By George Houde

Venus passes by the sun, love doesn’t always come to everyone.

The lines are stolen from Luka Bloom, the Irish singer and guitar player who has been stealing into the music world...sometimes under cover of darkness in the theater of the sky when the stars are out and the moon is a slice of pearl on the horizon. 

As it was at Milwaukee’s Irish Fest in August, where Bloom’s debut at the popular Celtic celebration seemed to have caught the audience by surprise, taking them on an excursion into the recesses of the heart where love lives and breathes and dies. As the final notes died away, it lifted them to their feet. 

After several days of boisterous, roaring and sometimes blaring music, Bloom led his audience into a different zone.

"The scene here is unbelievable," Bloom said. "Dancing, pipes, drums. We arrived Friday and after three days, I decided to do a chill-out show, a Celtic chill-out zone."

It worked. Drawn by his rich voice and his wonderful guitar work, the audience followed Bloom into the zone, entranced by the Irish singer-songwriter-poet. Some may have nodded off briefly. That the moon was rising over Lake Michigan with a gentle breeze was kissing the shoreline only 100 yards away made the performance even more memorable.

Bloom began with his song "Innocence" followed by a tune he wrote to his wife when she went on holiday for three weeks to Brazil. "I tried to be very cool about the trip, but I was afraid she would meet a dreadlocked, guitar-playing, soccer-playing, dancing Brazilian and I would never see her again, so I wrote the song and put it on the answering machine," he told the audience to a round of laughter.

He followed with a mix of his own compositions and songs written by other artists, including "To Make You Feel My Love" by Bob Dylan and one by, of all people, L.L. Kool J, "I Need Love." Both of these have been on his earlier albums. The rap song was toned down and interpreted by Bloom as a love ballad, an ode to the dream woman that all men seek but seldom find. It was a remarkable feat of musical talent and interpretation and drew a heavy round of applause from the fans of things Irish. 

"It’s a very lengthy song and I did it to say, ‘Hey, don’t write these guys off.’ They have something to say," Bloom explained later.

Much of his performance was filled with music he has not yet recorded, ballads such as "Prima Vera," a work about a beautiful Portuguese female singer. With his new CD, "Before Sleep Comes," set for release in September, Bloom appears to be sticking with his roots in Co. Clare, however. The CD is a collection of his own songs such as the beautiful "Camomile" and traditional tunes such as "My Singing Bird", both of which he performed.

"I primarily wanted to make the gig mellow," said Bloom later, as he waited for the "Scattering," the fest-ending gathering of musicians. "I didn’t want to hit people with the music."

Mellow it was, but his performance still felt powerful and dynamic, the songs floating up to the heavens as if the whole world could hear them. The recurring tendonitis in his right hand, which has compelled him to moderate his strong guitar playing, seemed not to be an issue. Last year, the ailment forced him to start writing and playing what he calls "whispery songs." They became "Before Sleep Comes,"which has garnered a four-star review from the Irish Times. 

A relative unknown musical talent in the United States, eclipsed, perhaps, by heavier sounds and bigger hype, Bloom has large following in Ireland, Belgium, Holland and Germany. He is a man of re-invention, renaming himself when he first arrived in the United States in 1987 where he landed in Washington, D.C., and began playing clubs. He eventually moved to New York, playing such venues as the Red Lion and being typecast by a Rolling Stone review as a "folksy Irish rocker." His new first name came from the song "My Name is Luka" by Susanne Vega and the surname from the main character in James Joyce’ book, Ulysses. 

Before his American immigration, Bloom was Barry Moore, singer, songwriter and guitarist from Co. Kildare who began his career by touring English clubs with his older brother, Christy Moore. Bloom as Moore had a music career that spanned several decades and included rock music, ballads, pub performances and creative arrangements of songs by ABBA, Dylan and the Cure, among others. 

"In Ireland, you would have to book tickets in advance to see him perform," said Eilis Fitzpatrick, who, with her Australian husband, Daniel Morris, were waiting for Bloom after his Milwaukee debut. The couple had just moved to Milwaukee and she wanted to say hello to Bloom, a friend of her family in Kildare. "He is very popular there."

Bloom thanked the audience for bringing him to Irish Fest and was given a standing ovation and demands for an encore, which Bloom obliged. With tours of Australia, Europe and America contemplated next year, Bloom’s popularity seems certain to rise. 

For more information about Bloom, check out www.lukabloom.com