Sarah McQuaid: Press

Sarah McQuaid
Ballina Arts Centre, Co. Mayo
27 March 2008

While walking around in the rain looking for the Ballina Arts Centre, I began to think that maybe I was in the wrong town. Nobody could give me directions: to Supermacs yes, but an arts centre? My impression was that these residents didn’t seem to know what they had. Somebody or something was not engaging them; not properly getting their attention.

The Ballina Arts Centre occupies a pleasant, but very modest, setting, with one room serving as both a gallery and an events space. In this minimalised setting, and to an audience of little over twenty people, Sarah McQuaid held sway with no more than her guitar, voice and smile – no mean feat in a situation where every audience member is a distinct face and each hand clap is noticeable for its percussive timbre. McQuaid comes across as an experienced, confident musician and she imbues the songs with her own, definitive mark. Whether an a-cappella version of ‘The Parting Glass’ or an unusually subdued version of ‘The Holy Ground (Once More)’, one is convinced that here is a woman singing with her own voice and listening with her own ears. This assured individuality carried over into her precise, measured guitar playing on a guitar which matches her voice’s bel canto persuasion. McQuaid’s voice is indeed warm, mature and a connoisseur’s delight.

But, as rich and palatable as her music is, I did wish for a dash of bitters, more tonal discord to balance it out. There were flashes of blue-note-twists – hints of tearing – that came out in places, such as her version of Bobby Gentry’s ‘Ode to Billie Jo’ and her own recently-written ‘The Plum Tree and The Rose’, but I hoped for just a hint more. Some day I would like to hear McQuaid in a bigger musical setting, in which her smooth style could be accentuated, counter-parted and contrasted with other musical voices.

Whether that could happen on another similar night in Ballina is questionable: the limited concert space would challenge both audience and performers. Hopefully Ballina town and Mayo County Council’s proposed development of the arts centre will go ahead sooner rather than later. The planned 250-seat theatre must be regarded as essential infrastructure. Such a venue would allow the Ballina Arts Centre to expand the scope of its performance schedule, allow hard-working musicians such as Sarah McQuaid appropriate performance space, and allow the people of Ballina/North Mayo a better engagement with their cultural options on such cold Thursday nights.

Sarah McQuaid
When Two Lovers Meet

Sarah McQuaid was born in Spain and raised in Chicago. She moved to Ireland in 1994. To my shame, Sarah’s was a new name to me. I say “to my shame” because this is a re-release of a CD first seeing the light of day in 1997.

Clearly it’s been my loss. She is a real talent. And she has come up with an album here that has perhaps “gracefulness” as its watchword. Everything is done with elegance and a certain economy of style and emotion. It ticks all the boxes for those of us wanting a quality album based largely on the Irish tradition.

She is joined on one track by Niamh Parsons on vocals, and throughout the album by the following talented bunch of musicians: Gerry O’Beirne (guitar and ukulele, and who also produced the CD); Trevor Hutchinson (double bass); John McSherry (whistle and pipes); Rod McVey (keyboards); Kevin Murphy (cello); Colm McCaughey (fiddle).

It is no coincidence that she chose to ask Niamh to contribute. There is much in Sarah’s delivery that reminds one of that celebrated Irish singer. Outstanding vocal control, almost to the point of a June Tabor.

But for me, I would prefer it if she let her guard drop a bit, and allow a bit of IMPERFECTION to enter her delivery. I am not asking for a ragged edge exactly: just a little something that marks her out as a human with feet of clay, rather than a singing goddess (which frankly is the image that her stunning vocal control portrayed for me). Using one’s voice as a pitch perfect musical instrument is one thing, but it does not always speak to the heart. Just the ear.

But that said, I must admit that it’s oh so nice on the ear. It is an album that can send you off into a deep reverie.

The liner notes too, also impress. Sarah penned them, and they interested me more than most I read these days. For instance, she’s surprisingly modest about the best track on the album, her self-penned Charlie’s Gone Home. The song’s construction made me think of a young Rosie Hardman at her best.

What I like most about the notes is the way she puts an idea in one’s head. Talking of When A Man’s In Love she says “I was struck by its sensuous lyrics (her hands so soft her breath so sweet/her tongue did gently glide … mmmm!”).

Golly, a song I had heard a million times suddenly took on a whole new aura for me! But Sarah, I would now call the lyrics decidedly SENSUAL rather than sensuous!

