Alan Doyle, Séan McCann, Darrell Power and Bob Hallett have assembled together to form the traditional, yet diverse Newfoundland group, Great Big Sea. Although there is no single word to describe the unique sound of Great Big Sea, their music is an energetic combination of Celtic rock and sing-along folk, while remaining unmistakably traditional. Bob, the band's multi-instrumentalist, has said Great Big Sea is "a really aggressive folk band that marries traditional Celtic music with modern rhythms." A lot of this music has four or five hundred years of history behind it so when you marry that to modern ideas, you've got something that's already a proven product."
Originally with the successful group Rankin Street, Séan (bodhran, tin whistle, guitar) and Bob (fiddle, accordion, mandolin, concertina and bouzuki) later met up with Darrell (bass and acoustic guitar) and Alan (guitarist, singer, keyboard) to form Great Big Sea in 1991. "We started out with the simple goal of playing the old songs but picking them up where need be with modern tempos. It was a twofold kind of thing because that music is all around us, but when we were coming up it was competing with the rock music off the radio" (Alan Doyle, in an interview with The Toronto Star November 16, 1995).
In 1992, Great Big Sea released their self-titled, self-produced album, which was later re-released by Warner Canada. Their second album, Up, released in September 1995 hit the Platinum sales mark of 100,000 copies sold in Canada in July 1996. Their latest release, Play took only three months to hit Platinum, then doubling to over 200,000 copies sold by February 1998.

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Lyrics for the songs on the first album by Great Big Sea entitled, "Great Big Sea"

Great Big Sea - Great Big Sea Lyrics

Lyrics for the songs on the second album by Great Big Sea entitled, "Up"

Up - Great Big Sea Lyrics

Lyrics for the songs on the third album by Great Big Sea entitled, "Play"

Play - Great Big Sea Lyrics

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