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Brendan Graham
Brendan Graham, born in Co. Tipperary in 1945, by his early twenties had been a basketball international, a student priest and a pig-boner in London. Nights were on bass guitar with the resident band at Elephant and Castle's, Shamrock Club. After a stint in a Knightsbridge shoe salon - among his clients Gigi star Leslie Caron and Born Free star Virginia McKenna, he lived in Australia for five years before retuning to Ireland. He is married with five daughters.
His songs have been recorded by a wide spectrum of artists, including choral group Anuna, Dervish, Brian Kennedy, Russell Watson, Il Divo, Westlife, Celtic Woman and Daniel O'Donnell to name a few.
His "Isle Of Hope, Isle of Tears" by The Irish Tenors, the story of fifteen year old Annie Moore, first to step ashore on New York's immigration Centre, Ellis Island, has become widely popular in America and is included in the folio of songs I love New York.
In 1994, his song "Rock 'n' Roll Kids" stormed to victory in the Eurovision Song Contest by one of the biggest winning margins in the Contest's fifty-year history.
"You Raise Me Up" which he co-wrote with Rolf Lovland of Secret Garden has been covered over 125 times (and counting….). Josh Groban's recording of the song was nominated for a Grammy and topped the American billboard Adult contempory charts and remained there for 6 weeks.
In October 2005, Westlife's version went straight into the UK charts at No. 1 and has now sold 1.4 million copies. In December of that year, the single also won Record Of The Year.
Il Divo recently recorded a Spanish version which is on their US platinum album.
Following the recent success with "You Raise Me Up", Brendan has been collaborating with many other established writers and artists such as Steve Mac (Songwriter/Producer), Kane Alexander and Delta Goodrem.
Brendan has also enjoyed remarkable success also as a novelist. He has three published novels, "The Whitest Flower", "Element Of Fire" and his current book "The Brightest Day, The Darkest Night". "The Whitest Flower" was a No. 2 best seller in Ireland.
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