SHEFFIELD soul stalwart Paul Carrack will play York Barbican on February 17 2022 on his 24-date Good And Ready Tour.
Further Yorkshire gigs are in next year’s diary for Hull City Hall on January 22 and a home-city finale on March 19.
Carrack, the golden voice of Ace’s How Long, Squeeze’s Tempted and Mike + The Mechanics’ The Living Years and Over My Shoulder, will release new single You’re Not Alone on Friday (19/2/2021) across all digital platforms via his independent label, Carrack-UK.
The live years before Covid: Paul Carrack at York Barbican in February 2018. Picture: Simon Bartle
His 18th studio set of a 50-year career, One On One, will follow in the summer, on a date yet to be confirmed for his first album since These Days in 2018, a year when he performed at York Barbican on February 16.
The single and album are the results of Carrack heading into his recording studio since the first pandemic lockdown in March 2020. He not only wrote, recorded and produced every song on One On One, but he also played all of the instruments, making his latest work the very definition of a solo record, made when he was very much alone.
Carrack, who will turn 70 on April 22, says of You’re Not Alone: “I’d say the song is self-explanatory, but the sentiment is one of unquestioning commitment and support. I very much hope I get the chance to perform this song live with my band when we get the green light to start touring again, which we all hope will be at some point this year.”
Tickets for his York Barbican show are on sale at £42.75 to £48.35 at yorkbarbican.co.uk; Hull tickets, hulltheatres.co.uk; Sheffield, sheffieldcityhall.co.uk.
“I’d say the song is self-explanatory, but the sentiment is one of unquestioning commitment and support,” says Paul Carrack, introducing his new single, You’re Not Alone
Worrying times : Story Craft Theatre’s Janet Bruce, left, and Cassie Vallance to present four half-term Crafty Tales sessions built around The Worrysaurus
SNOWHERE to go in freezing-cold Lockdown 3, except for yet another regulation walk and Chai Latte, as the live arts remain in pandemic hibernation, Charles Hutchinson looks online and ahead to bolster his sparse diary.
Online half-term fun, part one: Story Craft Theatre’s Crafty Tales, The Worrysaurus, February 17 to 20, 10am to 11am
YORK children’s theatre company Story Craft Theatre are running four storytelling and craft-making sessions on Rachel Bright’s The Worrysaurus on Zoom over half-term.
Janet Bruce and Cassie Vallance will begin each session for two to seven-year-old children with the Crafty Tales song and a butterfly craft-making session, followed by the interactive story of the little Worrysaurus dealing with butterflies in the tummy. Cue songs, games, dancing and fun galore.
The February 17 session is fully booked; prompt booking is advised for the other three at bookwhen.com/storycrafttheatre.
Wizard and Frog: Magic Carpet Theatre’s Jon Marshall and his amphibian accompanist in The Wizard Of Castle Magic
Online half-term fun, part two: Magic Carpet Theatre, The Wizard Of Castle Magic, streaming from February 18
MAGIC Carpet Theatre and Pocklington Arts Centre (PAC) are teaming up for a free online streaming event for the February half-term.
The Hull company’s family show The Wizard Of Castle Magic will be shown on PAC’s YouTube channel from Thursday, February 18 at 2.30pm, available to view for 14 days until March 4.
Filmed live at PAC behind closed doors by Pocklington production company Digifish last autumn, director Jon Marshall performs an enchanting show based on the traditional Sorcerer’s Apprentice tale for children aged three to 11 and their families with a script packed with comedy, illusion and special theatrical effects.
Solo show: Harpist Cecile Saout will be playing at Opera North‘s ONe-to-ONe online home performances in Lockdown 3
Opera North goes home: ONe-to-ONe personal live performances on Zoom, February 15 to February 27
OPERA North is launching ONe-to-ONe, a digital initiative to bring live performance into homes across the country during Lockdown 3.
ONe-to-ONe will provide personal online performances delivered by members of the Chorus and Orchestra of Opera North, with slots available to book at operanorth.co.uk.
From a cappella arias and folk songs to Bach cello suites and a marimba solo, the recipient will be treated to a free virtual solo at a time of their choice, performed by a professional musician over Zoom.
