WINDSWEPT SONGS ON A BROKEN GUITAR (2010) ........................................................................................................................ "A very likeable performer. His songs are of such a high standard that with the right publishing deal, Nashville could be beating a path to his door." R2 Rock & Reel magazine - March 2011 ........................................................................................................................ "The songs are all country tinged with a pop consciousness, melodic, good humoured and show promise for the future. Nearest comparison, straight off the top of my head, would be Don Gibson." Maverick magazine - November 2010 .......................................................................................................................... "Owen writes in a style that has a refreshing touch. A heart-warming experience." Fatea magazine - November 2010 ........................................................................................................................... "...a new country songwriter to keep an ear out for is Owen Moore. His debut CD displays real talent. His gentle ode to an aged cowboy, "Ride Along", for instance, is perfectly crafted..." Country Music People magazine - September 2010

RAINY DAY SONGS (2011) ................................................................................................................ "Excellent songs. Well produced, sounds professional and is radio friendly. This impressive second set gains from a much-improved production showing Owen's skill in layering and arranging... ...the vocals are nicely done... ..."She's Still Wearing Blue" could have been lifted out of the Roy Orbison songbook... ...well thought-out lyrics... ...well constructed melodies..." Maverick magazine - May 2012 .................................................................................................................... "Clever, well thought-out, catchy and very country... ...pleasant and relaxed... ...just crying out to be covered..." Online Country UK - February 2012 ...................................................................................................................... "Owen Moore has continued with a winning formula here. A talented instrumentalist, he has a remarkable feel for the genre, with a perfectly-suited voice for it, slightly gravelly and on the verge of fragility. A pleasing variety of rhythms and moods and an excellent introduction for anyone who has never heard contemporary country and would like to get the feel for what it is all about." R2 Rock & Reel magazine - March 2012 .................................................................................................................... "Owen Moore's slightly quirky take on country has got that certain something to it. This is country with an edge and a sparkle in the lyrics. A delightful album." Fatea magazine - November 2011

SIMPLICATED SONGS (2013) ........................................................................................................................ "Owen Moore has put together another delightful album of his "simple" little songs. This is an album that harks back to the days of old, when songs had memorable melodies and catchy lyrics that captured the more innocent side of life. Typical is the jogging "Hang Around With You", a wonderful little love song. "The West Coast of Kentucky" reminds of George Strait's "Ocean Front Property". Slightly country, occasionally celtic, but at all times rather pleasant." Maverick magazine - November/December 2013 ......................................................................................................................... Three albums in and Owen Moore is still writing all the songs, singing all the vocal parts and playing all the instruments. "Simplicated Songs" is a set of country-influenced observations, although this time around he has spread his musical wings." R2 Rock & Reel magazine - September/October 2013 ........................................................................................................................ "Owen Moore has put together an album that is sunny like the Bournemouth weather." Celtic Music Radio, Album of the Week - September 2013 ......................................................................................................................... "An album that is sunny and breezy. Light and hook-laden, the country styled songs draw on both Irish and American influences to provide themes that are instantly accessible. You can feel the influences of the likes of Glen Campbell and Johnny Cash reverberating around the album and that's no bad thing. "Simplicated Songs" could just as easily be called Songs To Get Your Attention." Fatea magazine - June 2013

SHORT SONGS FROM THIN AIR (2014) ..................................................................................................................... "Owen Moore is a one-man record business and "Short Songs From Thin Air" is his fourth album of original material. It's gentle and refreshingly melodic with a country edge and Owen plays sufficient instruments to keep the arrangements interesting. He won't change the world but he might just brighten your day." R2 Rock & Reel magazine - November/December 2014 .................................................................................................................... "Even in the titles to his albums you can spot the theme, with the emphasis on songs, the craft of writing these Moore has clearly taken time to hone. "Short Songs From Thin Air" ...one of the finest titles to come this way in a long time... ...a thoroughly enjoyable collection of songs that will make you feel infinitely better about the world after listening to it." New Country UK magazine - October 2014

