You might be a fan of Elton John, Ed Sheeran, Keith Urban, or NeedToBreathe. Or you might wonder why we’re mentioning all those pop, rock, and country artists in the same sentence. It’s because all of them are longtime fans of singer-songwriter Foy Vance.

The artists came together last year to sing with Vance on his recording of the song “Guiding Light,” celebrating the 10th anniversary of his breakthrough album Joy of Nothing. All those artists have, variously, recorded Vance’s songs, co-written with him, played on, or produced his albums. To that list we could add British pop singer Sam Smith, R&B musician Alicia Keys, rock musician Bonnie Raitt, country artists Kacey Musgraves and Miranda Lambert, and British electronic dance music and hip-hop artists Rag ’n’ Bone Man, Plan B, and Rudimental.

Revisiting Vance’s 2013 album Joy of Nothing is the subject of his world tour, and the concert you will see when he and his band play The Clyde Theatre on Sunday, Jan. 28.

Sheeran shines spotlight

Vance’s long and varied career as a singer-songwriter started in his home country of Northern Ireland, well before his first full-length album Hope in 2007, when he was in his 30s. International superstar Sheeran is on the record as saying that he’s been a huge fan of Vance since that era, when Sheeran was only 15.

With Sheeran’s meteoric rise, he brought along Vance as co-writer and collaborator on songs like “Galway Girl” and “A Beautiful Game,” the latter being for the Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso and winner of an Emmy at the 2023 Primetime Emmy Creative Arts Awards. 

Vance has recorded two acclaimed albums for Sheeran’s label, Gingerbread Man, and toured as Sheeran’s opening act off and on more than a decade. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that Sheeran’s tour for his album ÷ (“Divide”) packed stadiums and arenas worldwide and was the highest-grossing tour in the world across 2017-19. Sheeran was singing Vance’s songs every night.

Well-rounded

Vance’s songs are deeply emotional, drawing on the traditions of the Celtic gospel music of Ireland, Scotland, and England, and certainly informed by the pop music of Elton John and his generation of British rock. 

Vance leads the band while playing a strong rhythm on one of his well-worn Lowden acoustic guitars — handmade in Northern Ireland, of course. His voice is on the gritty side when he raises it to a howl.

Increasingly, on his studio solo albums, notably 2021’s Signs of Life, while the music has remained acoustic, layers of electronic processing are used to deepen and broaden the sound. However, if you take a step back only to 2019, he recorded and released the companion albums From Muscle Shoals and To Memphis, where he went to historic studios in Alabama and Tennessee and worked with their house bands and storied session players to record glorious, horn-backed, organ-drenched roots rock and R&B that payed tribute to the great sounds of American music in the 1960s, without any hint of artifice.

Vance has been admirably prolific in recent years, especially during the pandemic. He’s gained legions of followers for his The Vinyl Supper podcast, where he remotely interviews and chats with many of the great stars whose names we’ve dropped in this article. 

There have been numerous EPs of collaborations and remixes, and live albums ranging from him performing solo, accompanying himself on piano, to 2023’s Joy of Nothing (Live from Belfast), the album’s songs performed in new arrangements with the Ulster Orchestra.

Songwriter’s songwriter

If I could get an interview with Vance, which this time I could not, my one basic question would be this: “How did you make the journey from Belfast, Northern Ireland, to Nashville, Tennessee? How the heck does an influential songwriter and collaborator throughout the contemporary British music scene, even working with drum-and-bass, electronic dance music, and rap artists, find a perch in the country music industry in Nashville and work with so many big stars over here?” 

I’d like to hear Vance’s insights, but the obvious answer is that his deeply emotional, personal, and often spiritual themes built on impeccable songcraft through simple arrangements, are universal, at least throughout the English-speaking world. 

He’s a songwriter’s songwriter, revered by huge international stars that line up to work with him. Although he’s not a household name on this side of the pond, he has reaped great rewards from his talent and his diligence.

The great songwriters are like that. While they tour clubs and small theaters in parts of the world where they aren’t known, elsewhere their songs are being sung every night by the biggest stars, performing to tens of thousands in arenas and stadiums. 

Only the true fans who read the album credits, in these parts, recognize Vance for who he is. Seeing him up close in The Clyde is a rare opportunity for fans of all the artists in all the forms of music that he’s informed.

Opening the show, and joining Vance on stage, will be Bonnie Bishop, another revered, seasoned singer-songwriter in her own right, but in this case from an entirely different vector: long associated with Nashville, she has returned to her roots in Fort Worth, Texas. Full stop: How many times have you seen a show in Fort Wayne where a confused, sleep-deprived touring artist calls out, “Good evening, Fort Worth!” from the stage? Expect a couple of in-jokes along with the critically acclaimed Americana. 

Bishop is just as beloved as Vance, to a slightly different and smaller audience. It all comes together in a celebration of the traditions of great modern songwriting.