Something fishy this way comes: Six Sprats, by Giles Ward, from Blue Tree Gallery’s online show, Revive
Online exhibition of the season: Revive, curated by Blue Tree Gallery, Bootham, York, until March 13
BLUE Tree Gallery’s latest online show, Revive, is bringing together paintings by artist-in-residence Giuliana Lazzerini, Steve Tomlinson, James Wheeler and Giles Ward.
Memory and imagination come to interplay in Lazzerini’s landscapes; the sea and the “associated physical and emotional experiences it brings” inform Tomlinson’s work; memory and desire in the light and atmosphere mark out Glaswegian Wheeler’s landscapes; the natural world inspires Giles Ward’s experimental, other-worldly paintings.
Revive can be viewed online at pyramidgallery.com, and artworks are being displayed in the gallery and gallery windows for those passing by.
Courtney Marie Andrews: New date for her Pocklington Arts Centre gig
Rearranged gig: Courtney Marie Andrews, Pocklington Arts Centre, June 17
PHOENIX country singer Courtney Marie Andrews has moved her Pocklington gig from June 17 2020 to exactly one year later, on the back of being newly crowned International Artist of the Year at the 2021 UK Americana Awards.
Courtney, 30, will perform the Grammy-nominated Old Flowers, her break-up album released last July, on her return to Pocklington for the first time since December 2018.
In the quietude of an emptied 2020 diary, she completed her debut poetry collection, Old Monarch, set for publication by Simon & Schuster on May 13.
York River Art Market: Artists and makers sought for summer return
Down by the river: York River Art Market call-out for artists
YORK River Art Market 2021 is issuing a call-out to artists for this summer’s riverside event on Dame Judi Dench Walk, Lendal Bridge, York.
After a barren 2020, the organisers have announced plans to return for markets on June 26; July 3, 24, 25 and 31, and August 1, 7, 14, 21 and 28, when 30-plus artists will be selling original art and hand-crafted goods at each stalls day.
Applications to take part should be emailed to yorkriverart@gmail.com with three quality images of your work; a few sentences about your art; links to your digital platforms, and your preferred choice of dates, listed in the YRAM biography on its Facebook page.
Glenn Tilbrook: The Crescent awaits in March 2022
Making plans for next year: Glenn Tilbrook, The Crescent, York, March 13 2022
SQUEEZE up, make room for Glenn Tilbrook, freshly booked into The Crescent for next March.
One half of the Tilbrook-Difford song-writing partnership known as Deptford’s answer to Lennon and McCartney, singer, songwriter and guitarist Tilbrook, 63, can draw on a catalogue boasting the likes of Take Me I’m Yours; Cool For Cats; Goodbye Girl; Up The Junction; Pulling Mussels; Another Nail In My Heart; Tempted; Labelled With Love and Black Coffee In Bed.
Expect picks from his solo works, The Incomplete Glenn Tilbrook, Transatlantic Ping-Pong, Pandemonium Ensues and Happy Ending, too.
Celeste: Number one album
And what about?
DISCOVERING debut albums by rising British stars Celeste (the chart-topping Not Your Muse on Polydor Records) and Arlo Parks (Collapsed In Sunbeams on Transgressive Records). Revelling in the soundtrack while crying your way through Russell T Davies’s five-part mini-series It’s A Sin on Channel 4. Savouring Joe Root’s batting against spin in the return of Test Match Cricket to Channel 4 as England take on India.
The Delines in their rehearsal studio in September 2018. Picture: Jason Quigley
THE Delines, Willy Vlautin’s retro country-soul band from Portland, Oregon, have rearranged their Covid-postponed February 23 gig at Pocklington Arts Centre.
They will head to East Yorkshire on February 15 2022 instead, with the promise of new material on their first British travels since their sold-out 2019 itinerary.
Looking forward to The Delines’ 8pm gig with a full band line-up, Pocklington Arts Centre (PAC) director Janet Farmer says: “We’re delighted that we’ve been able to reschedule The Delines to perform live here as part of their delayed European tour.
“We know they’ll absolutely be worth the wait and we’re very much looking forward to welcoming the band and our audiences back for an evening of superb live music. We know our audiences cannot wait to experience live music once again, so I’d encourage you to book your tickets now to avoid disappointment.”
The Delines – Vlautin and Sean Oldham, both formerly of Richmond Fontaine, vocalist Amy Boone, Cory Gray and Freddy Trujillo – were working on new songs in the months before lockdown and expect to finish their follow-up to 2019’s The Imperial shortly.
