Queen Of The Slipstream

Oh look, there s Alec Finn s Castle.
If there s a more exhilarating, (or sphincter tightening) experience than swooping in low over Galway Bay in a helicopter at about 120mph, then I d sure like to hear about it. For this is precisely where we find ourselves on this sunny Friday lunchtime in the company of Mary Black and her small entourage, as she literally drops in on the City Of The Tribes to fulfil some important promotional duties.
The stately pile swiftly passing a couple of hundred feet below on our left is indeed the Oranmore residence of De Dannan stalwart Alec Finn, with whom Mary served in the early eighties before launching her own solo career in earnest. We actually recorded an album there once, she reminisces. The castle is haunted and I remember it being a bit spooky at times.
Over to the right Galway itself, supposedly the fastest growing city in Western Europe, looks amazingly compact, the narrow streets and alleys in the medieval old town seemingly only a mile or two from the surrounding countryside. Out beyond, in the glistening blue waters of the Atlantic, the Aran Islands look tantalisingly close, making you wish you had the freedom, the time and money to explore it at a more leisurely pace. Truly, this is the only way to travel.
But we re not on terra firma just yet and our trusty chopper pilot, Peter McParland, has still to complete the tricky manoeuvre of landing this big yellow airborne taxi onto a tiny heli-pad located in the car park at the rear of the Corrib Great Southern Hotel. Rather than dropping down directly as you might expect, he swings out over the sea before doubling back in a clockwise downward spiral, skimming just above the roof of the hotel in the process.
Black, by her own admission not a great passenger in these circumstances, is not entirely impressed at this display of aero-gymnastics: Jesus Christ, me stomach, she exclaims half-jokingly. Get this fucking thing down quickly!
Her minder for the day, the extremely laid back Pat Armstrong calmly reassures her: Don t worry, Mary, we re almost there.
That s what JFK Jnr said the other week, God forgive me, she retorts, putting a swift end to that particular exchange.
The copter finally lands smoothly and efficiently. We hop out like we were born to travel in this manner and jump straight into a waiting car to be whisked into the centre of Galway.
Things are certainly moving at a hectic pace for Mary Black these days. Currently in the midst of an American tour, she s literally on a flying visit to Ireland to launch and promote her new album Speaking With The Angel. Having flown into Dublin yesterday from LA, via London for last night s official launch at HMV, today s schedule is even more punishing. It had begun in the early morning with a live session on Ian Dempsey s Today FM Breakfast Show where she performed songs from the new album her first since 1997 s Shine. Then it was straight into a car and out to the Irish Helicopters hanger at Dublin Airport where the rotor blades were already spinning ready for take-off. Hot Press snapper Peter Matthews takes a couple of shots on the tarmac before we all pile into the sleek Bell Jetranger for the hour-long journey into the west.
Now for some the notion of taking a cross-country helicopter ride might conjure up all kinds of classic chopper imagery: from those unforgettable scenes in Apocalypse Now to that poignant moment in The Killing Fields when the American Embassy in Saigon is being evacuated. However, try as I might (and despite much enthusiastic humming of The Doors The End ), the broad majestic Shannon fails to even remotely resemble the Mekong Delta. And that faint odour wafting up from the Bog of Allen is decidedly more Moss Peat than Napalm,while, no offence to the citizens of Maynooth, Clara, or Athenry, the N4 snaking its way westwards doesn t quite have the fearful imagery of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Still, having the chance to view the nation from this vantage point is an opportunity not to be missed and despite the occasional bout of turbulence it s a smooth, effortless ride.
The Galway whistle-stop will include a personal appearance by Black at Zhivago Records on Shop Street, a phoner with Clare FM, and a live interview with Larry Gogan on the 2FM Roadcaster, which is conveniently parked outside the shop. Later this afternoon she s due to fly back to New York, via London, for an appearance tomorrow evening at the legendary Newport Folk Festival where she shares a bill with Beth Orton, Joan Armatrading, Wilco and Suzanne Vega among others.
The air-tight schedule means the only way of packing it all in is for Black to charter a chopper for the Galway leg which is precisely what she does, albeit a mite reluctantly as she explains:
I ve flown in helicopters before, but never in one this small. The last time I flew in one was with the whole band. We were doing a big festival in Nottingham and we had to be down in London later that day for Michael Flatley s Lord Of The Dance in Hyde Park where we were playing. It was great. Real rock star stuff we even had in-flight service on board. The whole works.
Black s husband (and manager) Joe O Reilly had intended to accompany her on the Galway trip but she had encouraged him to remain behind just in case, as she says.
I didn t think it d be a good idea, the two of us on the same flight, she laughs. If anything happened, the kids would be orphans. At least this way there d be one of us left!
Meanwhile back on Shop Street in the heart of Galway a large crowd has turned out for the occasion, with fans and well-wishers hoping to cadge an autograph surrounding the 2FM Roadcaster in droves. Black hops inside the air-conditioned mobile studio to have a quick on-air chat with Larry Gogan who plays tracks from her new opus which is album of the week. By this time the queues inside Zhivago are stretched out the front door and she patiently signs CD s, shakes hands and poses for snapshots. It s a mark of her popularity that many of those here are tourists Germans, Dutch, Scandinavians they are clearly familiar with her music and thrilled to meet her in person.
