Hi, I'm Trish Long and I was born (Tricia Gogan) in Dublin, Ireland. From as early as I can remember I just loved listening to music. Whether it was my mother's 78" vinyl records or the radio it just didn't matter - classical, rock, jazz or pop as long as it was good I couldn't get enough. I do remember when I was about age three my mother calling me any time 'my song' was on the radio and that happened to be Ravel's Bolero....I must have loved the sax even back then!!
In my teens I was drawn to the woodwind instruments while listening to jazz on the radio. Saving up to buy an alto sax at the age of sixteen I started out with a 'teach yourself sax' book. I then started taking lessons with Sydney Egan who was a member of the symphony orchestra. Sydney was always extremely generous with his time and very encouraging. I joined the Dublin based ITGWU (Irish Transport and General Workers Union) band. I spent many enjoyable years with this brass and reed band and through it secured a scholarship to study the alto sax with Joe Coughlan at the Dublin College of Music. Joe Coughlan had performed in theatre and symphony orchestras as well as having been a big band leader in Dublin during the dance hall era. It was Joe that suggested I take up playing the concert flute as a second instrument and I'm so glad I did as I have found it adds another colour to the music I play and it also led on to me playing the flageolet and recorder.
I had a passion for music and loved playing the sax but knew that in the eighties in Dublin there were no openings for a female sax player to become professional. So turning away from studying classical sax a new era dawned for me in the many pubs of Dublin where there was a plethora of original bands of all sorts and many of them wanting a sax player in the line up - yes we are talking about the eighties and sax was in along with huge hair styles!!! I landed some session work as a sax player which included recording work. It was during this crazy period working during the day and performing at night that I heard through one of my musician friends about a singer/songwriter on the scene called Dave Long. I heard a demo tape he had recorded and was an instant fan of his singing, songwriting and musicianship skills.
Through mutual musican friends I ended up at a music session that Dave was having at the Alan Furlong rehearsal studios in Mary Street Dublin. Again I loved his songs and singing but due to other music commitments I was not available to join the band he was forming. However eighteen months later (after an appendectomy followed by a road accident resulting in head and spine injuries) I arrived back at my bank job to find an electrician working on the installation of ATMs. Yes that electrician was Dave Long - and as fate would have it neither of us had any other committments at the time so the very next night we were having a music session. Gigs literally arrived on our doorstep which led us to leaving the day jobs and devoting our time to increasing our original compositions and improving our performance skills.
Late eighties wasn't such a good time for self employed musicians in Ireland. So with Dave now my husband it was off to sunny Australia to try our luck. We had a new start and so changed our band name from Interfusion to Sahara. It has proved to be a very fortunate move as I have had some great experiences here and through Sahara's many concert tours have had a chance to visit and meet people from the greater part of Australia. I count myself very lucky to be an Irish Australian!
The song you just heard was 'Living in the here and now' from Sahara's CD 'There is this place I go' to play again just press button