The cover artwork for Willy Vlautin’s sixth novel, The Night Always Comes
Meanwhile, award-winning novelist Vlautin, 54, will be releasing his sixth book, The Night Always Comes, on April 6 (or June 6 in Harper Collins paperback, according to another website).
Nevada-born Vlautin, who was Richmond Fontaine’s lead singer, guitarist and songwriter from 1994 to 2016, was inspired by a Paul Kelly song, based on Raymond Carver’s So Much Water So Close To Home, to start writing stories.
In his latest, he explores the impact of trickle-down greed and opportunism of gentrification on ordinary lives. At the core of his story is the dangerously tired Lynette, who is caught between looking after her brother, working two low-paid jobs and trying to take part-time college classes.
Every penny she has earned for years, she has put into savings, striving to scrape together enough to take out a mortgage on the house she rents with her mother.
Tickets for The Delines cost £20 at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk. The support act that night will be Los Angeles singer-songwriter Jerry Joseph, 59, who released the album This Beautiful Madness last August.
Going solo: Opera North’s Celine Saout will be playing her harp ONe to ONe in a new lockdown initiative for Zoom performances. Picture: Tom Arber
OPERA North is launching ONe-to-ONe, an initiative to bring live performance into homes across the country on Zoom, forging connections through music during Lockdown 3.
Designed in response to the increasing feeling of isolation at home in the pandemic, and the continuing impact of the loss of the usual culture fixes, ONe-to-ONe will provide personal online performances delivered by members of the Chorus and Orchestra of Opera North.
Slots will be available to book online. From a cappella arias and folk songs to Bach cello suites and a marimba solo, the recipient will be treated to a free virtual solo at a time of their choice, performed by a professional musician over Zoom.
Building on the success of the carol concert streamed by the Leeds company to care homes in the run-up to Christmas, ONe-to-ONe performances also will be offered to residential homes to keep residents entertained and engaged with culture while the possibilities for social interaction remain limited.
Community groups will be invited to enjoy a special lockdown performance as part of the project too.
Phil Boughton, Opera North’s director of Orchestra and Chorus, says: “We’re aware that many people are finding this lockdown the hardest of all. It has also been a really testing time for the members of our Chorus and Orchestra who, due to the ongoing restrictions, have been unable to perform in front of an audience for many months.
“ONe-to-ONe grew out of a desire on the part of our musicians to forge a musical connection with someone in need of a boost and to bring a moment of joy into people’s lives.
“The repertoire will be a ‘lucky dip’ with the performance kept under wraps until everyone is ready online, but anyone who takes part can be assured of an extraordinary experience streamed direct into their home.”
Each pay-as-you-feel performance will last around ten minutes, and slots should be booked on the Opera North website, operanorth.co.uk, up to 48 hours in advance. Initially, they will be offered from Monday, February 15 to Saturday, February 27, with more than 90 performances available for booking during that time.
David Greed, leader of the Orchestra of Opera North, says: “I’m really looking forward to seeing the reactions of people when we perform for them.
“It will certainly feel very different for me to be playing in my home and for the audience to be sitting in their living room rather than a theatre or concert hall, but it is wonderful that technology gives us the opportunity to keep in touch in this way.
“If ONe-to-ONe puts a smile on people’s faces and provides them with a memorable experience during lockdown, it will definitely have been worth it.”
ONe-to-ONe joins Opera North’s other online options, such as the Little School of Music for primary-aged children, Orchestral Academy Online for young musicians and Writing Home song-writing workshops to help to create an art installation in the new Howard Opera Centre, in New Briggate, when it opens later this year.
Writing Home: Opera North’s song-writing project for the Howard Opera Centre. Picture: Tom Arber
OPERA North is launching Writing Home, a community song-writing project for creating an innovative arts installation when the Leeds company opens its redeveloped home, the Howard Opera Centre.
The new building, on New Briggate, is designed to be a creative space for the whole community, an aim that will be reflected in an interactive musical trail on the theme of home.
Contributions will be recorded by schools, community groups, the Opera North Youth Company and members of the public, with visitors being able to listen to the resulting performances as they walk around the building.
As part of the project, a six-week course of free Writing Home workshops will be held online from Monday, February 22 at 6.30pm, led by professional musicians Thandanani Gumede and Dave Evans.
