Mary Coughlan - SOLD OUT
2nd Oct 2015
€20.00
SOLD OUT
8.00pm (doors 7.45pm)
Mary Coughlan is an Irish jazz, blues and folk singer. She has received great critical acclaim for her emotional and heartfelt renditions. A lot has been written and a lot has been said, whispered, recounted, alleged, supposed and presumed. It’s all quite forgotten now and the songs remain the same, they remain a testament to Mary Coughlan’s seemingly timeless and endless talent. Her smoky, bluesy, boozy drawl has always been a seduction, no matter what the subject. The vocal marrying of sardonic wit, visceral rage, orgiastic between the sheets passion, the tenderest of sorrowful regrets- this is Mary’s talent. Regardless of the elements she chooses to manipulate with flawless ease, Mary’s voice has always been an unforeseen, sudden seduction. This is why she is so loved.
Throughout the over twenty five years of her quite extraordinary recording career Mary has drawn heavily from her legendary heroes; Billie Holiday’s grievous, teary outpourings, the husky flirtations of Peggy Lee, Van Morrison’s soulful wails, the defiant chanteusery of Edith Piaf. All are present and correct in her delivery. Even so, Mary, with her naked honesty makes every song her own; they belong to her and nobody else. Who else could possibly present “Double Cross” or “Magdalene Laundry” or “The Ice Cream Man” with such dedication and effortless zeal?
The stage is where Mary survives. From a small square footage of venue real estate in front of a handful or a thousand or ten thousand people, she emotes, purges, atones, reminisces, eulogises and laments. That is why there is a full disc of live recordings included in her last collection, because this is the very best of Mary Coughlan and you can’t hear the very best until you’ve heard her story recited in every note.
Mary Coughlan’s brilliance as a singer was summed up in The Financial Times when it said:
“Coughlan writes few of her own songs, but her choices and the way she inhabits them turn them alchemically into autobiography. Mary Coughlan is an unlikely but transfixing performer. No one should wish her heartbreak, but everyone should envy her power to transform it”.
