Tom Flannery

A lifelong resident of the anthracite-coal region of Northeastern Pennsylvania and a descendant of Irish-famine refugees, singer/songwriter Thomas Flannery developed an acute comprehension of his own and the region's often bitter and tragic coal mining heritage. But he also developed a journalistic eye for the minute details of quotidian life and a sympathetic understanding of the small-town psyche. Although he waited until well into his 20s to plunge into his musical muse, Flannery emerged in the late '90s as one of his generation's most astute and insightful observers of the...