About
2011 sees Ronan Keating starting his 17th year in the music industry, making him something of an anomaly in the world of pop music.
Boasting a lifetime of impressive professional achievements including; dueting with Elton John at Madison Square Garden, singing for the Pope, hosting everything from Miss World, Eurovision Song Contest and MTV Europe Awards and acting as a judge on X Factor in Australia (where in the first year his mentored act, Atilyan Childs, won), recording with Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), writing an autobiography, travelling the world, guiding Westlife to stardom, winning a prestigious BMI European Song Writing Award, winning an Ivor Novello Award, being appointed as a UN Goodwill Ambassador and too many hits, gigs and awards to keep count, Ronan’s prolific, varied and highly successful career shows no sign of slowing. 2011 saw Ronan add a new string to his bow as he debuted his acting skills in his first full length film, taking the male lead in a romantic musical comedy due for release in 2012.
Ronan’s music career of course, started with Boyzone back in the early nineties. 2008 saw Ronan rejoining his band mates, after nearly a decade apart, for what was a spectacular comeback. After a sell-out 29-date tour, a Top 5 comeback single and a Number 1 Greatest Hits album, Boyzone re-affirmed their place in the pop charts and cemented this with another huge arena tour of the UK & Ireland. The boys were enjoying touring, being back together as a band and looking forward to recording their 4th studio album but on 10th October 2009 things changed forever with Stephen’s tragic and untimely death. For a while it seemed that maybe Boyzone could be no more but then Ronan, Keith, Shane and Mikey decided that Stephen would want them to carry on and indeed the album and subsequent tour they dedicated to their ‘Brother’. Released in March 2010 the ‘Brother’ album went straight to Number 1 in the UK and in Ireland and garnered the hit singles ‘Gave It All Away’ and ‘Love Is A Hurricane’. After much discussion and debate the remaining members of Boyzone toured the Brother album to sell out arenas in March 2011.
Born in Dublin in 1977 the youngest of 5 children Ronan was only 17 when he won a place in a band being put together by Louis Walsh.
Ronan’s first taste of musical success came in November 1994 when he hit the top three for the very first time with Boyzone’s first hit ‘Love Me For A Reason’. Since then he’s not looked back. In those initial five years as part of one the biggest pop bands ever, he enjoyed success with an incredible 16 top five singles, six of which hit the number one spot. In August of 1999 he had his first ever solo number one with ‘When You Say Nothing At All’ from the hit movie ‘Notting Hill’.
In August of 2000 Ronan released his debut, self titled, album. It shot straight to number one in the UK Album Charts. It contained the two number one singles ‘When You Say Nothing At All’ (August 1999) and ‘Life Is A Rollercoaster’ (July 2000). It went on to sell a very impressive 4.4 million copies around the world and firmly established Ronan as an artist in his own right.
Solo album number two, ‘Destination’ (which includes the number one single ‘If Tomorrow Never Comes’), was released on the 20th of May 2002 and went straight to number one. To coincide with the release of ‘Destination’ Ronan kicked off a yearlong world tour starting with a sell-out Arena tour in the UK. Between May 2002 and May 2003 Ronan toured the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the Gulf, India and South East Asia.
In May 2003 the ‘Destination’ world tour came to an end and Ronan began writing and recording for his third studio album ‘Turn It On’ (released September 2003). In the same year Ronan was awarded with a prestigious BMI European song-writing award for his song ‘The Long Goodbye’, which enjoyed success in the US as a number one single in the Billboard country chart where it was covered by US country duo Brookes and Dunn.
2004 began for Ronan with ‘She Believes In Me’ charting at number two in the single charts and ‘Last thing On My Mind’ (a duet with US star Leann Rimes), hitting the top five. However 2004 wasn’t just about music, in June that year Ronan made a visit that was to change his life - he visited Ghana on his first trip as a Fair Trade ambassador for Christian Aid. Ronan spent a week visiting farmers and families across central Ghana to see first hand how unfair trade laws are destroying livelihoods.
In August 2004 Polydor Records announced that they would release ‘Ronan Keating – 10 Years Of Hits’ to celebrate Ronan’s first decade in the music industry. The album went straight to number one and to date has sold nearly 2:5 million copies worldwide. This hits album saw Ronan get together with Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) to record a version of ‘Father and Son’, which charted at number two on Christmas Day 2004 (losing out on the number one spot to Band Aid 20). Ronan had originally enjoyed success with this track in 1995 when Boyzone released it as a single.
In June 2006 came ‘Bring You Home’ which spawned the hit singles ‘All Over Again’ and ‘Iris’.
March 2009 had seen Ronan take a short break from his busy schedule with the reunited Boyzone, for the release of his special album to celebrate Mother’s Day, ‘Songs For My Mother’. A project especially close to Ronan’s heart, the album was a collection of songs that Ronan remembered his mother listening to when he was growing up; Mother’s Day being an especially poignant day for Ronan since the death of his mother Marie, in 1998. Recorded over the space of two days with a live orchestra, the album was produced by Steve Lipson. The album was a huge success both critically and commercially, giving Ronan his eighth Number 1 album in the UK, topping the charts for two consecutive weeks. The album also reached the top spot in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.
Ronan followed this up later that year with his 7th studio album, the critically acclaimed, ‘Winter Songs’. Released in November 2009, it again saw him teaming up with Steve Lipson to record 11 songs that evoke Christmas and Winter for Ronan. The album included traditional tracks such as ‘Silent Night’ and ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ and more modern offerings including ‘River’ (Joni Mitchell) and ‘Homeward Bound’ (Simon & Garfunkel) as well as two new tracks written by Ronan.
In December 2010 Ronan received a call at home .. ‘Hello this is Burt’, that call was the start of what was to become his 8th studio album ‘When Ronan Met Burt’, which reached No 3 in the UK album chart. Recorded at the legendary Capitol Studios in early 2011 with a full 40 piece orchestra, with only 90 minutes to record each song, using Frank Sinatra’s old microphone and with Burt Bacharach himself producing! Ronan and Burt had together worked through Burt’s amazing catalogue of songs and finally decided on 10 beautiful tracks that Ronan was able to make his own.
Outside of music Ronan has always kept himself busy with other projects, with a particular emphasis on charity work, which has always featured largely in his schedule. Ronan has run the London Marathon twice and climbed Kilimanjaro with the likes of Gary Barlow and Cheryl Cole in aid of Comic Relief. Following the death of his mother, Ronan and family set up the Marie Keating Foundation which now in partnership with Cancer Research UK, raises huge amounts of money every year towards cancer research, in his mother’s memory. Fundraising for the charity has seen Ronan walk across Ireland twice, put on the Emeralds and Ivy Ball every year, which receives tremendous support across the board from a host of Ronan’s celeb pals, and in September 2011 Ronan and a team took part in The Swim. They swam 56 miles across the Irish Sea in relay in an amazing 35 hours and 18 minutes, raising money for Cancer Research UK. Who knows what challenge Ronan will take on next ..
