I love Spotify.  Listening to music on it in the past 20 months has saved my life –  literally (mainly thanks to playlists from my friend Ecki who I wrote about in my previous blog today).

But today I remembered why I also hate Spotify… I received my ‘2024 Wrapped For Artists’ email.

The summary?

28,000 streams by over 4,000 listeners in 94 countries this year.

How much money have I been paid for that?

Basically sweet FA.

Fans are always wide-eyed and horrified when I tell them that not a penny from their Spotify premium is coming my way.  Rather that the major record labels are the ones making a killing.

Fortunately I’m not making music for money.  I make music to hopefully make other people feel better, and that makes me feel better.  Worth it every time someone listens to one of my songs on Spotify.  So please keep listening, but just be wise to the BS that I’m being paid for it.

If you want to support my music, please head to https://emilymaguire.bandcamp.com/

xx

Having listened to these songs about a million times, I thought it was about time I told you all about the White Star Bulb Company.

The man hiding behind the White Star Bulb Company is actually one of my oldest and dearest friends Richard Ecclestone, otherwise known as Ecki, who in his day job as a professional photographer has taken nearly all the shots for my album covers and other promo material, including the one you’re looking at now on my website.

But aside from being a brilliant rock’n’roll photographer – see https://richardecclestone.com/ – Ecki writes, sings and produces the most stunning songs.

Some of you might have been lucky enough to see him open for me at The Junction in Cambridge and a few other places years ago.  He point blank refuses to play live these days (he is incredibly stubborn) so he makes incredibly beautiful albums and puts them out into the digital stratosphere where, not having the funds for pluggers and publicists, they disappear.

As he’s produced so many brilliant albums, just to help you out I’m giving you my top 6 favourite songs (all on Spotify and everywhere else), which I listen to on repeat and are actually the only songs I’ve ever wanted to cover and hopefully will next year when I’m mentally well enough to catch a train to Bury St Edmunds…

‘Rare Sun’
‘Save You’
‘Radar’
‘Under the Dust’
‘Somewhere Beneath’
‘I Can’t Sing That Song Anymore’

xx

Many of my songs are inspired by the lives of other people. Sometimes it’s people I know, sometimes it’s people I don’t.

In 2011, I saw a photograph of a woman called Melanie Reid on the cover of The Times Magazine.  She was standing up, locked into some kind of exo-skeleton, holding onto metal bars in the spinal injuries unit of a hospital in Glasgow.

The photograph and its accompanying article by Melanie moved me so deeply I immediately wanted to write about it.  I started to think of some kind of analogy and the first thing that came to mind was that of a bird inside a cage.

In the article, Melanie had mentioned very briefly her husband Dave. The second half of the song is his voice. I hope he didn’t think me too presumptuous in imagining it.

When the song was finished my manager sent it to Melanie, who gave it her blessing and so it became the title track of my fourth album. I was absolutely delighted when she called it her ‘candle in the wind moment’ in her column published on the day the album was released.

Melanie’s incredibly inspiring, moving and final ‘Spinal Column’ for The Times Magazine was published today.  She says she will continue writing.  I can’t wait to read what she writes next.

If you would like to hear the song, it’s here on my website and also on Spotify and other digital music platforms.

xx

Last night I performed in a beautiful little village hall in rural Oxfordshire in a place called Letcombe Bassett, all thanks to Tony Haupt who so kindly organised and promoted the night and gave us accommodation in his beautiful Thatchcombe B&B.  I had such a fantastic time – a huge thank you to everyone who came, to Jody Prewett for providing the PA and performing another stunning opening set and to Tim Pardoe for driving across the country with my books and CDs.

I’m doing a couple of private house concerts before my kidney operation in December and then I’m very much looking forward to starting to perform again in March once I’ve recovered. Dates confirmed so far are all up on my gigs page. In the meantime, since Christmas has already started in the shops, I wish you all a very happy festive season and hope to see you at a gig sometime in the new year.