A half an hour or so later it s out the back door of the record shop, into the car, back to the hotel and straight into the chopper for the return flight to Dublin Airport. Psychedelic rainbows appear on the horizon and the country looks mystical in the afternoon light. Approaching Dublin Airport via the West Link bridge, the Friday traffic down below is building up steadily. In half an hour Black will be on a plane to London to connect with her Virgin flight to New York.
I don t really mind the trip, she says I ll probably sleep most of the way with the help of a glass of wine or two.
In a few days time she ll be on the move again back home to Dublin and then on to Oslo for another show on the never-ending tour.
nnnnn
Speaking With The Angel is Mary Black s ninth solo album and the follow-up to Shine, which heralded a brave new beginning for her, following the departure of long-time collaborator Declan Sinnott.
Featuring songs by writers as disparate as Sting, Neil Finn, Noel Brazil and Ron Sexsmith, the album once again showcases Black s strong interpretative skills and unerring ability to take a song and make it her own. With contributions from a host of familiar names including Liam O Flynn, Liam O Maonlai, Noel Bridgeman, Liam Bradley and Brian Dunning, it was part produced by Donal Lunny and Black herself, with help from Steve Cooney who also has two of his own songs included.
Black has described Speaking With The Angel as a return to her folk origins. Was it a conscious decision to go down this road after her last album Shine, which was much more contemporary sounding and innovative?
Yeah, this is definitely much more rootsy and folky than anything I ve done for a while, she replies. It happened quite naturally, really. We d built a house down in Kerry and I d been hanging out there quite a bit over the last two years. I was becoming involved in trad sessions, the usual thing, getting together informally with various people. It was closer to the kind of thing I did when I started out. I really felt that now was the time to do an album like this again.
On Shine I was open more to experimenting and I stretched myself a lot, trying different instrumentation and new songwriters and even a different way of singing. Playing with people like Larry Klein was a revelation to me and for that reason it was very different to anything I d done before. I was really happy with Shine and I m glad I did it. Some people tried to say that I was trying to change my image, to appeal to a younger or a more American audience. There was no truth in that whatsoever. I just wanted to do that album. It felt right for me at the time and that s all that mattered to me. You have to follow your instincts at the time.
Some people might say that Mary Black has settled into a predictable formula, familiar and comfortable but unchallenging. How would she respond to that?
The thing is, you re criticised for changing and you re criticised for not changing. I reacted very strongly to the folk singer image that I had when I was with De Dannan. I deliberately made Without The Fanfare to try to shake it off. In some ways it was too much in the opposite direction, but it made me realise what I really wanted to do, which was more in the direction of By The Time It Gets Dark. Since then most of the albums have been different in some way, the instrumentation, the choice of songs, the production. It mightn t seem that way, but if you put the albums together side-by-side you can clearly hear big differences.
The thing is you come to a stage where there are limits with what you can do, she continues. I could go out and make a pop record, but it d probably be a desperate, pathetic thing altogether. I ll never be a rock singer either, or an opera singer for that matter. I m very comfortable in one particular area of music and that s where I like to be.
The album s title track comes from the Ron Sexsmith song Speaking With The Angel from his 1995 debut. Does Mary think she ll do for Sexsmith what she did for David Gray, who became hugely popular in this country after she recorded five of his songs?
I wouldn t be taking responsibility for David Gray s success. He already had a strong following here. I m sure it didn t do him any harm and maybe it helped in a small way, but there s no way there be the huge interest in him if he wasn t so talented. Ron Sexsmith is just a beautiful songwriter and when I heard this song I found I could really relate to it. I ve never actually seen him live. I know he s played in Ireland a lot but I keep missing him.
Songs come to me in different ways. I tend to choose songs that touch me in a certain way and if I can have that attachment it makes it special. I place a lot of emphasis on lyrics, it has to feel almost as if I ve written the words myself. Steve Cooney, for example, came to my house and played this song and I was so moved by it. Steve is a really gifted guy who s found a new lease for his music. He s better known as a musician rather than a songwriter, but his talents in songwriting are just being discovered.
A household name in Ireland and someone who sells a lot of records around the world, would Black like to really crack it big in America?
I don t really feel that conquering America is on the agenda at this stage of my career, she says. We have a very solid base in America and one that s growing steadily. The thing is I love to sing, I love to perform and the fact that I can go out there and play to audiences of anything from 600 to 2,500 people is a very nice feeling. The people that are interested in buying tickets for the show and buying our album they re the people I like to play for.
What s the future for Mary Black? Will you continue recording and touring?
I used to say to myself that there s no way I ll be singing when I m in my forties. And yet here I am still at it. It s just become too much a part of me. Although I feel I m winding down a little bit compared to what it used to be like. It s not that I want to slow down it s just the pressures of being on the road. I don t really like being away from home that much. I do an average of 60 to 80 shows per year which, when you think of it like that, is not even a third of the year. So it s not that bad and it s spread out over the year leaving me plenty of time with the family.
The most important thing for me is, I ve complete control over everything I do. Nobody puts me under pressure to do anything I don t want to. n
Speaking With The Angel is out now on Dara Records.