SECRET SONGS THROUGH AN OPEN WINDOW (2016) ..................................................................................................................... "West Country based Irish singer songwriter who trades in the easy rolling sounds of folk-country... Delivered in a relaxed style and warm voice that might be best compared to Don Williams... Liltingly easy on the ear... Sit back, close your eyes and sip a Bushmills and honey..." Fatea magazine - November 2016 ......................................................................................................................... Owen Moore is a veteran singer/guitarist and songwriter and "Secret Songs Through An Open Window" is his fifth album. It boasts a light touch in performance and production, an underlying country feel and a bunch of songs that are easy on the ear with intriguing titles like, "An Irish Song And A Spanish Guitar". R2 Rock & Reel magazine - March / April 2017

SONGS FROM SMALL HOTEL ROOMS BY THE SEA (2017) ........................................................................................................................ "Album of the week" Celtic Music Radio - December 2017 ......................................................................................................................... "Another well penned set of original songs well worthy of your attention." Fatea magazine - December 2017 ......................................................................................................................... "A positive album that is perfect listening for a lazy weekend." Maverick magazine - December 2017/January 2018 ........................................................................................................................ "A collection of songs inspired by various corners of Britain's coast as seen through the eyes of a wandering minstrel. A bit singer-songwriter, a bit country and all very entertaining." R2 Rock & Reel magazine - March / April 2018

SONGS FROM A SWAGMAN'S SUITCASE (2017) ........................... Averaging an album (or more) a year since 2011, the Bournemouth-based singer makes his first appearance of 2017 with a collection of other people's songs he's featured, one and off, in his live shows over the years. Some will be familiar, others less so, but all are delivered in a warm easy on the ear style that marks him out as Dorset's answer to Don Williams and which has seen me previously liken him to classic Irish country singers like Larry Cunningham and Frankie McBride. Moore plays everything on the album save for viola and harp drum, courtesy of Sam Stockley, which appear on the album opener, 'Killing The Blues', written by Chris Isaak bassist Rowland Salley. You might not know the name but, previously covered by Shawn Colvin, Plant and Krauss, John Prine and Shooter Jennings, you should know the song, Moore's version being a worthy addition to the list. Equally obscure names will be Shay Healy, an Irish songwriter and broadcaster whose dreamy 'When You Become Stardust Too' closes the set, and veteran American troubadour Dave Mallet whose' Summer of My Dreams' is featured here. Unless you were a child of the 60s, the name Jesse Lee Kinkaid won't mean much either, but he was singer with The Rising Sons, a 1964 LA folk-rock outfit which also featured Taj Mahal and a 17-year-old Ry Cooder and wrote 'She Sang Hymns Out Of Tune', covered in faithful manner here, which was recorded by Hearts and Flowers, the line-up of which included future Eagle Bernie Leadon. The other credits are mostly well-known country, folk and blues singer-songwriters, among them Merle Haggard ('The Running Kind'), Jesse Winchester ('That's What Makes You Strong'), Charlie Rich ('Anywhere You Are'), Guy Clark (a dappled, summer lazing reading of 'Some Days You Write The Song') and, inevitably, Dylan ('Tomorrow Is A Long Time') while the rock n roll archives are mined for Johnny Restivo's only hit, 1959's 'The Shape I'm In' (penned by Lee Cathy and Otis Blackwell) and Buddy Holly's 'Tell Me How', the B-side of 'Maybe Baby'. The remaining number is a bit of a surprise among the company it keeps, being a TexMex tinged countrified clicking percussion arrangement of Jimmy Cliff's 'Sitting In Limbo' that works remarkably well. As I've said before, this isn't on the cutting edge of country or Americana, but, good music, well sung in a relaxed, laid back and inviting manner, it should be much in demand at country music clubs far and wide. Mike Davies FATEA magazine