Participants will be asked to explore what “home” means to them through a variety of musical genres before creating their own compositions. A selection of these will be featured as part of the final trail.
Everyone is welcome to join. No previous musical experience is necessary, only the willingness to try something new.
Jacqui Cameron, Opera North’s education director, says: “We will be embedding the voices of the people of Leeds and the North in the very walls of the Howard Opera Centre to create a sense of ownership and to encourage the whole community to see it as their artistic home.
“The word ‘home’ has assumed even greater importance over the past year, and this project aims to give participants the time to reflect specifically on what it means to them, and why it is important to us all to have spaces where we feel ‘at home’.
Work ongoing on former shop units beneath the Howard Assembly Room in New Briggate, Leeds. Picture: Tom Arber
“We hope this project will also provide a boost at a time when we are aware how much people are missing their usual evening meet-ups. Thanda is looking forward to finding the inner composer in everyone who takes part, helping them create something that will provide a great testament to the creativity of the people of Leeds in our new building.”
Despite the setbacks posed by the pandemic, Opera North has continued with its £18m redevelopment project on New Briggate, albeit it with new Covid-19 safety measures in place.
The Howard Opera Centre is pencilled in to open later this year. As well as providing new rehearsal facilities for the orchestra and chorus of Opera North, a costume and wigs workshop and administrative offices, the building will feature several public areas.
Among them will be a flexible education centre that will enable audiences of all ages and backgrounds to come together to learn about and participate in music making.
Anyone accessing the education centre will use the same entrance as the artists and staff in a bid to inspire the younger generation and to encourage a feeling of parity and belonging.
Other public spaces will include a fully accessible atrium and a new restaurant and bar that will replace a row of previously vacant shop units.
Opera North’s performance venue, the Howard Assembly Room, within Leeds Grand Theatre, will reopen with an enhanced programme of musical and spoken-word events.
The work is being delivered by Sheffield contractors Henry Boot Construction, with the first phase scheduled to open in the late spring and final completion in the diary for autumn.
Opera North’s new orchestra rehearsal studio above the existing Harewood and Linacre rehearsal studios in the Howard Opera Centre, seen from the bottom of Harrison Street, Leeds. Picture: Tom Arber
Opera North general director Richard Mantle says: “We want young musicians to feel that they’re an integral part of Opera North, which is why we’re delighted to be able to give them the opportunity to rehearse in the same building as the chorus and the orchestra.
“Having our own dedicated education centre will facilitate more collaborations with the main stage; open up more learning and performing opportunities for children and young people, and provide extraordinary musical experiences for the wider community every day.
“We very much hope that people will see the Howard Opera Centre as their artistic home in the city, with Writing Home marking the first step in ensuring they feel a part of the building and everything it represents.”
The company is “very grateful” to all the individuals, trusts and organisations that have helped it to raise more than £17 million towards the Music Works fundraising campaign target of £18 million.
Dr Keith Howard OBE, president of Opera North and founder of Emerald Group Publishing, made a philanthropic gift of £11.25 million; Leeds City Council has pledged to contribute £750,000, together with the lease of the vacant shops on New Briggate, and Arts Council England has provided £1 million, including a £500,000 Capital Kickstart Award.
The balance of the funds has come from private donors, trusts and supporters, including a £1 million donation from the Liz and Terry Bramall Foundation, as well as a significant contribution from Mrs Maureen Pettman and major gifts from private individuals.
In addition, gifts have been pledged by the Marjorie and Arnold Ziff Charitable Foundation; Wolfson Foundation; Backstage Trust; the Kirby Laing Foundation; the Foyle Foundation; 29th May 1961 Charitable Trust; Sir George Martin Trust; Garfield Weston Foundation; J Paul Getty Jnr General Charitable Trust; the Arnold Burton 1998 Charitable Trust and Alerce Trust.
Opera North has launched the Play Your Part campaign, seeking support from patrons, Friends and audience members, as well as continuing to attract funding from the Leeds business community and further charitable trusts and foundations as it looks to raise the £500,000 still needed for the project.
Courtney Marie Andrews: Double award winner at the 2021 UK Americana Awards
COURTNEY Marie Andrews will play Pocklington Arts Centre on June 17 on the back of being crowned International Artist of the Year at the 2021 UK Americana Awards.
