Niall Toner Band hits bluegrass airplay Top 10 in the US

Already established as one of Ireland's most coverable songwriters, Toner recently made the Niall Toner Band's recorded output available via Airplay Direct, a digital delivery system which enables radio stations to directly access quality music online.

Over the past month, Toner has racked up an impressive number of radio station downloads to claim No. 9 in the month to date bluegrass and folk charts – well ahead of established names like Jerry Butler and the Blue Js, the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band, the VW Boys, Del McCoury and more. The top spot is currently held by multi talented comedian, actor, writer and performer Steve Martin, whose superb Rounder Records release Red Bird Alert, which includes guest appearances by Paul McCartney and The Dixie Chicks, has racked up more than 1,000 downloads.

"I released all my tracks – 38 songs in all – from our three CDs about five weeks ago," Niall Toner told Hot Press. "They have been downloaded almost three hundred times by Radio Stations all over the World. The results are already coming in in terms of many bookings for 2012 in the US, and performance royalties for tracks played on a wide variety of stations are already showing up at RAAP through Soundscan."

It's another convincing statement of the health of the irish scene. Stay tuned.