Mary Coughlan discusses the inspirations behind her new album
Popular Irish Jazz and Blues singer Mary Coughlan has just released her latest album, Scars on the
Calendar, which is the first album she’s written most of herself, she tells Jessica Thompson.
With a colourful music career and several albums under her belt, Mary Coughlan is returning to Galway’s Town Hall Theatre on Saturday 13 June with her new album, Scars on the Calendar, and
this could be her most personal album yet.
Reuniting with long-time collaborator and producer Erik Visser, Scars on the Calendar is Mary’s first album of new material since The House of Ill Repute in 2008. Beginning their relationship over 30 years ago, this is the ninth album Erik Visser has produced for Mary Coughlan.
“It’s the first album I’ve written most of myself. It has a few songs about Galway and songs about myself. We paid for it ourselves and recorded it in my house, using my own record label, and I put it online myself,” Mary explains, adding that this album was a real learning experience for her.
The album itself features a number of songs about Mary’s younger years when she lived in Galway. The songs cover the various trials and tribulations of her life, including the death of an unborn child, and her battle with alcoholism, which saw her hospitalised over 30 times.
But in 1994, Mary went into rehab in Dublin and, with her family’s support, defeated her alcoholism and hasn’t taken a drink since. But conquering an addiction is not what makes Mary such a well- loved and talented musician. In her official website biography, David Kelly writes that Mary is the greatest female singer to come out of Ireland, taking the classic standards of jazz balladry and the recent gems of rock and Irish song-writing and making them her own.
She sings in the voice of the wronged woman, with an Irish drawl – sceptical, rueful, mournful and melting, ardent for love – and this comes through on all of her albums, Scars on the Calendar included.
The album tells tales of what life would have been like if she’d stayed with her first husband; her parents coming home too soon and finding a boy in her room; her kids finding her drunk in the afternoon, and various tales of her life in Galway.
The daughter of a Donegal soldier and a Connemara woman, Mary was born in Galway and spent many of her younger years here before moving to London. It was on her return to Galway, however, that her music career started to pick up when she was noticed by musician and producer Erik Visser and his then wife Antoinette Hensey.
As well as her collaborations with Visser and Hensey, the album features two tracks written by Fairground Attraction’s Mark Nevin, who previously composed ‘Like a Leaf from a Tree’ for Mary.
Despite starting out in Galway, Mary found it hard to stay here and make a living, saying that the music scene at the time was difficult to break into. Though there was plenty going on in the way of traditional Irish music, she feels it was the Galway Arts Festival that really put Galway on the map as a musical city.
“I set up the Galway Arts Festival back in 1978 with Ollie Jennings to bring art and music and culture to Galway. There was loads of traditional music in Galway at the time and the Galway Arts Festival put Galway on the map,” she says.
“I’m not sure what it’s like now, locally, because I don’t live there anymore, but there was always a really good scene in the pubs. But I found it hard to make a living out of it, which is why I moved to Dublin.”
But she returns to Galway on a regular basis and is looking forward to her gig in the Town Hall Theatre on Saturday 13 June where she plans to play a few of her new songs as well as popular tracks from her previous albums.
Mary Coughlan’s latest album Scars on the Calendar was released on May 29 and is available on Mary’s website, www.marycoughlanmusic.com. For more information and tickets to her Town Hall theatre show, see www.tht.ie.
