Nanci Griffith, Hal Ketchum, John Prine, Iris Dement. All are American country stars and all have one man in common, Irish-American producer, Jim Rooney.
Rooney, whose ancestors hailed from Galway and who is currently living in the west, has been involved in country and folk music for over 40 years. The many albums he has produced include Griffith's Once In a Very Blue Moon and Prine's German Afternoons, containing Prine's famous song Speed at the Sound of Loneliness.
Rooney also introduced Hal Ketchum to Mick Hanley's song Past the Point of Rescue and produced Ketchum's version of it, which reached No 1 in the US.
Jim Rooney has had strong musical links with Ireland for many years. More recently he decided to re-establish his family connections with the country and now spends six months of each year in Galway.
While in the US he produces in the Nashville studio where Garth Brooks records, and is a partner in the company which produces the music of songwriters including Hal Ketchum and Kathy Matea, so it might seem that he could rest on his achievements and take life easy.
And when in Ireland he does to a point. "But I like working on different projects," he says. It was for one such project that his friend John Prine visited Galway recently. The two men are working on an album on which Prine duets with female artistes including Iris Dement and Connie Smith.
"John wanted to have Dolores Keane involved," explained Rooney. Since Nashville-based Prine is a fan of Galway and since both Rooney and Keane live in the area, it made perfect sense for him to come to Galway to record a song with Dolores.
Even before Jim Rooney settled in Galway he had worked for Dolores Keane. The worlds of Irish folk and American country music are closely linked, and he previously encountered her when he organised the Nashville end of the TV series Bringing It All Back Home in the early 1990s.
More recently, he produced her brother Sean's highly successful album, No Stranger.
It was Rooney's love of Guinness and oysters which led him to settle in south Galway. "My wife, Carol, and I were in Morans of the Weir seafood pub and I inquired if there were any houses available locally. There was one and we moved in," he says.
At present, Rooney prefers spending time away from Nashville, as he believes country music there is in a trough. It's a cyclical thing, he says, and will come round, but, meanwhile, he'd rather explore other avenues.