The Phoenix singer-songwriter also saw off competition from American Aquarium, Margo Price and Katie Pruitt to win Best International Album for Old Flowers at the January 28 virtual ceremony presented by Bob Harris, host of The Country Show on BBC Radio 2.
Elvis Costello, Steve Earle and Gillian Welch all performed at the awards, run by the Americana Music Association, to celebrate the very best in country from Britain and internationally.
This summer, Courtney, 30, will perform the Grammy-nominated Old Flowers, her break-up album released last July on Loose/Fat Possum Records, on her return to Pocklington.
She last played a sold-out PAC in December 2018, at the end of a week when she was felled by a viral infection the morning after her London gig and had to call off her Birmingham, Bristol and Oxford gigs.
Rested and recuperated, she was still nursing a cough, but found the energy for a solo set of songs and stories, introducing Ships In The Night and It Must Be Someone Else’s Fault, two new compositions that would end up on Old Flowers.
Courtney had been booked to play PAC on June 17 last year, but Covid restrictions forced the postponement of her six-date tour. In the quietude of an emptied diary, she completed her debut poetry collection, Old Monarch, set for release in the UK on May 13 (preceded by April 6 in the United States) through Simon & Schuster.
The book cover for Courtney Marie Andrews’ first poetry collection, Old Monarch
“It’s been hard to contain my excitement about this news…my first poetry collection,” Courtney said on Instagram, introducing a book that “reads like a transformation, me, the narrator, being the figurative Old Monarch”.
“Some people are like monarch butterflies – solitary by nature, on a passionate search for somewhere,” the publicity explains for a collection divided into three sections, Sonoran Milkweed, Longing In Flight and Eucalyptus Tree (My Arrival to Rest).
Centred on themes of longing and a desire to belong, while excavating scenes from her childhood in the American Southwest, the poems address Courtney’s childhood in Arizona, family and the naive assumptions of youth; leaving home; falling in love for the first time and becoming an adult as the Old Monarch butterfly arrives in a figurative garden.
“Last summer, while on an island out at sea, I decided to finish some poems I started years ago. Pondering metaphysical transformation, I collected these questions and instilled them onto these pages,” Courtney’s Instagram post said.
“From my childhood in Arizona to allegorical gardens of rest, you can follow my journey as an Old Monarch. Between its pages, I hope you find patterns of your own path reflected.”
Summing up the third section in the book’s press release, Courtney concludes: “There are a lot of metaphysical and philosophical poems in this section. I arrive at the figurative garden, and I finally understand the journey at the edge of my life.
“There are a lot of poems in the context of a garden here, accepting mortality and the ever-changing world. These are meant to be wise old woman poems.”
“Between its pages, I hope you find patterns of your own path reflected,” says Courtney Marie Andrews of her Old Monarch poetry collection
You will have to wait until June 17 to discover if Courtney will include any of Old Monarch’s poems in her Pocklington set, when she will be accompanied by a full band.
Looking forward to Courtney’s return, PAC director Janet Farmer says: “We would like to congratulate Courtney on her impressive, but not surprising, UK Americana Awards wins, as well as the publication of her debut collection of poetry.
“We can’t wait to welcome Courtney back to Pocklington this June when we’ll get the chance to hear her perform her stunning album Old Flowers live.
“If you don’t want to miss this incredible opportunity, I would urge you to buy your tickets now to avoid disappointment.”
Old Flowers was created in the aftermath of a long-term relationship ending, leading to her most vulnerable writing on ten songs that chronicle her journey through heartbreak, loneliness and finding herself again.
“There are a million records and songs about heartbreak, but I did not lie when writing these songs,” Courtney says. “This album is about loving and caring for the person you know you can’t be with.
“It’s about being afraid to be vulnerable after you’ve been hurt. It’s about a woman who is alone, but OK with that, if it means truth. This was my truth: my nine-year relationship ended and I’m a woman alone in the world, but happy to know herself.”
The cover artwork for Courtney Marie Andrews’ break-up album, Old Flowers
Truth hurts, love hurts, but Courtney found writing Old Flowers “a safe place, a place of comfort”. “I didn’t lie in what I wrote because it was a very cathartic process,” she says.
“It was the only way I could channel what I was going through but I think sometimes people do lie in these situations because vulnerability is scary – and when you’re vulnerable you show your weakest emotions, and people are uncomfortable with that.”