And I appreciated her observation re this particular track “I love the wide-open, lonely sound of the wooden and steel guitars together”. How grateful I am that she flagged that up for me. And her choice there of the word “lonely” is an inspired one.

Sarah McQuaid
When Two Lovers Meet

(5 stars)

Ignore the title and be mesmerised by the quality of this Irish-roots music.

My initiation to this disc didn’t start well with the vomit-inducing name. But, never judge a CD by its ill-advised title, and it didn’t take me long to become completely addicted (about 30 seconds) to Sarah McQuaid’s velvet (albeit shaky) tones.

Born in Spain, McQuaid was raised in Chicago, discovered traditional music in France and now lives in County Wexford. Her voice sounds about as Spanish-American as Mary Black, however, and the sound here is incredibly authentic.

McQuaid has arranged a great-sounding disc of songs learned from her mother, heard on the radio and found in random books. Despite her lack of Irish heritage she has a good crack at Taim Cortha o Bheith im Aonar, singing unaccompanied in her lovely lilting deep tones. For the most part she accompanies herself on guitar to her own arrangements and occasionally with whistle, uilleann pipes and fiddles.

This isn’t just a disc of traditional covers; it’s very much the work of an Irish music devotee. Song histories are charted, academic collections credited and musical form is discussed, making it more than just a collection of songs by a lady with a lovely voice.

Sarah McQuaid
When Two Lovers Meet

Although this is a re-release from 1997, Sarah McQuaid is not a name that I’d come across before. She was born in Spain, grew up in Chicago, discovered Irish music as a student in Paris, and lived in Ireland from 1994 until earlier this year when she moved to Penzance. Her name may be familiar to some guitarists as the author of the Irish DADGAD guitar book ‘Playing & Backing Traditional Irish Music on Open-Tuned Guitar’ (Ossian Publications, Cork, 1995). However, soon after releasing this album the first time round, Sarah took a long break from the music scene. Now she’s back with a new album due for release early in 2008.

This debut album is a wonderful introduction to a fine singer and guitarist. It features traditional songs and tunes along with one original number. The mood is gentle, smooth and relaxing. Even numbers that you would expect to be upbeat and lively, like the ‘Chicago Reel’ from the playing of Willie Clancy and the traditional song ‘Johnny Lad’ become relatively calm and easy to listen to. Through it all, Sarah’s vocals and guitar playing are to the fore, but she has a prestigious collection of backing musicians including John McSherry on pipes and whistles, cellist Kevin Murphy, Rod McVey on keyboards, and singer Niamh Parsons. The title track, also known as ‘The Banks Of The Lee’, and the unaccompanied Táim Cortha ó Bheith im’ Aonar im’ Luí’ (similar to the broadside ballad Weary of Tumbling Alone) with verses sung alternately in Irish and English, are outstanding tracks on an album that would already be very good on its own. The album closes with a dazzling duet between Sarah and Niamh Parsons as they sing ‘The Parting Glass’ solo, in unison, and in harmony. When Two Lovers Meet is available in the UK through Proper Distribution. See sarahmcquaid.com for more details.

Sarah McQuaid
When Two Lovers Meet

Previously lauded in these pages on its original release, Sarah McQuaid’s debut album offers a masterclass in restraint and subtlety. Authoritative singing and quietly insistent arrangements make for a sumptuous whole – recommended.

ON THE ROAD - AGAIN!

The re-release of an album originally published a decade ago has made singer/guitarist Sarah McQuaid an instant hit. Keith Hudson explores her background.

A NOMADIC lifestyle and earning a living as a professional musician tend to be inextricably linked and that certainly applies to Sarah McQuaid. The morning after we spoke she was due to leave her home near Penzance to go to London for an appearance at the Return to Camden Town Festival, returning the next day. But while the itinerant life is usually a consequence of career choice, in Sarah's case, it was the other way round.

"My mother was a world traveller," she says. "Before I was born she lived in France for three years, she lived in Greece for a year, she lived in Italy for a year and in Spain for five years."

Sarah was, in fact, born in Madrid, where she lived for the first two years of her life before her mother returned to the United States, setting up home in Chicago. By the time she was twelve she got her first taste of travelling in a musical context - as a member of the Chicago Children's Choir, which regularly undertook tours of up to ten days, both in the USA and Canada. Within a couple of years, she had also become a prolific songwriter and loved to entertain and amuse her classmates.