HAND-PAINTED SONGS (2018) ......................................................................................................... "The 2018 album from the Irish-born, Dorset-based country music singer and songwriter displays an entertaining mix of his country and folk influences." UKCountryRadio.com ........................................................................................................ "It's like Townes Van Zandt transposed to Limerick. Consistently enjoyable listening." Fatea magazine - May 2018 .................................................................................................................. "The latest release in Owen Moore's fast-growing catalogue. Owen does everything himself - including writing all the songs - and whether by chance or design, he's produced a gently happy sing-along album." R2 Rock & Reel magazine - September / October 2018

ACCIDENTAL SONGS (2019) .................................................................................................................... "For a man who writes Accidental Songs Owen Moore is remarkably prolific. Folky with a country tinge, there are threads of loneliness and nostalgia running through these songs. Owen plays and sings every note and there are plenty of notes here. Songs like “Sweet Little Town” and “The Kids From Gypsy Lane” will take you back to a time that probably didn’t exist except in your memory." R2 Rock & Reel magazine - January / February 2020 ...................................................................................................................... “A mix of country soft rock with catchy guitar melodies, drifting occasionally into something akin to '70s pop. Owen Moore's maturity of voice is backed occasionally by carefully placed harmonies, never too many, never too few. "The Blue Lounge Corner Bar" was the album's immediate highlight, a country rock song that showcases Moore's rich voice. "In A Song" is another stand out track, with echoes of Roy Orbison. Close your eyes and you can actually hear him singing this one. There are some especially nice touches in the backing vocals of this all too short song. "The Kids From Gypsy Lane" will resonate with other listeners. "Words To The Wise" is another love song, this one carried along by Beatles style backing vocals, covering themes that almost everybody will understand. Like a number of these songs, it indicates that Moore's main music influences are from the 1960s and 1970s… …and possibly harks back to Irish roots. There is a reflective theme to much of this album. Each of the songs is eminently listenable, and each has its own hook. Well produced and beautifully delivered." Fatea magazine - July 2019

FIRESIDE SONGS (2021) ............................................................... Owen Moore is an Irish-born singer songwriter based in Dorset. Over the past ten years or so he’s put out a staggering ten solo albums of original songs, not to mention a handful live albums too. In fact, my delay in reviewing Fireside Songs since he kindly sent it to me back in the summer has meant he’s had time to put another album since – albeit a compilation of highlights from his previous ten albums. While Owen tells me he’s had a lifetime of playing countless small gigs behind him, he’s keen to stress that his driving passion in recent years has been his song-writing. There’s certainly plenty of evidence of quality writing on Fireside Songs. Owen Moore’s lyrics are highly personal, his warm and gentle vocals are consistently engaging and he has a real ear for a catchy melody that will leave you humming along, long after the album has finished. His style falls into that well-trodden path between folk and Americana, and his songs are captivating and original enough to have plenty of appeal for fans of both. From the Byrds-like ‘Every Once In a While’ to the irresistibly catchy ‘It’s All About You’ to the more traditional big country ballad feel of ‘Diamond Ring’ the album is packed full of songs you want to play again and again. The album ends with ‘The Town of Tralee’, originally released as a single at the back end of 2020,which is the Limerick-born singer’s affectionate paean to the Kerry town of Tralee where he spent time as a young man. An engaging singer-songwriter and a fine guitarist if you enjoy the folky-ish and the country-ish it’s well worth checking out Owen Moore’s Fireside Songs as well as other albums in his prolific back catalogue. Darren Johnson

SIXTEEN EASY SONGS FOR VOICE & GUITAR (2021) ..................... Based in Bournemouth on England’s south coast, Owen Moore is an Irish-born singer-songwriter. A prolific songwriter with an extensive back catalogue, this latest album is actually a compilation with highlights drawn from Owen’s ten previous albums which span the period 2011-2021. Doing exactly what it says on the tin, Sixteen Easy Songs For Voice & Guitar serves as a welcome introduction to anyone wanting to familiarise themselves with Owen Moore’s work. It’s just Owen, his voice, his songs and his guitar but it makes for a fine album. Serving up folk-infused acoustic Americana, Moore’s wistful, easy-going delivery and thoughtful, introspective lyrics are allied with instantly catchy melodies that owe something towards pop sensibilities, too. Darren Johnson