By way of contrast, Courtney benefited from the confessional self-analysis. “Songs can predict your future or look back at what’s happened, and I didn’t realise that I felt the way I did until I started writing them,” she says.
“I definitely learned a lot about vulnerability: not hiding behind a character I learned so much about my relationship and goodbyes. Everything has a reason and we’re always searching for ourselves and for joy in our lives. This record is no different: when you reach the end of the tunnel, you reach the light and life goes on.”
Produced by Bon Iver and Big Thief producer Andrew Sarlo, Old Flowers was recorded at Sound Space Studio, a private studio in Los Angeles, with only three musicians: Andrews on vocals, acoustic guitar and piano, Twain’s Matthew Davidson, on bass, celeste, mellotron, pedal steel, piano, pump organ, Wurlitzer and background vocals, and Big Thief’s James Krivcheniaon drums and percussion.
“I think it may be only the third or fourth album to have been made there. Andrew had made a connection with the owner, and it’s just an amazing downtown space in the arts district of LA with giant windows and so many cool instruments in there,” says Courtney.
“Andrew and I had both decided the album needed to be made in a very intimate space with the fewer cooks in the kitchen, the better, and this place was perfect.
“A friend of mine once said to me that flowers are timeless, and I can agree with that sentiment,” says Courtney, reflecting on her album title
“A lot of the record was just Matt and me and I guess it was like a musical dance of communication between the two of us, and then James added those small moments of magic between our ‘dancing’.”
Old Flowers is Courtney’s seventh album, following on from 2018’s May Your Kindness Remain; 2016’s Honest Life; 2013’s On My Page; 2010’s No One’s Slate Is Clean; 2009’s Painters Hands And A Seventh Son and 2008’s Urban Myths.
“I definitely look at albums in their own right. I’m with Neil Young on that,” says Courtney. “Every album has its own journey. It would be a disservice and an injustice if I were to try to make the same record over and over again. The best artists are constantly re-born with each album.”
Old Flowers finds Courtney in full bloom. “The title means lots of things to me, one of them being that you can’t revive old flowers, but they remain beautiful even when they’ve died and they’re preserved.
“A friend of mine once said to me that flowers are timeless, and I can agree with that sentiment.”
Tickets for Courtney Marie Andrews’ 8pm concert at Pocklington Arts Centre on June 17 cost £20 at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Did you know?
Courtney Marie Andrews recorded a cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s America with Liz Cooper and Molly Sarlé in 2020.
Mary Coughlan: Songs of heart and soul and survival on Life Stories
GALWAY jazz and blues chanteuse Mary Coughlan is moving her Pocklington Arts Centre show for a third time in these pandemic times.
“Ireland’s Billie Holliday” twice rearranged her gig during 2020, and now she is doing so again, switching from April 23 to October 19.
At the heart of Mary’s concert, fourth time lucky, will still be Life Stories, her 15th album, released on the wonderfully named Hail Mary Records last September.
As the title would suggest, and likewise such song titles as Family Life, Two Breaking Into One, Elbow Deep and Twelve Steps Forward And Ten Steps Back, these are songs of heart and soul and survival, steeped in reflection on family, love, loss and an extraordinary life of the blues wherein Mary has overcome childhood trauma, alcoholism and drug addiction.
Mary has never hidden her battles – 32 times she ended up in hospital with alcohol poisoning – as indicated by calling her first three albums Tired And Emotional (1985), Under The Influence (1987) and Uncertain Pleasures (1990), and later entitling her frank 2009 autobiography Bloody Mary: My Story.
The cover artwork for Mary Coughlan’s 2020 album, Life Stories
Life Stories emerged in the wake of Women Undone, her 2018 fusion of theatre, music and dance at Projects Art Centre, Dublin, in a collaboration with the Brokentalkers and Valgeir Sigurðsson, that told the story of a young woman who endured abuse, addiction and mental illness and whose discovery of art and music was her redemption.
Coughlan appeared alongside female quartet Mongoose, performing an original score by Sigurðsson that fused electronic music with live instrumentation and a haunting vocal score.
“On the back of that show, I asked Pete [guitarist, songwriter and producer Pete Glenister] to make this album with me, in 2019, going over to his house, working on the songs,” recalls Mary. “I’d sing him the lyrics, he’d work on the melodies, and then we had all these songs ready.”