At the age of eighteen Sarah was on the move again - this time to study philosophy at the University of Strasbourg. She was also partly educated at Haverford College in Philadelphia, from which she obtained a High Honours BA in Philosophy. Haverford is a Quaker institution, run strictly to the Society of Friends' ethos.

She recalls that all decisions that needed making had to be based on consensus - voting was completely out of the question. This often meant that issues were sometimes discussed for several days before reaching resolution. The process of taking examinations followed a pattern that most of us would find unusual.

"If a student felt ready to take an exam," she explained, "he or she could simply ask for the paper and return her work within two hours. This meant you could do the exam sitting under a tree or wherever else one chose."

But it was during her spell in France that Sarah was bitten by the Irish music bug. Surprising, perhaps, as, despite the Irish diaspora, Strasbourg doesn't seem the kind of city to be a hotbed of Irish music - a view Sarah would share. Her solo performances in a folk club, though, attracted significant praise in the local press and she soon tracked down a band who were looking for a singer.

"I had to learn their repertoire very quickly," she says, "and learn to sing their songs in the same key as the male singer I replaced. It wasn't a particularly good band, but they had a lot of gigs lined up. Again the local press was full of praise, describing us as the best Irish band in eastern France. If the truth were known, we were, probably, the only Irish music band in eastern France."

The writer described them as a band made up of five people from five different countries - Ireland, France, Brittany, America and Texas, the latter being elevated in status because the writer was a Texan.

It was also during this period of her life that Sarah discovered the DADGAD open tuning style of guitar playing. She was later to write the seminal guitar tutor The Irish DADGAD Guitar Book, which The Irish Times described as "a godsend to aspiring traditional guitarists".

Sarah's own guitar style is, she says, influenced mainly by players she's heard on record. She lists Dick Gaughan, Arty McGlynn, Bert Jansch and John Renbourn as examples.

"Before going to France I had been doing some bluegrass playing and pretending to be Joni Mitchell in my bedroom," she quips. "I tried experimenting with open tuning and various other things. But, at that time, the sum total of my knowledge of Irish music was hearing a song by Mary Black on the radio and hearing some Kevin Burke, but I didn't know he was Irish.

"Up to that point, most of what I knew about music I had got from my mother. She was a folk singer and guitarist, though never professionally. She had a huge store of songs, some English, some Scottish and some American, but I didn't know which were which. She used to sing to me when I was going to bed at night and we'd sing together in the car. She was my introduction to folk music."

Although Sarah does write songs, it's a very occasional activity and she doesn't really think of herself as a songwriter. She recalls writing two in April this year, but reckons those were the first in about five years. She mentioned that she has an uncle who wrote the songs for a musical that was produced in Chicago and a cousin, who is four years older than her, who studied composition and now writes film music.

During her year in France, Sarah married one of the members of the band she had joined. She now confesses that this was a rather foolish decision. He did accompany her when she returned to the USA and again, in 1994, when she moved to Dublin, but the relationship was not to last.

The move to Ireland also brought about a gradual change in emphasis to Sarah's working life. She continued performing and release a first solo album, When Two Lovers Meet, but also began writing a weekly folk music column for the Evening Herald and contributing to Hot Press magazine. But, eventually, a full-tme job took her away from music - temporarily, at least.

"It was an irresistible offer," she says. "Initially, it was just a three month contract but, at the end of that, I was asked to stay on. The company I worked for published a wide range of magazines from the on-board magazine for Irish Ferries, various others for the Irish Tourist Board and even the Irish edition of Old Moore's Almanac. Some of the tourist stuff was interesting and gave me the chance to visit some nice places."

During this time, Sarah married Feargal Shiels, a horticulturist who used his skills as a therapeutic tool for people with learning difficulties. They had two children, in 2003 and 2005. But finding an affordable home that was suitable for two young children meant moving some sixty miles outside Dublin - giving Sarah an unenviable 120 mile daily commute to her office. Inevitably, the stress began to tell.

"I was often spending three hours on the road, as well as long days in the office. The kids were in a nursery eleven hours a day ad it became a pretty miserable existence," she says. "I found myself crying while driving to and from work and thinking there must be something better than this. I thought to myself what about that CD, what about the music? I started looking around for gigs and, to my amazement, I had no problem getting them."

