DANIEL O’DONNELL

You can measure Daniel O’Donnell’s incredible 40-year career through his impressive sales feats if you like: here’s a singer who’s achieved 12 gold-selling albums and another seven which have gone silver. Daniel has scored 16 Top 10 albums and 11 Top 30 singles, including the gorgeous Top 10 hit Give A Little Love.

Go to a concert and witness the rapturous response that shows the admiration Daniel O’Donnell engenders in people, a closeness to his audience legendary among fellow performers, evidence of how Daniel O’Donnell has been a true phenomenon ever since his debut album The Boy From Donegal was released in 1984.

Perhaps the biggest testament, at least in statistics, to how Daniel O’Donnell has stayed at the top of his game for so long is that he’s the only artist to have placed a different album in the chart every year since the gold-selling From The Heart launched his career in the UK in 1988.

If you’re already familiar with Daniel’s music, his new compilation Through The Years is a chance to reacquaint yourself with the grace and charm of hits including Whatever Happened To Old Fashioned Love, Footsteps and Crush On You.

Released on October 11th – Through The Years is the perfect go-to album for Daniel fans both new and old, featuring 42 tracks across his 40-year career plus a bonus live CD of his concert recorded at The Millenium Forum in Derry in 2023.

But let’s start from the beginning. If you only really know Daniel’s name and the stereotype of him as a crooner, then welcome to the reality of his songs. Be prepared for someone equally at home with country, folk, inspirational, Irish music and rock & roll – witness his raucous take on Singing The Blues and a cheeky version of Smokie’s Living Next Door To Alice.

Through The Years has it all.

“My music is all interlinked,” explains Daniel. “There’s a thread running through it. Country, Irish, rock & roll: it all hangs together so that none of it is out of place. If you pull at the thread of my songs, none of it will fall out.”

These 40 songs exemplify how Daniel has an instinct for knowing how to make his music sound just right. Whatever style a song is in, he’s able to give every word in a lyric its own life.
“I don’t try to change a song from its original setting. If it’s been successful, why change it? At the same time, I don’t try to copy the singer who sang it before. If I’m going to be comfortable, I have to sing it my way.”

That instinct is a large reason why Daniel has remained so prolific and maintained his record-breaking number of albums since he first charted. He reasons: “There’s no end to the songs I want to sing. That’s why I’ve been able to record so much music.”

Daniel’s passion for diverse music has been there since he was a boy. He was equally into country singers such as Loretta Lynn, traditional Irish vocalist Dolores Keane, and easy listening stars such as Andy Williams.