Wesley Boyd- Songs of Ireland

St. Patrick’s Day is this Friday and so here at the Show, we are posting Irish albums all week.  This record is another one of the records I received from my pal, Micahl.  It is also the second album I found in the bunch that is autographed. I get a kick out of the autographed albums and have quite a collection built up after almost two years of doing this blog.

From what I could piece together, Wesley Boyd was (or possibly is) a baritone singer from Belfast, Northern Ireland.  He won several prestigious singing awards in both Belfast and Dublin before moving to the US in 1959.  He was very involved in crusades and religious missions in the US, most notably for Billy Graham.  Most of the information I dug up on him came from small town newspapers covering these events. The Pampa Daily News have him living in Oklahoma City in 1960.  His wife, Margaret accompanied him on organ as well as the piano on this record.

This album really showcases Boyd’s rich voice against some of the more classical Irish songs.  The piano is minimal yet elegant.  Pretty good album.  A lot of decent tracks on here that diverge from the typical Irish-pub tunes. For a sample, I was torn between a couple choices so I went with one of my favorites, “Bridget Flynn”, “Eileen Oge” and the old classic standard, “Galway Bay” which was done rather flippantly by the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.

Decent enough record.  Satisfactory.

8 thoughts on “Wesley Boyd- Songs of Ireland”

  1. I met the Boyd’s in Oklahoma City while we attended the same church for a while. He was the music director at the church. I grew to enjoy them. He sang at my wedding in 1983. I lost track of them shortly after that because of moving to Nee Mexico. Not long after that they returned to Ireland. I don’t know any recent history on them. I ran across your site as I was doing a Google search for any information on Wesley and Margaret! They gave me this album.

  2. I knew the Boyds as they were in the US. My father was a Methodist minister and they actually stayed with us in our home. Yes he won many awards in Ireland and his wife Margaret was a concert pianist. My parents are both gone, but I have not been able to find them in Belfast. When I was in Ireland I was not near there, but hope to go back and see if they are both alive. These songs brought back MANY memories!!

  3. I have tw0 0f these albums and was trying t0 find 0ut m0re ab0ut them. B0the c0pies are aut0graphed, but the 0bverses differ. 0ne album has the pictures 0f them fr0nt and back, The 0ther has a little 0f their bi0graphical inf0rmati0n

  4. I knew Wesley Boyd well as he was well-known to my paternal grandparents and I transferred a lot of his audio material. He was a true gentleman – he offered to insure me on his car as he felt it wasn’t right me taking young ladies out on dates in a large white van!
    He passed away in 2016 I think and I was saddened to not have known at the time as I always stopped in to see him when I called through Belfast.
    I still have a cakebox of CDs of his of various projects and would love it to go to his relatives. If you know who they are, please get in touch. darrell_walker@hotmail.com

    1. Thanks for your feedback. Sorry to hear about the passing but it seems like he did touch the lives of many.

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