BLUE SKY SONGS (2022) .............................................................. Album Of The Week - Celtic Music Radio - August 2022 Irish-born singer songwriter, Owen Moore lays down his music in unfussy, warming and welcoming tones – and that’s clearly evident on his latest release, Blue Sky Songs. This timeless, pleasing mix of country and folk has ten songs in total, all originals. Now based in Dorset he relies on a relaxed vocal delivery underpinned by excellent arrangements and as an instrumentalist, Owen exudes class. One review of this new release praised Owen as ‘an effortlessly accomplished songsmith’ – Blue Sky Songs proves it. ........................................................................................................ As prolific as ever, this is Moore's eleventh studio album (or at least the eleventh readily available online) and, once again, it finds the Irish-born, Dorset-based veteran in an easy rolling cocktail of folk and country. It opens with the scampering acoustic guitar and jaunty folk of 'Till I Was Ten', a disarming bittersweet Paxtonesque number about growing up, loss of innocence ("Believed in angels, believed in magic, believed that hearts were made of gold") and how childish imagination ("captain of a pirate ship, running with the breeze/Setting sail for new adventure each day doing as I please") gets replaced by life's realities ("Familiar faces disappeared, favourite toys got exchanged/People died or went away, forever friends became estranged/Things got broken up and busted, realigned and rearranged, when I was ten and I would never be the same again"). Melodically calling to mind 'Different Drum', 'You And Me' slows it down for another reflective number about keeping a relationship alive ("Maybe it's only just time passing by and maybe it's only the light in your eye/Maybe it's only the moment and place and maybe it's only the smile on your face/But you and me - I keep thinking about you and me/Just thinking about you and me, we're going to be alright"), while 'FireGlo' unwraps the 12 string to colour a story song that has its roots in Jack and the Beanstalk wherein the narrator recalls striking deal with a huckster to buy a candy-coloured Rickenbacker ("He said he'd got it in a trade with an old lady who had played/It only one time in her small town church way back in 1969") and regrets how things that fell apart ("I am sorry that I never sent a postcard, I am sorry that I never made a call/But I truly meant to write each and every night…And I'm ashamed to say I have spent all the money, I had really hoped to save a coin or two/But now that it's all gone, we've got to try to just move on/No point in falling out about what I did or didn't do"). It's one of four songs that pass the five minute mark, followed by the second, the warm and lived in fingerpicked country-flavoured ballad 'When You Fall In Love Again' that conjures thoughts of Don Williams, Kristofferson and George Jones, the pace picking up, after some static intro, on the gently jogging I Heard It On The Radio, a fond reminiscence of childhood ("In the days when electricity on a farm was still a rarity" and discovering the magic of "a battery-powered radio", introducing him to not only music but "things I knew I'd want to know/About world affairs and great events, kings and queens and presidents". It's hard to imagine anyone writing a similar song about streaming services. Ukulele and whistling set the scene for the vaudeville-tinged waltzer 'Sunday With You', while Irish roots are mined on the equally dreamy travelling troubadour's reminiscence of a romance with 'Clara From Clare' ("In the candle-lit hallway of a guest house in Galway, we met at the foot of the stairs/It was her eyes that first got me, but her soft voice that caught me, uncertain, unsure, unawares… A little badge with her name, so simple and plain, drew me in like a moth to a flame"), only for it to prove a brief dalliance ("like the dark queens of Tara, Clara Sarah O'Hara proved too wild for me to pursue/And so as Christmas drew near and the end of that year blew in with its cold rain and snow/My brief love affair with Clara from Clare faded out with nowhere to go"). Themes of change and impermanence run throughout the album, surfacing again with the friskier wry tale of the Irish country 'Not Quite The Same Anymore" getting dumped and finding that "when she said, 'Forever, to me, did she mean, Just for a while?'" when "just somebody" turns out to be "not just anybody". It ends with, first, 'And Then', another strummed post-break-up trying to keep it together ("The cat still gets fed, I usually make up the bed, I'm up to date with the gas and the phone") number straight off a honky tonk heartaches jukebox ("Doing my thing like nothing's happening, carrying on as if you're still there/Then I'll turn the radio on just as they're playing our song and then it all starts to crumble & fall/And that's when I know that I just can't do this at all"), fittingly rounding it all off with the fingerpicked, cascading notes of the slow shuffling 'I Don't Feel Like Singing Today' where he ruefully notes" my guitar's lying there on top of my things, in shape and in tune, with new silver strings/When I hit the right note that sweetheart just rings, but I don't feel like singing today". It may not be cutting edge country or ploughing new folk furrows, but Moore is an effortlessly accomplished songsmith with the same sort of timeless quality to his music that informs the best work of McCartney, Cash and Gibson. You'll be glad he felt like singing these. Mike Davies FATEA magazine