Glenister and Coughlan recorded Life Stories at No Name Studios in London in the summer of 2019, applying the finishing touches in February 2020, before the first lockdown.
“Wonderful long summer days of collaborating on songs,” says Mary in her album sleeve-notes. “Singing and making music all day and eating wonderful food and spending the evenings in the garden sipping mint tea.”
Alongside the Glenister and Coughlan originals is the album-opening cover of Family Life, a Paul Buchanan composition from Blue Nile’s 1996 album Peace At Last. “He liked it!” says Mary. “I had to run it by him, though I don’t think Paul is the kind of person that would stop me doing it.
“I had all these stories, so these songs are autobiographical,” says Mary Coughlan
“There’s a Blue Nile fan club and they follow me everywhere, always turning out in force at my shows, and I started singing that song more than two years ago. I sang it for the first time the day my mother was buried, so it means a lot to me.”
Mary has always been a noted interpreter of songs, not least on her 2000 album Mary Coughlan Sings Billie Holiday, but Life Stories largely moves away from that template.
“I’ve always hid behind other people’s songs that meant something to me, but then, looking at the calendar, I was turning 64, and it was pointed out I had all these stories, so these songs are autobiographical.
“That made it a more difficult process and much more difficult for me, because maybe it was too raw.”
The resulting album has been met with critical acclaim and chart-topping success. “I nearly passed out when it was made Album of the Week in Ireland, and then it was number one in the Irish iTunes…at 64…as a grandmother!” says Mary. “Number one anywhere is great!
“It’s so exciting but also scary when you bring out a new record,” says Mary. “You don’t know how people will receive it”
“It’s so exciting but also scary when you bring out a new record. You don’t know how people will receive it. Who knows! But there’s a lot of different styles on there. I needed the balance that people could relate to on there, and they have.”
Last year had promised to be Mary’s “best for a long time”, but then the Covid-19 pandemic put paid to her appearances at Glastonbury and Galway Arts Festival, gigs in Norway and 15 sold-out shows across Britain.
She did, however, perform a series of socially distanced open-air album launch concerts in Ireland, in September, and one in her Wicklow home when the rain forced her inside to sing surrounded by 100 candles and fairy-lights.
She brought a personal touch to the album too, distributing signed copies, each with a drawing of flowers enclosed, from her house.
Those songs, those stories, will flower anew when Mary plays her autumn shows. In the meantime, do seek out Life Stories, an album from a year when Galway City’s mayor presented her with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Hurricane Promotions presents Mary Coughlan at Pocklington Arts Centre on October 19. Box office: pocklingtonartscetre.co.uk.
LOCKDOWN cabaret streaming duo Velma Celli and Jess Steel are going on location to the Earl Grey Tea Rooms for their Showbizzy Shambles show in York tomorrow (5/2/2021).
After the camply nautical, naughty fun of their water-themed Fabulously Flooded online gig last week, they are vacating the riverside abode of Ian Stroughair, drag diva Velma’s creator, by Lendal Bridge for light relief and camp cabaret belting.
“We’re getting the keys to the Earl Grey Tea Rooms in Shambles and filming it there,” says Ian/Velma. “We’ll be going vintage, so join in with your apparel, peeps, if ya feel like it. Not essential but fun.”
Tickets for Showbizzy Shambles grant access to the streamed show any time from 5pm tomorrow to Sunday evening (7/2/2021). Go to http://bit.ly/3pAtBAF for all the details. “Please feel free to invite all your mates,” says Ian/Velma.
Here, everything stops for tea questions and more besides as Charles Hutchinson grills Ian Stroughair/Velma Celli.
How is your house now, post-flooding? Fully recovered?
“Yes! Thank RuPaul (God)! It took a lot of scrubbing, but I got there!”
Where did you end up recording your January 22 show when water had seeped in through the front door and back door?
“Still in the house. The kitchen is lower than the living room, so we were cool.”
What songs on a water theme did you perform in last week’s Fabulously Flooded show? Something by The Waterboys? Peter Gabriel’s Here Comes The Flood? (Lendal) Bridge Over Troubled Water, maybe? So many possibilities!
“Ha ha, so many! It’s Raining Men (obvs). Waterloo. River Deep Mountain High. Cry Me A River. You get the drift.”
