Alan Doyle

Biography

Alan Thomas Doyle (born May 17, 1969) is a Canadian musician and founding member of the Canadian folk rock band Great Big Sea.

Life and career

Alan Doyle was born and raised in Petty Harbour, Newfoundland, in a Roman Catholic family. He attended Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. It is also there that he met Séan McCann, Bob Hallett and Darrell Power with whom he formed Great Big Sea. He primarily plays electric and acoustic guitars, and the bouzouki for live performances, but he has been known to play mandolin and banjo.
He is married to Joanne; they have one son.
Doyle has also been involved with a handful of stage, television and film productions. As a child, he appeared as an extra in the movie A Whale for the Killing, based on Farley Mowat's book of the same name, which was filmed in his hometown. He has also hosted regional arts awards shows in Atlantic Canada, appeared as a presenter on the Juno Awards and done a turn onstage in his hometown's "24-Hour Musical" performance of Grease. In 2005, he composed music for the CBC comedy Hatching, Matching and Dispatching, which stars Mary Walsh. In 2006, he worked on scoring the film Young Triffie's Been Made Away With, directed by Walsh.

Doyle has been linked to Russell Crowe and his bands 30 Odd Foot of Grunts and The Ordinary Fear of God, having produced and co-written several songs on Crowe's album, My Hand, My Heart, and played several shows with Crowe. In 2011, they released The Crowe/Doyle Songbook Vol.III with nine songs in both acoustic demo and finished format, for 18 tracks total. This friendship also led to Doyle's casting as Allan A'Dayle alongside Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Kevin Durand, and Scott Grimes in Ridley Scott's Robin Hood, released May 14, 2010. He played Dingy in the film Winter's Tale, also with Crowe and Durand, as well as Will Smith and Colin Farrell.
He collaborated with Law & Order music composer Mike Post and wrote and performed a song named "Middle of Nowhere", written for the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Broad Channel".
Doyle has guest starred on five episodes of the CBC Television series Republic of Doyle as the character Wolf Redmond. Season 2, episode 2 introduced him as an inmate sent to prison on charges of B&Es and a few robberies. Doyle guest starred with Russell Crowe, Kevin Durand, and Scott Grimes on the first show of Republic of Doyle's third season after the four had costarred on Robin Hood. His third appearance – the second with Grimes – was on season 4, episode 6. Both Grimes and Doyle appeared together twice more in season 5 and 6. He appeared in an episode of Murdoch Mysteries' tenth season.
In 2012, Doyle released his first solo album, Boy on Bridge×Boy on Bridge12 May 2012 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 13 tracks1Sorry3:212I've Seen a Little3:313My Day3:074Where the Nightingales Sing3:295Testify4:136Break It Slow3:497Love While Love's Awake3:258Light the Way3:389Northern Plains4:0210Lover's Hands3:5511Perfect Excuse3:1712The Rules Will All Be Broken3:3413Where I Belong3:40. The title is a nod to Doyle's credit as the "boy on bridge" in the movie A Whale for the Killing, when he was a young boy. The first single from the album is "I've Seen a Little" and the album features collaborations with Canadian musicians Hawksley Workman, Jim Cuddy, Ron Hynes, and actor-musician Russell Crowe, among others. The video for the second single, "Testify", was nominated for a 2012 Juno. The creation of the album was captured by a film crew, resulting in a documentary also named Boy on Bridge directed by Joel Stewart and John Vatcher.
Doyle, with Great Big Sea, was featured on Canadian country artist, Dean Brody's 2012 album titled Dirt, singing on the track "It's Friday".
In 2014, Doyle released a book entitled Where I Belong, about his youth growing up in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Doyle's second solo album, entitled So Let's Go, was released January 20, 2015.

In 2017, he guest starred in a Murdoch Mysteries episode, "A Murdog Mystery" as a man who claims to be a time travelling historian. Doyle reprised the role in the web series Beyond Time.
Doyle's third solo album, A Week at the Warehouse×A Week at the Warehouse13 October 2017 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 11 tracks1Come Out With Me4:122Summer Summer Night3:273Fall4:134Now or Never3:565Ready to Go3:326Somewhere in a Song3:587Bully Boys3:198Forever Light Will Shine4:239Close to the Sun3:0510I'll Be Yours, You'll Be Mine3:5211Beautiful to Me3:58, was released on October 13, 2017. His second book titled A Newfoundlander in Canada: Always Going Somewhere, Always Coming Home, was released on October 17.
During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, Doyle started remotely collaborating with several Newfoundland-based artists to create a special "isolation edition" EP entitled, Songs from Home, which was released in November 2020. Contributing artists included Fortunate Ones, Rachel Cousins, The Ennis Sisters, and The Once. Per Doyle, Songs From Home is all about making and keeping connections at a time when it was so difficult to be connected.
On June 14, 2022, he began starring in a musical comedy called Tell Tale Harbour at the 2022 Charlottetown Festival. The story is based on the screenplay La grande séduction by Ken Scott that was made into the 2003 award winning film Seducing Doctor Lewis. Doyle was co-writer of the production as well as co-writer of music and lyrics with Bob Foster. Also credited as one of the authors for a book of the musical with award-winning writer Edward Riche.
Doyle, with Keith Power, writes the music for the Canadian comedy series Son of a Critch, for which they have received Canadian Screen Awards nominations for Best Original Music, Comedy in 2023 and 2024.

Honours

Canadian Version of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.
Member of the Order of Canada (CM) on May 10, 2018.
Member of the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador on October 4, 2022.