When Two Lovers Meet originally came out in 1997, when releasing one's own album was still a comparative rarity, though Sarah did manage to get an Irish distribution deal with Gael Linn and, this year, with Proper Records for distribution in Britain.

"It's wonderfully democratic, in a way, that it's now so easy to release a CD. It's fantastic that a CD can be put out to the world. Anybody can do it. When I originally recorded my album, I didn't think there would be a market for it. You used not to be able to make a recording unless there was a market. It's great that it's no longer in the total control of record companies, but it's bad in the sense that reviewers, like myself, have to listen to so many albums that, previously, would never have seen the light of day. But, there's good stuff, too, that might have seemed too risky, in the past."

The album was recorded in Trevor Hutchinson's Dublin studio and produced by Gerry O'Beirne. Putting in guest appearances are, among others, John McSherry and her old friend Niamh Parsons.

"They are all people I had known and admired for a long time," she says. "Gerry is a particularly good producer and I get on with him so well. You know how it is, you sometimes meet people and you don't have to explain yourself. In no time, they nod and know what you are talking about. Especially, when you are talking about musical things. I could tell Gerry when I knew something was wrong and, even if I didn't know what was wrong, he could fix it, just like that. It's so good when someone is on the same wavelength."

Work has already begun on Sarah's second album. Provisionally titled I Won't Go Home 'Til Morning, it's scheduled for release early in 2008. Again it was recorded in Hutchinson's studio and again production is by O'Beirne. Guests for this album include, in addition to Hutchinson and O'Beirne, are percussionist Liam Bradley and Maire Breatnach on fiddle and viola. There's a change of focus, too. This new album features old timey American songs and tunes and is, in part, at least, a tribute to Sarah's mother, who died not so long ago.

"She was first taken ill when my son, the elder of the two, was just four months old [I must not have made myself clear at this point in the interview; my mother had actually been ill for some years, and she died when Eli was five months old – Sarah]. It was a difficult time and I thought about her a lot. That's why I wanted to record some of the songs she used to sing."

But Sarah hasn't abandoned Irish music. Much of her live repertoire is made of songs from the first album. Given her new place of residence, she's also interested in learning some Cornish songs and, maybe, even the language. At the moment, though, she's trying to learn a little Dutch, as she has a tour of Holland lined up and she's embarrassed about how well the Dutch speak English.

"I'm looking forward to hearing the new album as a finished piece of work," she says. "I had to leave it when I moved to England. It hasn't been mastered yet. Trevor's taking it to Holland to do that."

The death of Sarah's mother was the reason for the family's move to Cornwall. Sarah had wanted her stepfather to live with them in Ireland, but he was having none of that.

"Now that I know where he's living, I understand his reasons," she says. "We live in what was my parents' home and he lives in the cottage next door. It was a shed, but now provides both living accommodation and a studio for him to work in. He's an artist and sculptor."

Apart from the Dutch tour, Sarah also has a nine day trip to Scotland in February. The whole family is going on that trip, because, she tells me, she's never left the kids for that long. She also made it known that she'd like some dates in south Wales, as she still travels to Ireland, from time to time, via Pembroke. (Give her a ring - you won't be disappointed with her performance).

Click here or here to read an interview in the Irish Post that appeared ahead of my performance at the Return To Camden Town Festival in London.

Click here to read a review in the Bristol Evening Post of my gig at the Nova Scotia Folk Club. Unfortunately I had a dreadful chest infection that gave me vocal problems and sent me into coughing fits between songs, so it wasn't my best night by a long shot, but the reviewer wasn't too hard on me ...

Sarah McQuaid
When Two Lovers Meet

You can be easily forgiven for not having heard of Sarah... for this CD is a belated reissue of Sarah’s widely-acclaimed debut, which was first released on a purely limited basis in Ireland in 1997.

It’s a quiet, uniformly lyrical album, characterised by timeless, fine-toned, warm and gently sensuous singing and thoughtful, sparkling yet understated guitar work. The simple unadorned physical beauty of Sarah herself, as captured in the booklet’s photographic portraits, is mirrored by the spare beauty of the music on the disc: 47 minutes of pure delight, entirely embodying Sarah’s personal philosophy that “a soft approach can still be a source of joy, intensity, even wildness”. Indeed, the two lovers of the title could well be interpreted as vocal and instrumental performance, for their marriage is at once perfectly controlled and perfectly natural, both in conception and in execution.