SONGS FROM THE SHAMROCK BAR (2022) ................................. Songs From The Shamrock Bar, subtitled A 10-Year Anthology, and timely available for St Patrick’s Day, this, as it says, gathers together around an hour’s worth of songs from the relaxingly warm-voiced Dublin-born multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter’s past decade, and, as per the title, with a decided Irish theme running through. Racing drums and jangling guitars kick off ‘Galtee Moon’, a portrait the Galtee mountains on the Tipperary, Cork and Limerick border “where the hares run and the falcons swoop and fly/And there are shadows in the moonlight on the mountain/Where the wind howls like a screaming banshee”, that subsequently serves as a backdrop to the Irish War of Independence as a young colleen lies in bed thinking of her young man “hiding up there by the tarn” while the black and tans are on the hunt. The gently jogging ‘I Heard It On The Radio’ is the first of two numbers recalling his discovery of music, a fond reminiscence of childhood (“In the days when electricity on a farm was still a rarity” and discovering the magic of “a battery-powered radio”, introducing him to not only music but “things I knew I’d want to know/About world affairs and great events, kings and queens and presidents”. The other is ‘Nelson’s Neon Jukebox’, a memory of a café in O’Connell Street in 1962 and his first encounter with a jukebox. listening to Ray Charles sing ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You’ and how, in its infectious chorus “that jukebox was a bright chrome-plated treasure chest to me/It held all the songs you could ever want to know/If you were happy or just feeling blue, it had the very song for you/Press the buttons, let the music flow”. The briskly jogging Irish country ‘Mr Frank’ is another memory of youth, the story of Hank Franklin from Sacramento who married a local girl and of his being impressed by the fact that, rather attending Mass on Sundays, he’d spend the day polishing his two-tone cream and candy turquoise green Buick Roadmaster, in which the young Moore dreamed of riding but never did, “Though I sat upon its cowhide seats and held its driving wheel” and “pretend that I was cruising down The Boulevard at night”. However, on his eighth birthday, he received a cardboard box inside which “was the neatest, sweetest toy/With two-tone paint, whitewall tyres and tiny sparks of chrome/A little Buick model car, a new Roadmaster of my own”. Moore has a deft way of capturing characters in his song, another such being the equally upbeat ‘Queen Of The Shoolin Fair’, a travelling fair, on who the narrator has a crush (“ I’ll buy her flowers and everything, oh, I wish I had the money for a diamond ring/But with my fairground queen, I’ll be king, when I go to the Shoolin Fair”), the song overflowing with the wide eyed spirit of youth and more innocent days. A slightly slower strum, ‘Cottage On The Farm’ is the story of three brothers (“Jerome, as he was oldest, had stayed to plough and work the fields/And when God had called on Timothy, he had bowed and he had kneeled/James had marched through farming soil on Belgian battlefields/But they’d been drawn back home to work upon the farm”) and how “I never saw them angry and I never heard them swear” and “I would sit there in their kitchen and hang on every word they’d say” about how joining in the struggle for Irish independence (“Constructing roadblocks in the country, conducting night raids in the town”) had brought trouble and tragedy to the farm (“There had been one other brother, a little younger than the rest/Daniel was the darlin’ boy that their mother had loved the best/But he’d been taken from that kitchen, when informers had confessed/And they had found him by the stream down upon the farm”). Expanding the musical horizons, the tale of a greyhound, the eight minute racetrack tragic ‘Cousin Lil’ opens with moody kletzmer sounding guitar work before the tempo picks up with a shuffling beat snare and border country acoustic guitar picking, closing with a troubadour guitar pattern and folksy martial beat lope outro. That’s followed by ‘An Irish Song & A Spanish Guitar’ is a gently rolling rambling musician number (“When I first left home, I didn’t look back, I knew I was walking down a one-way track/Following a dream, chasing a wandering star/A clean change of clothes in a canvas sack, all I had to my name was the coat on my back/A head full of songs and my grandfather’s old guitar”). Another than passes the eight minute mark (only two are under five),’On The Military Road’ is a masterful New Year’s Eve ghost story narrative (“I became aware through that cold, white air, of footsteps drawing near/Then I saw a group of men, maybe nine or ten, gradually appear/No words were said, none turned their head, nor looked me in the eye/Just stared straight ahead, expressions dead, as they passed me, marching by…they were dressed, in their raggedness, in clothes from long ago/Each man looked hurt in torn, blood-stained shirt with tattered, bandaged head or hand”). As a matter of historical note that adds resonance to the song, the Military Road runs across the spine of the Wicklow Mountains and was constructed between 1800 and 1809, in the wake of the 1798 rebellion, to open up the mountains to the British Army in putting down insurgents who were hiding there. And he wouldn’t be a proper Irish songwriter if there wasn’t sentimental emigration ballad, thus things come to a close with ‘Across The Irish Sea’, the narrator recalling home, as a baby, his mother “closed the door behind us both and said her last goodbye/With a suitcase in her hand she bade farewell to her homeland/And she carried me away across the sea”, always returning home one a year to reconnect with her heritage and roots, he finally taking her back to be buried in her native soil. While Irish folk music and singers are regarded with reverence, there a tendency to treat mainstream Irish country with a certain disdain, as somehow cheesy with excess sentimentality and corn and, while that may be true at times, and no less so with old school American country, veteran names such as Philomena Begley, Brendan Shine, Larry Cunningham, Johnny McEvoy, Frankie McBride, and Ray Lynam are very much the real thing. At times coming over like an Irish Don Williams, Moore fully warrants mention in the same breath. Mike Davies folking.com magazine

