Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00

Glen Hansard On World Cafe

Glen Hansard
Dara Munnis
/
Courtesy of the artist
Glen Hansard

I gotta say I had a bit of a hard time holding it together during this session. Sitting in a room two feet away from Glen Hansardas he plays an acoustic guitar is transcendent. When we were talking, he was this warm, gregarious storyteller, but as soon as he started to sing, Glen summoned so much force and conviction and blood, that I forgot there was anything else in the entire world. And you'll hear that in my reactions.

Glen found huge success at the 80th Academy Awards when he and his co-writer, Marketa Irglova, won the Oscar for best original song for "Falling Slowly" from the movie Once, a romantic drama that starred Glen and Marketa. The Oscars were a long ways away from his early days busking on the streets Dublin and his rock and roll history with his band The Frames.

Glen performed music from his new album called Between Two Shores, it's the follow up to his last solo album, 2015's Didn't He Ramble. We recorded this session at Reservoir Studios in NYC, where pianist, singer and producer Thomas Bartlett, who also performs as Doveman, just happened to be hanging around and he joined Glen on the piano. Listen in the player above.

Copyright 2018 XPN

Talia Schlanger hosts World Cafe, which is distributed by NPR and produced by WXPN, the public radio service of the University of Pennsylvania. She got her start in broadcasting at the CBC, Canada's national public broadcaster. She hosted CBC Radio 2 Weekend Mornings on radio and was the on-camera host for two seasons of the television series CBC Music: Backstage, as well as several prime-time music TV specials for CBC, including the Quietest Concert Ever: On Fundy's Ocean Floor. Schlanger also guest hosted various flagship shows on CBC Radio One, including As It Happens, Day 6 and Because News. Schlanger also won a Canadian Screen Award as a producer for CBC Music Presents: The Beetle Roadtrip Sessions, a cross-country rock 'n' roll road trip.