Obituary
I gather he died 4th May. For a while, in the 1980s, he and his band, Alias Ron Kavana, were the biggest ticket on the folk and roots circuit, with a stonking mix of high octane rock, folk and soul, with bits of country and township jive in there too. Never quite transferred to recorded material so well as in his glorious live setting. Had issues, personal and with the “biz”, electing to reject the limelight as a bad job.
I’ll be playing this today….
Ron was a great guy. In the late 70s/early 80s he was a Titan of the British pub rock scene in Juice On The Loose and backing various other performers (touring from overseas or domestic). Then he felt the pull of his Irish roots and moved into that style. As you say, the band used to pack out shows for a while. Bad management was enough to encourage him back to Ireland to do a Masters in Irish History.
He was quite an intimidating sight at first but I always found him friendly, really knowledgeable about all types of music, always recommending stuff and a very generous musician.
That’s a shame. I have a copy of Think Like A Hero but haven’t played it in years. Must dig it out, in memoriam.
Same here. I had to try and remember if it was shelved under ‘Alias’ or ‘Ron’ or ‘Kavana’ before I could find it – it was correctly filed under ‘Alias’ which put it up in the top left hand corner sandwiched between the Albion Band and All About Eve. Will give it a spin this evening.
The second album by the Alias band was pretty good, Coming Days.