Outlaws in action

Photo: Denise Hanway

Tom Hanway reports:

Pictured here from the Outlaws are Diane Treanor (fiddle/vocals) and Tom Hanway (banjo/vocals).

The Outlaws, Ireland’s hardest-working bluegrass-country dance band, won the Most Entertaining Band award from Tipperary Mid-West Radio, at the station’s Country Awards dinner and ceremony two weeks ago at the Templemore Arms, Co. Tipperary. We performed three songs (at 1:00 a.m.) from our recent CD Empty mansions (Sharpe Records), which is getting steady airplay across Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland.

I am writing songs (on the banjo) for the band, and also singing some of my favourite numbers by my bluegrass heroes, such as Bill Monroe, Jimmy Martin, John Hartford, Keith Whitley, and Ralph Stanley.

We do our annual tour of Scotland next week, starting in Aberdeen. As you can tell by the photo, we have a great time onstage, and we improvise constantly, trying out new material at nearly every show. I’m writing and playing more bluegrass songs than ever before since landing in Ireland.

‘Ellie’s song’, which I wrote for my four-year-old granddaughter, has become a favourite at shows, and we plan to record it along with several other originals for the next project. It's a song that, at shows, I dedicate to single fathers living here in Ireland.