No! No song by The Waterboys featured in Velma and Jess’s water-themed cabaret show
How has the streamed gig at the Earl Grey Tea Rooms come about?
“Clare and Howard [Proctor] are very good old friends and they’re fabulous supporters of all my Velma and Ian appearances.
“I adore this place as much as its owners and it’s been a real struggle over the past year, as you’d imagine, so I wanted to raise them up.
“Not only because it’s such a fabulous tea room – to get you all chomping at the bit to visit, as soon as we move tiers – but also to highlight just how hard it is right now, not just in my sector of live performance but in the hospitality industry too!
“Clare and Howard have worked so hard for years, so I wanted to use my platform to shine a spotlight on them.”
Velma Celli and Jess Steel’s social-media artwork for their Fabulously Flooded show last week
In which room will you record the show?
“Undecided. Each one is so quaint. Will depend on lighting, darling.”
Water theme last week. Any tea and cake songs this week? Can’t think of a crumpet song….
“We are going vintage. From the 1940s, but all the way up to Lady Gaga and everything in between.
“Why not prepare yourself an afternoon tea with scones, finger sandwiches, tea pots filled with fizz, and let us entertain you, direct and safely in your own home.”
What is your perfect afternoon tea and where?
“Earl Grey Tea Rooms of course! Best scones ever. I love their Coronation Chicken jacket, followed by a cream tea with English brekky! You must all go as soon as they reopen. Such quality and atmosphere.”
Jess Steel: Showbizzy Shambles will be the sensational singing hairdresser’s last streamed concert with Velma Celli “for a few weeks”
Earl Grey, Darjeeling or Lapsang Souchong?
“All. But my favourite is English Breakfast in the morning and Orange Pekoe on an afternoon.”
Cream first or jam first on a scone?
“Cream!!!!!!!!”
Favourite cake?
“Traditional Victoria Sponge.”
Have you ever left a cake out in the rain, a la MacArthur Park?
“No. Come rain or shine, Velma never neglects confection.”
What’s coming next?
“Tomorrow is the last show with Jess and me for a few weeks as I have some solo live- stream bookings to perform.”
Socially distanced seating at an autumn event at the Milton Rooms, Malton, before the imposition of Lockdown 3
THE Milton Rooms, Malton’s community and arts venue, has had its Covid-safe accreditation extended for 2021 by UK tourism body Visit Britain.
Venue manager Lisa Rich says: “When the pandemic began, we put a whole range of measures in place around cleanliness and social distancing, which meant people could feel safe coming back to visit us, either for performances or community events.
“We managed to run a number of successful events last autumn, and we are working on a diverse and dynamic programme for when we can fully reopen.”
The Milton Rooms is run as a charitable company, mainly by volunteers, and the Market Place venue has been working hard behind the scenes on refurbishing and refreshing the building ready to welcome the public back in when allowed.
In the meantime, the Milton Rooms is appealing for support from the public in the wake of income from events and hire fees being reduced hugely since the pandemic began last year.
Hence the launch of Keep The Curtain Up, a Go Fund Me appeal to help to fund the substantial continuing overheads, such as utility bills, heating and insurance costs, until the building can reopen as a venue.
GLENN Tilbrook will play The Crescent in York on March 13…next year.
As far away as the gig is, nevertheless tickets have gone on sale already for the solo show by the Squeeze singer, songwriter and guitarist, now 63.
More than 45 years after he first answered an ad placed by Chris Difford, looking for like-minded sorts to form the Deptford band that became the evergreen Squeeze, an ending is nowhere in sight.
Squeeze made their recording bow with the Packet Of Three EP in 1977 and a multitude of hits ensued: Take Me I’m Yours; Cool For Cats; Goodbye Girl; Up The Junction; Pulling Mussels; Another Nail In My Heart; Tempted; Labelled With Love; Black Coffee In Bed; Is That Love and Hourglass, complemented by such albums as Argybargy, East Side Story and Some Fantastic Place.
A series of solo albums have ensued, kicking off with 2001’s The Incomplete Glenn Tilbrook, followed by 2004’s Transatlantic Ping-Pong and 2009’s Pandemonium Ensues, made with his solo touring band The Fluffers. In 2014 came the mostly acoustic Happy Ending, his most personal work to date with its series of evocative portraits of time, people and places.
Presented by The Gig Cartel, tickets for Tilbrook’s show cost £20 at seetickets.com.
