Damien O’Kane and Ron Block Band get ready to grace Dún Uladh

TWO popular folk musicians who joined forces for an album of dueling banjo solos and tunes, Damien O’Kane and Ron Black, will be making their debut as a duo in Dún Uladh in October.

Following the successful release of their debut album together in 2019, the pair immediately began recording new tunes for their latest work, ‘Banjophonics’, released in July 2022.

They have now embarked on a miniature tour that features three dates in the North, including a stop in Omagh.

Damien O’Kane and the Ron Black Band are both celebrated musicians, and they have performed with the likes of Grammy award-winning Allison Krauss and Union Station, Flook, and Damian’s wife, Kate Rusby, a Mercury Music Prize nominee, to name a few.

The duo is a perfect showcase of tenor and bluegrass banjos, and their respective traditions both meet, and unite, in perfect and thrilling harmony.

Damien grew up in Coleraine, Co Derry, where he says he gained a ‘deep respect and understanding’ of the folk tradition, alongside a healthy appetite to explore its every edge.

Even though Ron Block grew up a crystal ocean away in California, the two have, somehow, become ‘banjo siblings’, seemingly cut from the same cloth.

The full band is on the road for this October tour, and what a band it is.

Ron will be gracing the banjo, guitar, and vocals, while Damien will be take to the tenor banjo, tenor guitar, and vocals.

Meanwhile, Duncan Lyall will be playing the double bass and Moog Synthesizer, and Stevie Byrnes is on guitar and stomp.

They will be joined on-stage by very special guests, Mike McGoldrick, BBC Radio 2 folk award winner, and founding member of Lúnasa, Mike McGoldrick.

l The band will make its debut at Dún Uladh, Omagh, on October 20. Tickets are available from https://www.dunuladh.ie, as well as from ‘Eventbrite’.