She shoots, she scores

Apart from having a terrific voice and writing immensely satisfying songs, Nicole Maguire has one other important character trait: persistence. How else might a girl from Cork prompt Sam Feldman, the American-based music biz mogul with management links to Bon Jovi, Avril Lavigne and Norah Jones, to pay attention to her music – even send her a personal e-mail? Maguire takes up the story: “I just kept annoying him. I sent him an e-mail nearly every day until his PA, Kathy, called and told me that he was going to listen to my tracks and mail me personally with his thoughts. He said I had a voice that was ‘simply beautiful’. He loved my songs. I then rang him and asked if he’d be interested in managing me. He laughed and told me he had enough on his plate! But that’s me – leaping in at the deep end!”

She also managed to wangle herself on to a Nanci Griffith tour.
“I heard through my manager that Nanci wanted an Irish female to go on the road with her,” Nicole explains. “I have a full-time job, so I legged it into work, and begged my bosses for time off. They were great – especially considering they hadn’t seen me live at that point. They couldn’t have been more co-operative, and it was great to get onto a guaranteed sold-out tour.”
Given that the lead single, ‘I’m Gonna Be’, from her debut album Fight The Score is full-on pop with echoes of Garbage, some might have wondered whether Maguire was quite the right fit for Griffith. She nods her head.
“Nanci’s not really the same market – but when it suits me I can sing and play my guitar and concentrate on the gentler songs from the album, like ‘Free’, ‘Time’ and ‘I Remember’”
While on tour with Griffith, she got to visit the spiritual home of country music: “When Nanci’s guitarist and percussionist aren’t touring, they produce records in Nashville.”
Not that the Tennessee city is all stetson hats and Shania Twain soundalikes.
“We think Nashville is only about country music, but it also has the biggest network of songwriters in the States, and the two lads invited me to work with their songwriters. Now, Nanci wants me to hook up with two of her people, Irene Kelley and Elizabeth Cook.”
Kelley being the supplier of songs for such superstars as Trisha Yearwood, Loretta Lynn and Ricky Skaggs. Maguire is eager to dispel the notion that she grew up in a traditional family with everybody sawing away on a fiddle day and night.
“In actual fact”, she tells me, “two of my uncles lived in England and when they used to come home they’d bring their guitars and we’d go mental for about a day and a night in the pub playing every song we knew. I’d play along with them, and that’s how I started. From the age of nine I entered the Scor music competitions and I was shockingly bad. So I had no real desire to concentrate on trad or folk. I like all kinds of music and I wouldn’t like to be confined to just one genre.”
She’s been songwriting since she was 13, and even now can remember the very first one to come off her production line.
“I was in love, so it was a love song. It was terrible. Of course I didn’t know how bad it was back then. It was all about unrequited love. I thought it was brilliant and that it was only a matter of time before Sony whisked me off to the USA to fame and fortune. I practically had the flights booked. But, sure, I hadn’t a clue.”
She’s one of the few artists I’ve met who’s never once suffered from writer’s block.
“I read a lot of books about songwriting, and they always have a chapter on how to get out of a block, which I skip. I write all the time. Just last night I started and finished the lyrics of a new song. I’m haunted by songs and I’m at it all the time.”

Nicole Maguire’s Fight The Score album is available from all HMV stores.