BACK PORCH SONGS (FROM WAY BACK WHEN) (2024)................ The title tells you pretty much what to expect from the umpteenth album by the Dorset-based Irish country singer, this time round leaving aside his own material for a collection of, in many cases, obscure songs by a raft of famous names. The first dates back to 1950 and Little Jimmy Dickens sprightly economic downturn single 'Out Of Business' followed by 1963 Ricky Nelson hit 'String Along'. Of a more countrified persuasion, the simply strummed waltzer 'Fraulein' was written by Lawton Williams and released by Bobby Helms in 1957, going on to spend 52 weeks in the country charts, including four at No 1. Staying old school country, Faron Young's the source of the 1968 honky tonker 'I Just Came To Get My Baby' (man rescues woman who can't take her drink) which Moore segues into 'After My Laughter', first recorded by the Hillbilly Trio back in 1927. The tempo slows for Frankie Laines 1949 No 1, 'That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day)', a number that went on to become an evergreen with versions by Sam Cooke, Bobby Darin, Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra. It gets friskier again with 'I Don't Care (Just As Long As You Love Me)' which spent six weeks at No 1 in 1964 for Buck Owens, returning to honky tonk waltzing (and a snatch of whistling) with the far lesser known 'Hello, Remember Me?' a minor 1958 hit recorded by the equally little known Jimmy Donley and penned by his friend Huey P. Meaux but perhaps better known from the cover by Billy Swan. Written by Flatt and Scruggs who released it with The Foggy Mountain Boys as a 78 in 1949, the bluegrass 'Down The Road' swaps banjo for guitar and is taken at a slightly slower pace, Moore returning to the barroom for Stonewall Jackson's chugging Jan 62 hit 'A Wound Time Can't Erase', here with a slightly different rhythm and Moore's mixed back huskiness instead of Jackson's drawl. Finding a Dean Martin hit on a country album might seem a touch unexpected and, his cover of the Italian Ritorna a Me making No 2 in the UK charts in 1958, Moore very much keeps the same dreamy crooner mood of 'Return To Me' and, while it may be a bit out of genre context, it slips down just as smoothly. It's firmly back to classic country for the final three cuts, first up being the sprightly fleet-footed Harlan Howard-penned 1965 Lefty Frizell hit 'She's Gone, Gone, Gone', followed by John D Loudermilk's 1962 crooning ballad 'Everybody Knows' and, finally a take on The Louvin's 1956 hit 'You're Running Wild', though Moore's slower waltzing, strummed arrangement more has Roy Orbison echoes to it. It would be easy to dismiss this as pub back room country singalong listening, but in another world Moore's affinity for the music and the authentic manner in which he delivers it might well find itself being championed by American labels like Smithsonian Folkways and Arhoolie. Pull up a rocking chair and enjoy. Mike Davies FATEA magazine