The focus is always on Sarah’s singing or playing, and she’s blessed with unobtrusive and appealing settings which are a model of intelligence and sensitive restraint. In fact the overall feel of the album reminded me of the work of Niamh Parsons in that respect, and it came as no surprise to find her name among the credits (she duets with Sarah on her fabulous closing rendition of The Parting Glass, done to an unusual tune, a little reminiscent of Quiet Joys Of Brotherhood, which she learnt from the singing of Len Graham) along with piper John McSherry, bassist Trevor Hutchinson, cellist Kevin Murphy, fiddler Colm McGaughey, keyboard player Rod McVey and producer Gerry O’Beirne who pitches in with backing guitars and ukulele. The complement of the album is seven songs and three instrumental tracks, the latter rather surprisingly providing highlights of the set with richness in sparsity.

The songs include fetching variants of Sprig Of Thyme, the title track (also known as The Banks Of The Lee) and When A Man’s In Love, also one of Sarah's own compositions (Charlie’s Gone Home) which despite its “folkiness” still feels like the cuckoo in the nest (although it doesn’t compromise the mood of the album in any way). Sarah sings unaccompanied on just one song, the macaronic-form Táim Cortha Ó Bheith Im’ Aonar Im’ Luí. Finally, the good news is that Sarah’s just moved to Cornwall and plans to release a new CD next year. For the time being, though, this treasure of an album is now available easily in the UK through Proper Distribution and by the good auspices of Gael Linn.

Sarah McQuaid
When Two Lovers Meet

Love permeates this thoughtful CD. Sarah’s loving treatments, along with those of her small band of accompanists, add that special something to a glittering collection of songs and tunes. Sarah’s smooth voice is respectful, loving, and exactly right for the songs, which include a vivid version of Sprig of Thyme learned from her mother. As for her guitar she is obviously a master. Sarah lives in Penzance now so watch out for local appearances.

Sarah McQuaid
When Two Lovers Meet

Oh yes, it’s guitar fetish time… I was checking out the RTE Late Session site for the first time in ages and picked one of the shows at random, well not quite… I saw the word guitarist so that was where I decided to start.

Sarah McQuaid is a truly distinctive guitarist, her tone and technique remind me of early Bert Jansch and Tony McManus amongst others. She also has a really warm and interesting voice into the bargain. “When Two Lovers Meet” is just so understated and delicate that it just goes straight to the emotional jugular and shows cases both her guitar and vocals (the uillean pipes I am not so sure about).

“When Two Lovers Meet” was originally released in 1997 but shortly after Sarah decided to take a break, the album was re-released in Ireland in February 2007. It’s a good album. Make sure you have a listen to Johnny Lad, the way it swings and don’t miss King of the Fairies/The Blackbird, DADGAD tunings and what sounds like a large body Martin (D35?) [D-28, actually, but good guess! – Sarah] and this is so cool. I love the way a really talented guitarist can brighten the day.

I really really really like this music. I look forward to her new album and hope one of the festivals here in Australia will bring her out. Oh if you want to hear the radio show that started this and if you have Real Audio on your PC then stroll over to RTE Late Session -11th March 2007 and check it out. (Remember it’s a radio show so there are the news breaks and a few other interesting bits and pieces in the two hours as well).

Click here to read a review in the Munster Express of my gig at the Bowery Bar in Waterford.

Click here to read my answers to one of those infernal questionnaires ...

Another infernal questionnaire! Click here to read it.

Sarah McQuaid
When Two Lovers Meet

Sarah’s voice is both as warm as a turf fire and as rich as matured cognac. Enhanced by Gerry O’Beirne’s sparse, but atmospheric production, ‘When A Man’s In Love’ (a nineteenth-century ‘night-visiting’ song learned from Seán Corcoran) becomes a sensuous spine-tingler, while her guitar playing throughout should be a lesson to anyone unconvinced of the instrument’s role in traditional music. An astonishing debut by a unique talent.

