Sinnott brings his Small Town Talk to Tulla

VETERAN performer, Declan Sinnott is to play at Minogue’s Bar in Tulla on August 28, with his band Small Town Talk.
While he hasn’t been to Tulla, he has performed in several parts of the county.
“I’ve played in Lisdoonvarna, Ennis, played in Sixmilebridge at the folk club there. I’ve played with Christy (Moore), whose manager is Paddy Doherty, who runs the hotel up in Lisdoonvarna. We’ve done a few things there.”
The Cork native is possibly best known as Christy Moore’s right-hand man but his career has also seen him work with Horslips, Mary Black and Moving Hearts.
While he has always had his own projects, he has frequently put them to one side due to other pressures.
“It’s been on and off. Basically, if I’m involved in something that takes up a lot of time, I don’t do anything much on my own. Working with Christy allows me a fair amount of time to do something else, so I’ve got this band going, Small Town Talk.”
He finds it a little difficult to describe what Small Town Talk offer. “Describing music isn’t something that I find that easy. We’re a four-piece band; it’s completely acoustic, two acoustic guitars, double bass and drums. Even though its acoustic, it’s more of a rock ‘n’ roll band, it’s not a folk band. We play some of our own stuff but we also play songs by the Grateful Dead and ’70s style stuff, we get fairly rocky. The ethos of the band is more rock ‘n’ roll than folk music or anything like that.”
At the moment, he’s not as busy as he has been lately, and it’s giving him a little time to concentrate on Small Town Talk. “This month we’re playing nine gigs which is the most we’ve done so far and it’s partly because Christy and I have a break for about two months, we’ve booked a lot in there.”
There will be an album coming. “We’ve been recording for a little while, we’re not done yet, but we have an album on the boil. We’ll get it out as soon as we can. Hopefully it’ll be early next year.”
While Declan is the best known of the group, Hank Wendell would be held in high regard for his work with Cork bands Prince’s Street and Open Kitchen. Martin Leahy is respected as a drummer in both rock and trad/folk circles, while Eleanor Healy was involved with Cork outfit The Joyful Mysteries before moving to the US to study jazz performance.