HOME GROWN SONGS (2024) ........................................................ "Home Grown Songs is the twelfth album from veteran songwriter Owen Moore and it is just as quetly wonderful as the previous eleven. Moore has an uncanny knack of writing simple songs that resonate with his listeners, encapsulating life's ups and downs and occasional sidesteps. Focused on feelings of belonging and a sense of place, the album does both with considerable charm and panache." RnR magazine - September/October 2024

PRINCE OF PICCADILLY (2024 single) ...................................................... "A narrative song telling the tale of an ex-soldier fallen between the cracks of society and takes another homeless person under his wing. Owen Moore has been telling these tales for a good while now and is worth seeing live if you get the chance. Irish folk by way of Billy Bragg, the emphasis is on the poetry of his words with the music, while the music is far from incidental, you'll listen to Moore for his storytelling." TM. FATEA magazine December 2024

SONGS IN SESSION (2025) ............................................................ Recorded for broadcast for two radio station sessions during lockdown and never heard since, Moore's gathered them together from the original recordings, the songs being ones he'd been performing live around that time, and nine of which would appear on his 2021 retrospective compilation Sixteen Easy Songs For Voice & Guitar. Unashamedly middle of the road easy listening in the manner of other vintage Irish folk-country names such as Larry Cunningham, Johnny McEvoy and Brendan Shine or American equivalents like Jim Reeves and Don Williams, his songs are gentle, at times whimsical, romantic or melancholic, always couched in a simple, hummable strummed melody and delivered with an engagingly grainy, slightly husky vocal. The shuffling 'I Don't Play My Guitar On A Sunday' opens proceedings, not as a church going man but giving it a day of rest, and as such reflecting it perhaps as God's instrument in his eyes. The sprightlier jaunty 'Home In The Rain' is the first of the love songs, a reverie of falling and parting, the thread continuing with 'Walking With That Girl Of Mine' and the Guthrie-flavoured 'Hang Around With You'. The ironic 'Freedom Of The City' with its circling fingerpicked pattern is a more meditative number nursing a break-up and a bottle, giving way to another losing you number in the ragtime folk blues feel of 'The Blue Notes' with its swayalong chorus. The musical mood shifts with the Spanish flamenco intro to the 'Rosanna Del Rey', a Marty Robbins-like Texicali number that originally appeared on his 2016 album 'Short Songs From Thin Air' and resurfaced as a single in 2021, the album rolling along through the wistful 'Cruel Imagination', the playfully frisky 'Carry On Like It's OK' ("I know what my dog would do if he couldn't wag his tail"), the Latin Americana sway of 'She's Still Wearing Blue', the fingerpicked chimes of the romantic misdirections of 'Unfaithful Moonlight' and, finally, the folksy mortality-themed spiritual of 'One Sweet Day' from 'Songs From Small Hotel Rooms By The Sea'. Given the studio recordings are pretty much Owen and his guitar, there's not a great difference between those and these sessions, but even so they still slip down like a mellow malt. Mike Davies FATEA magazine

