning in November and playing throughout the 2016 holiday season.

In film, Eamonn McCrystal has appeared alongside Whoopi Goldberg, Patrick Wilson and Ashley Judd in the Adriana Trigiani film “Big Stone Gap” and most recently seen in “God’s Not Dead 2” alongside Melissa Joan Hart, Jesse Metcalfe and Ray Wise as an attorney for the ACLU.

McCrystal has collaborated with an array of artists such as David Foster, Kristin Chenoweth, Nigel Wright (Andrew Lloyd Webber), Randy Travis, Dianne Warren, Guy Roche and Walter Afanasieff.

Growing up in Northern Ireland, Eamonn developed an expansive musical sensibility early in life, thanks to the eclectic tastes of his older siblings as well as the elderly residents of the nursing homes that his parents ran.

In his teens, he considered joining the priesthood, but was urged by the local cardinal to pursue a career in music. He made his radio debut at age nine, singing on BBC Radio Ulster, and gained some crucial studio experience when he recorded his first of several independently released albums at the age of 12. Yet he held out little hope for a mainstream recording career, and resigned himself to working behind the scenes, taking various jobs in concert production and media, including the BBC.

McCrystal’s fortunes as a performer began to turn around when he met Elizabeth Travis, then the wife and manager of American country superstar Randy Travis, who was performing at a Belfast music festival where Eamonn was stage manager. After hearing one of Eamonn’s CDs, Ms. Travis signed on as his manager, and brought him to Los Angeles, where he still resides.

“For me, music is about emotion,” he concludes, “and I’ll only sing a song if I think I can bring something of myself to it. My fan base has been fantastic, and they’ve stuck with me through all the many projects. They’ve been with me through this entire journey, and so I owe it to them to put as much of myself into the music as I can.”