Imelda May’s Palpable coolness
Music Tuesday, July 19th, 2011
Anyone who works at a nursing home singing old songs with the elderly to make them happier, or rescues an injured crow who’s fallen out of a tree, has to be considered pretty darn cool.
But add to that an incredible singing voice, stunning good looks, a musical style that blends several different genres, and a career headed to the absolute stratosphere, and well, that makes Imelda May even cooler. As well as the fact that she comes off as one of the nicest, most sincere and thoroughly engaging people…uber-cool actually…that you’d ever want to spend time talking to.
Imelda May, born in Dublin and raised in the Liberties, may be an unknown name to some, but to many she is already a superstar. She is unmistakable both in her music (a fusion of surf guitars, blues and rockabilly that wouldn’t be out of place in a David Lynch film) and her style, with a solitary curl and shock of blonde in her jet black hair. In Ireland, her debut album ‘Love Tattoo’, which she recorded and released on her own label, has gone Triple Platinum. She has shared a stage with U2, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Van Morrison, Scissor Sisters, Lionel Richie and, most recently, the first lady of rockabilly, Wanda Jackson. And now, with the release of her new album “Mayhem”, she is about to go stellar.
Being the youngest of five siblings, Imelda was the most susceptible to the various influences from her older brothers and sisters, which she could hear constantly through the walls of their two bedroom house. There was folk, the obligatory chart pop, and then there was Elvis. “My brother was a mad Elvis fan, and I found a tape in his room with Elvis, Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent. I thought the music was fantastic.”
Imelda began singing in clubs when she was 16 years old and had the honour of being occasionally barred from her own shows at Dublin’s Bruxelles club for being underage. “I was getting tips from the best musicians in Dublin. One of them said, ‘Your voice is great, but it needs to roughen.” It was around this time, when driving a tearful Imelda to a gig, that her father asked her “Is your heart broken? Excellent. Now you can sing the blues”. Remembered by Imelda as a turning point in her life, from then on her voice developed into the sultry, rich and unique tone you hear today.
2010 got off to an auspicious start when Imelda accepted an offer from Jeff Beck to perform with him at the Grammys. This was followed in April by a two night support slot in London with one of her idols, Wanda Jackson.
Her new album ‘Mayhem’ sees Imelda continue to develop her uniquely modern fusion of classic musical genres. The record not only showcases her exceptional songwriting ability, but also displays some more disparate influences, with first single Psycho seeing Imelda channel the spirit of early PJ Harvey, whilst the heartbreakingly poignant “Kentish Town Waltz” conjures an image of Chrissie Hynde at her most reflective.
Imelda May is someone that comes off sounding at times very familiar, and at other times strikingly new, and it’s clear her passion for music since she was a wee tot in Dublin helped shape her distinctive, oh-so-cool sound. But when asked how that all came to be, her characteristic candor and charm comes shining through.
“I have no idea!”, she says with a hearty laugh. “It’s all just stuff I love, really. The rockabilly, the blues, the jazz, the country, the skiffle, all kinds of stuff. It seems to have all merged. I’m just so passionate about music, I suppose it has a lot to do with they way I learned music, and the way I started. I was completely obsessed with music from very early on, I was always singin’ and dancin’. But once I got into those blues clubs…I suppose it was quite odd to be so young and singin’ blues…but my brothers and sisters (May is the youngest of five) used to smuggle me in because I was way underage, so through them I got into it, and my parents were OK with it because they knew my brothers and sisters were looking after me.”
“But I really learned from these old blues guys that were playin’, and similarly with the Irish traditional stuff, you learn by watching somebody and listening very carefully, and you mimic and you take up, and that’s the way I learned how to sing, by watching them and taking it all in. And over the years, people would give me pointers and tips, it was certainly the best musical education I could have ever gotten, because it gave me a lot of experience, and it gave me a huge love, the passion, the obsession I suppose. It also gave me a lot of laughs, and memories and great times.”
Sheer talent has clearly been the driver for May’s success, but some big names in the music industry also took a shine to the Irish siren, which surely can’t hurt a burgeoning career one bit.
“Jools Holland (former member of Squeeze) gave me a big break…we did a support tour with him, one gig, and then he asked us to tour with him, and he was watching us from beside the stage and he said he couldn’t believe we had no record deal, he said ‘Who you signed to?’ and we said ‘Nobody’, and he said “My God, I have to get you on my show (his well-known British music program, Later…with Jools Holland) and that was amazing, what happened because of that.”
And guitar legend Jeff Beck is another musical luminary that May thoroughly impressed, and that relationship has opened the door to some amazing experiences. And yes, it even involves a totally unique story she’s never told anyone before about an injured crow that May found in a London park. Yes, a crow helped Imelda May get extra-noticed by Jeff Beck. Who knew?
“Well, Jeff knows my husband from before we were married, and he came to see us and Jools play and we ended up going back to his house that night, and well, there’s a crow involved…I had saved a crow, and I was going to give it to Jeff’s wife, she rescues animals…I’ve never told anybody this before actually…you probably think I’m a lunatic. We had the crow with us at the gig, I found it at a local park, it had fallen out of a tree, and it was absolutely bruised. But I’d been bringing it to gigs, and I didn’t know what I going to do with it because it was getting huge, it just sat on me arm, me shoulder, but I wanted it to go back to the wild, so [Beck’s wife] said she had a spare place for it back at their place, so we ended up going back to their house. And before you know it, they have the crow, and we’re sittin’ jamming away at the fireplace, and singin’ songs all night. And Jeff said “Oh my God, I love your voice.” And then before you know it, we’re workin’ on his album.”
That opened the door for other incredible experiences with Beck, seemingly one after another: first, May had the rare opportunity to get up onstage with Beck and Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour at Royal Albert Hall.
“I was in the middle of the song (the 60′s classic ‘ Hi Ho Silver Lining’) when I thought, ‘Hang on…what the hell am I doing here? This is mad, it’s crazy, how did this happen?’ Then Jeff asked me to sing with him at the O2 in London, that’s one he was doing with Eric Clapton, and I sang ‘Lilac Wine’ with them, and he just asked me to record that, and he’s putting it on his album. We did record [Howlin’ Wolf’s] “Poor Boy” as well, it wasn’t a shiny, polished version, it was just one of those recordings where we were jammin’ and somebody pressed ‘record’, and as far as I know that’s going to be on the album as well. Jeff is a jaw dropping, fantastic, world class player, and at one stage I was askin’ him about this chord and he was trying to show me how to play it, and he said ‘Oh you just do this’, and he made it look so easy, but my fingers were contorted and almost breakin’, and of course I couldn’t manage it. ”
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