Music with Eddie Rowley
THE Shires will play Ireland’s new Harvest country music festival at the end of August and singer Ben Earle is astonished at the pace of the duo’s success.
From Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire in England, Ben and his performing partner Crissie Rhodes have made a whirlwind impact in Ireland and the UK.
“When we started off in Ireland a couple of years ago it was literally to eight people in Whelans of Dublin, now it is thousands,” Ben points out.
“We’ve even played the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. People seem to be loving what we are doing and that’s all you can ask for.”
The Shires are riding the new wave of popularity that country music is enjoying in these islands. “The core of country music is the sto- rytelling,” Ben says. “When (American singer) Sam Hunt sings ‘Break Up In A Small Town’ you are there with him in that small town, and that’s something we try to do in our songs. We said from day one we are only going to write about stuff that we know. I think that’s why we connected with people…they were real stories.”
With two successful albums ‘Brave’ and ‘Mr Universe’ under their belts, Ben and Crissie are now firmly established. “We learned a lot working in Nashville co-writ- ing with their songwriters,” Ben tells me. “I feel privileged to have been able to sit in a room with a lot of those writers. They are absolutely masters of wordplay.”
Ben has a busy schedule with The Shires these days, and his home life is also hectic with the arrival of his first child, a little son River, who was born on the morning that the duo played Glastonbury last year.
The Shires join a Harvest 2017 line-up that includes Miranda Lambert, Nathan Carter and Charley Pride.