SONGS FROM A SEA VIEW RENDEZVOUS (2025) .......................... His umpteenth album and again completely solo, this leans more to the middle of the road side of Irish country a la classic names like Brendan Shine and Johnny McAvoy, but, a sort of companion piece to Songs From Small Hotel Rooms By The Sea, that is just part of its easy-going charm. These are mostly warm and wistful love songs, though it opens with 'The Make-Believe King Of Tara' which tells the tale of a little boy who climbs a small hill near to his farmstead home and, in his imagination, thinks of it as the Hill of Tara, an ancient ceremonial and burial site near Skryne in County Meath, which tradition identifies as the inauguration place and seat of the High Kings of Ireland. Imaging himself as king, looking down at the countryside below, he wonders if, in years to come, others will follow in his footsteps and see it as their kingdom too. 'When Love Runs Out On You' is a lilting post break-up swayalong, though unusually it's the one whose been dumped who's imaging why and how the other will feel "when there's no more me and you". In contrast, the narrator as an artist, 'Dmitri's Violin' uses a character sketch of a local eccentric for a reflection on a past love ("you were so patient while I painted you, emerging from the sea/While I struggled to find colours to show how much you meant to me/But now I can look at Aphrodite, as the afternoons draw in/And I swear I've seen her smile at the sound of Dimitri's violin"), though there's no actual violin featured, ending with a hint of mazurka, the same emotional palette informing the Irish honky tonk of the poignant 'Table Number Three', our protagonist regularly returning to the same café spot (presumably on the sea front as per the album title) he and a lover shared on their first date. Elsewhere, bruised hearts and loss take on similar lyrical and musical fashion on 'Tangled And Torn Up', the jogalong metaphorical growing old ghost story 'The Grey Stone House' ("many years later, when I was all grown/I owned a solitary house built of stone/With a garden and few scattered apple trees too/Which my children learned to climb on their own/Now with the passing of time, somehow, I'm the only one in this old empty house now/And at night-time I wander, in the dark and the gloom, like a ghost, haunting each lonely room") and the growing older and funerals backdrop of 'Any Other Way' ("St Peter, if you hear me, please save a space for me/It must be getting kind of crowded high up there/Seems like all my lifelong friends are disappearing recently/I look, but I can't see them anywhere"). As balance, the sprightly scampering 'Fine French Wine' takes a more upbeat tone ("what I want is a glass or two of fine French wine, what I want is somewhere I can just call mine/But what I'll need in my little place is to see your ever-friendly face, 'cause all I really want is you") and 'What In The World' (Jim Reeves might have recorded this) is about love found. It ends with the musically lively six-minute 'Prince Of Piccadilly (The Ballad Of Billy Bold)', the tale of a Southwark-born ex-soldier fallen between the cracks of society ("Billy's face was very well known from Marylebone and Bow/To the cells of West End Central, 27, Saville Row/"There's no place quite like home", is the saying we all know/But if you've got no home, then you have no place to go") who takes the singer, another homeless person, under his wing, the message being "that stranger in a doorway, seeking shelter from the cold/Is not some no-name nobody, he could be me or Billy Bold", a reminder that Moore is a storyteller of some note. Mike Davies FATEA magazine