Sarah McQuaid
When Two Lovers Meet

Sarah McQuaid has lived a pretty varied life thus far: born in Madrid and raised in Chicago before becoming caught by the Irish music bug and now living in Dublin. Music columnist and musician by turn, she delivers a sparse yet effective brand of traditional music laden with subtle inflections and unexpected nuances. When Two Lovers Meet is her debut solo album and she possesses a wispily deep voice and an accomplished guitar style. The presence of heavyweights including John McSherry, Niamh Parsons, and producer Gerry O’Beirne add to the palate, but the result is strongly individual and highly personalised, though not self-centred. Vocally the traditional Johnny Lad and the self-penned Charlie’s Gone Home find her lower register at its most comfortable while the opening Sprig Of Thyme wins through on arrangement points alone with its melancholic baroque undertones. Having written a traditional guitar tutor for session accompanists, her playing is sweet and subtle on The Tempest and King Of The Fairies. For a debut solo album, When Two Lovers Meet is both sparse and withdrawn by effect but it casts a quietly lingering spell.

Sarah McQuaid
When Two Lovers Meet

I’m not exactly what you could call trad at heart. After all these years I couldn’t tell you the difference between a jig and a reel and as for differentiating between The Shannon Breeze and Roll Her On The Banks, well, I’d be as lost as a tourist in the Wicklow Hills without a map. Most of my trad intake is what we might call ambient trad, that element of trad that creeps into everyday existence. Riverdance trad. Titanic trad. Temple Bar trad. It goes in one ear and out the other. So to find myself not only liking but actually praising a trad disc, well, this comes as no little surprise to me. I guess my main reason for liking When Two Lovers Meet is twofold: the music comes from the lighter end of the trad spectrum; and McQuaid is a cosmopolitan woman and brings diverse influences to bear on the recording. The latter point. McQuaid was born in Spain but reared in Chicago. It was in France that she fell under the spell of trad and it is only in recent years that she fetched up here in Dublin. This varied upbringing has lent a slightly accented edge to McQuaid’s vocals, which are soft and almost dreamy. This cosmopolitan voice, with its associated approach to the treatment of the airs and tunes, has McQuaid walking along that border which blends the edges of trad into the edges of jazz. Here I’m particularly thinking of the tracks Johnny Lad and Charlie’s Gone Home. On these the sound comes close to that captured by trad/jazz fusionist Melanie O’Reilly on her Tír na Mára disc. Like O’Reilly, McQuaid acknowledges the assistance of the Traditional Music Archive in Merrion Square in the sourcing of the music on this disc and perhaps it is this willingness to seek out suitable and appropriate material that makes this album so pleasing.

As well as the vocals McQuaid also contributes her guitar playing talents to this disc. Some of you may know McQuaid’s name from her book, The Irish DADGAD Guitar Book. If her own playing can be taken as an advertisement for this book then I might just have to get my hands on it, buy a guitar and become a musician. That old Horslips sham rock favourite, King of the Fairies is wheeled out and given a new coat of paint, in a stripped down and – dare I say it? – almost jazzed up version. But jazz only in the fashion of old jazz, classical jazz, where the player goes off and paints curlicues and curls around a recognisable tune. This McQuaid does gently, not in a show-off look-at-me kind of fashion, more in a style that is actually sympathetic to the tune. This magic is also repeated later on the disc, on The Chicago Reel/The Green Fields of Glentown, the former previously recorded by Willie Clancy and the latter a Tommy Peoples tune.

Though self-financed and output by McQuaid herself, the disc features a host of luminous guests – Trevor Hutchinson (in whose Marguerite Studios the disc was recorded), Gerry O’Beirne (who produced, as well as contributing ukelele and accompanying guitar), John McSherry, Rod McVey and Niamh Parsons (one of the most underrated vocalists in this country today). It is to the individual credit of all involved that none steal the show and the whole becomes greater than the sum of its individual parts.

Sean-nós star Iarla Ó Lionaird is credited profusely for his assistance, particularly on the track Táim Cortha ó Bheith im’ Aonar im’ Luí, which has verses sung both as gaeilge agus as bearla. It is from another Cuil Aodh native, Peadar Ó Riada, that this disc draws some inspiration, particularly in its spartan approach to the musical arrangements, with lots of quiet moments in which the music can live and breathe.

For my money this was a beautiful disc. I can’t look at it and tell you whether McQuaid’s reading of tunes like Sprig of Thyme or The Tempest are true or fair, but I can tell you I enjoyed them, and at the end of the day, that is all I am looking for in a recording.

