Eddi’s ever-ready for Ennis

GLASGOW’s Celtic Connections festival is in full flight and Eddi Reader has spent the previous evening performing on BBC Radio Scotland’s Travelling Folk with The Alan Kelly Quartet when The Clare Champion gets her on the phone. By the time she’d finished chatting after the gig, she explains, it was already well into tomorrow.

But despite a touch of festival fatigue, she’s still excited about her second visit to Glór this Tuesday.
“I was absolutely overwhelmed by my experience over there last year. I’m really looking forward to coming to Ennis – it feels like coming home because I was brought up by my Tralee granny but I never think that people know me outside of Scotland,” she says.
A sell-out concert on a cold January night last year in Glór indicates the contrary. She’s not only known but has a huge fan base in Clare.
Growing up in Glasgow and Irvine, Eddi learned her trade through busking and performing at the local folk clubs. Still only a lass, she travelled around Europe with circus and performance artists before moving to London, where she quickly became a sought-after session vocalist. She toured with Eurythmics following a successful stint with punk outfit Gang of Four, who she again joined forces with last year for a reunion. Thirty years on, she says, “I was very surprised. We’ve all stood the test of time. The band were the same drinking and partying animals that they were all those years ago.”
In the ’80s, it was the chart-topping Fairground Attraction that really brought attention to Eddi Reader. She looks back on that period with mixed emotions, saying, “I don’t really think about that time much because it was difficult and when I made that album [First of a Million Kisses] I was in full energy but by the time I got to the second album, there was a lot of power struggles. I felt that the chemistry changed.”
Even so, she might give a rendition of the hit, Perfect, on Tuesday night but she’d prefer if audiences would send requests to her beforehand. “Yeah, send a twitter or a tweet and I’ll play a request – better than shouting from the audience! If the mood is right, I’ll sing it.”
Although her short time with Fairground Attraction was an important phase in her career, it was the albums that came after, which signalled her ability to adapt different musical styles and convert them into her own authentic sound. Her instinct for material, whether self-penned, collaborative or a carefully chosen cover version, resulted in Mirmama (1992), Eddi Reader (1994), Candyfloss & Medicine (1996), Angels & Electricity (1998) and Simple Soul (2001) all produced while she was still living in London.
The Songs of Robert Burns was released to international acclaim in 2003 and with an MBE under her belt for her services to singing, she took her Burns songs on tour around the globe. Naturally, the collection is still close to her heart and she feels there’s even more to explore from Burns. “When I dip into it, I find more and more. Bobby McFerrin was on stage during Celtic Connections and he asked me to teach him Jacobites by Burns – it just seems to be a voice that can reach everywhere,” she says.
However, it’s her seventh and most recent album, released last March, which excites her most. “People keep asking me about the The Songs of Robbie Burns and saying how much they love it and I say ‘really, that’s great but what about Love is the Way?’” Considering that she produced the album herself, it’s no surprise that it’s very much her baby.
Recorded in a matter of days with her band in Glasgow, Love is the Way steers away from the folk and traditional nature of her previous recordings. It features songs by her long-time writing partner Boo Hewerdine, her life partner, John Douglas of The Trashcan Sinatras, as well as Declan O’Rourke.
Naturally, the Scottish songstress has added a few new songs to Tuesday night’s playlist. Just released as a single, I Hung my Harp upon the Willows, from Alan Kelly’s After the Morning album, is destined to be a Glór highlight – even Bruce Springsteen danced a jig when he heard it. Penned by John Douglas, the song tells the tale of the friendship between Robert Burns and his friend Captain Richard Brown and is a beautiful collaboration between Alan and Eddi.
A long-standing member of Eddi’s band, piano-accordionist Alan Kelly will also play support on the night with his band, The Alan Kelly Quartet, which features local fiddler, Tóla Custy.
As she continues to explore an ever-changing musical landscape, Eddi is looking to again change direction with future projects.
“I’m leaning towards jazzier standards with folk leanings,” she explains. “I’m very interested in Dicky Valentine [singer in 1970s]. He was a British Nat King Cole and had a beautiful singing voice. I just want to revisit some of his songs – he’s pre-rock and roll.
“Then, there’s Jack T Gardner, they’re the people who have been forgotten,” she says.
“Last year, I sang on a Zak Effron film, Me and Orson Welles, which is set in New York in 1937, it’s out now and coming onto DVD soon. I had to sing material from the 1930s and I want to do more of this in an acoustic way,” she explains.
“They’re all future projects,” she says, although she’s not ready to bring out another album… just yet anyway.
Eddi Reader and her band will play Glór this Tuesday with The Alan Kelly Quartet as support. See www.glor.ie for booking information.