In 1994, in order to evaluate the songs I was writing for the album which became Love Story, I performed four solo acoustic shows at Maxwell's in Hoboken. I was terrified to expose my guitar playing, in fact I was so nervous I practiced to the point that my fingers were in agony and I was unable to perform some of the rehearsed material. I had to wing it. Ironically, this may have actually helped the show. Certainly it established a connection with the audience that I had not previoulsy experienced. I had never had any ambition to be a folksinger, a solo artist, but there I was with only my songs and no-one was leaving.

In the early 90s I was still making records for major lables and live performance was for the most part a necesary cog in the promotional machine. I could take it or leave it. I like to travel. Soon however, this would all change and I found myself on the phone to my agent - I said something along the lines of - I think I need to go out and work...

For the last ten years or so this has been my job - folksinger. I have two guitars and a plane ticket. I make records still but they don't pay all of the bills - the concerts do.

Still, I never thought of documenting the shows until my sound engineer Dan Dryden started on about it - how he actually preferred these shows to the full band show. And then my manager commented that it was strange that I had CDs for sale at a particular show, but not a CD of the show.

So here we are. The Folsinger Series is my attempt to document what it is that I do for a living these days. The first two releases are a radio recording (one concert, no retakes) from 2003 from Bremen, Germany, and the best of three nights in Dublin, Spring 2008. If people buy them, maybe I'll make some more. I have some ideas.