Sarah McQuaid
When Two Lovers Meet

Sarah is well known as a music journalist, and author (The Irish DADGAD Guitar Book). Now is it a case of poacher turned gamekeeper, always a dangerous move in the music business? How has she made the switch from pen to plectrum?

Sarah is joined by trad luminaries Trevor Hutchinson, Gerry O’Beirne, John McSherry and Niamh Parsons – some backing band eh?

There are ten tracks, with eight songs including Táim Cortha Ó Bheith Im’ Aonar Im’ Luí as well as more widely known songs in English (Sprig of Thyme, When a Man’s in Love and The Parting Glass).

She brings to the recording a gentle voice and soothing guitar style, perhaps too laid-back on the dance tunes (maybe they would have been better capoed up the neck about three frets – they are bright but they don’t really sparkle, the low tuning is the problem, not her style).

However, most of the CD is devoted to songs, and boy, hasn’t Sarah got a good voice – rich, deep, mature. Shown at its best on the jazz-influenced Johnny Lad, great movement between octaves and stylish use of breathing add a sexy dynamic.

One for a romantic evening in, listen to it with a hot whiskey and a peat fire – heaven!”

This is a thoughtful, skilful and occasionally sombre collection of mostly traditional material. Sarah McQuaid has clearly been smitten by the attractions of Irish traditional music. Born in Spain, raised in Chicago and now living in this country, McQuaid is an accomplished guitarist whose rich style sits well with the intricacies of traditional music. She has done her homework in other areas as well, notably in her research and particularly in her vocal style. Producer Gerry O’Beirne, no slouch himself in the guitarist ranks, serves McQuaid well in her stated aim of giving the music room to breathe, while other guests like Niamh Parsons (for a fine female version of The Parting Glass), Trevor Hutchinson and John McSherry help make this a debut to note.

Sarah McQuaid
When Two Lovers Meet

As an artist, Sarah McQuaid – a Spanish-born, American-reared and Irish-based singer/songwriter – has several vital attributes. People who are familiar with Sarah’s writing in Hot Press will know that she is both knowledgeable and passionate about folk and traditional music. Her intelligence is matched by a warm, velvet-tinged voice and a distinctive acoustic guitar style which mark her out as a significant talent.

When Two Lovers Meet, her independently released debut, features her own arrangements on a selection of traditional songs and tunes, some familiar, others more obscure. Sparsely produced, generally with a minimum of instrumental adornment, the tunes live and breathe naturally, while the vocals – cloaked in just the right amount of reverb – complete the overall effect, which is wistful and melancholic.

The opening track, ‘Sprig Of Thyme’, a mournful ballad with exquisite harmonies, sets the tone perfectly. Gerry O’Beirne’s guitar, meanwhile, lends a lonesome Appalachian flavour to the sensual ‘When A Man’s In Love’.

The sprightly melody of ‘Johnny Lad’ is superbly enhanced by John McSherry’s whistle, but it is McQuaid’s vocals which stand out. ‘Charlie’s Gone Home’, the sole McQuaid original on the album, is an impressively wrought and accessible folk song that suggests greater potential as a songwriter. Despite its length, the epic title track itself holds the attention, aided in no small way by a haunting uilleann pipe solo. The album closes with an unaccompanied version of ‘The Parting Glass’ superbly sung by McQuaid with Niamh Parsons.

An understated, well-crafted and assured collection, When Two Lovers Meet is almost quaint in its adherence to the folk ethic. But it introduces a performer of considerable stature who may well go on to achieve greater things.

Sarah McQuaid
When Two Lovers Meet

A new name to me, but one to definitely follow in the future. A fabulous singer, reminiscent of June Tabor in her dark voice, but also a remarkably talented guitarist. Born in Spain and raised in America, she conveys Irish music with love, but also an objective eye that’s not above slowing down a reel to bring out its subtleties. Her version of ‘When A Man’s In Love’, with Gerry O’Beirne’s National offering an almost Indian feel, is nothing less than pure velvet, while her track with Niamh Parsons, ‘The Parting Glass’, is a showcase for two glorious voices.... All in all, this is quite a revelation, and even guest names like Trevor Hutchinson and John McSherry don’t divert the spotlight from McQuaid. One of the best Irish albums to travel down the pike in a long time.