Thanks so much for your support.

xx

Thanks to everyone who came to my concert at Hatch Court in Loddiswell last night.  It was my first proper gig in 20 months and I’d been fairly terrified up until the very lovely audience arrived and I realised it was going to be okay.  Thanks so much to Mark Arnold for hosting us at his beautiful home and doing such a great job with the sound, and thanks to his sister Faith for feeding us dinner and breakfast. Also to Jody Prewett for driving all that way and playing such a fantastic opening set.

My next concert is at Letcombe Bassett village hall on Saturday 16th November – please note it’s not 10th November as previously advertised!  You can book tickets by emailing hello@thatchcombe.co.uk.

xx

I was completely overwhelmed by the incredible number of such lovely replies to my recent email to all of you on my mailing list.  Thank you so much for letting me know my songs had not been forgotten – that meant the world to me.

In addition to two private house concerts, I just wanted to let you know I’m doing two public gigs in November, supported by the fantastic singer-songwriter Jody Prewett.  The first is at Hatch Court, a beautiful barn near Kingsbridge in south Devon, and the second at Letcombe Bassett village hall in Oxfordshire.  If you can make it to either of these it would be great to have you there.

Then I’m having a gap until March for a major kidney operation in December which is going to take some time to recover from but then I’m looking forward very much to all the gigs that have been booked so far for next year – some public, some private house concerts.  If you would like to see me perform, please save the date and all the ticket details will be posted in due course.  Here are the dates booked so far:

https://emilymaguire.com/shows/

I’ve been keeping gigs fairly local to Bath where both Jody and I are based but I’m hoping to tour northern England, Scotland and north and west Wales in the summer holidays next year (Jody works as a guitar teacher in schools) so if you live in those areas and have a living room with a minimum of 10 friends who might like my songs, please get in touch with me direct.

I hope all’s well in your world.  Thanks so much for your support.

I’m so delighted to find out today that my poetry album ‘Words With Wings’ is now available on Spotify.  I’ve been putting up more videos… one for the title track of ‘A Light To Follow’ and ‘How To Conquer’, both songs from my latest album.  I’ve also uploaded a video for a song called ‘Omnia Amore’ which I composed several years ago but never released on a record.  You can watch these videos on my website or my YouTube channel.

I am still recovering from the worst, longest bipolar episode of my life.  I am enduring one relapse after another, but at least I have some fantastic support from my local NHS mental health services and have managed to start working on my 8th album – songs we recorded for ‘A Light To Follow’ that we had to drop because we couldn’t have 27 songs on one album.

I’ve also started booking private house concerts for next year.  If you are interested in hosting a concert in your living room, please look at this webpage and get in touch with me.

I’m finally putting up videos I made in Australia for my latest album ‘A Light To Follow’.  Today I have posted ‘Stay’ and ‘My Way Home’ which you can watch on my website or on my YouTube channel.  More to follow…

Apologies for the radio silence but I have been enduring the worst bipolar breakdown of my life which began in late 2022 and continues to this day.  I am hoping to have recovered and start performing again from September this year.

For the sake of my mental health, I am not on social media anymore – not Facebook, not Instagram nor X.  I have not deleted those accounts as they are a record of the past 20 years of my previous music career with Christian Dunham but they are not active.  I do however have a YouTube channel.  Please feel free to spread the word about my songs via your own social media channels and please join my mailing list so I can let you know when I am well enough to perform live again.  I would be hugely grateful for your support.

I do not have a booking agent, a manager, a publisher, a publicist, a plugger or a record label. Shaktu Records, the record label I ran with Christian for the past 20 years, no longer exists. I want to have as little as possible to do with the music business.  All I want is to sing my songs in quiet rooms and halls with people listening and not talking.  And hope to uplift, comfort and inspire them by doing so.  I don’t care if there are 10 people there, 100 or 1,000.  If you want me to come and play for your audience, whoever they are, please get in touch direct with me by email.

Thanks to everyone who came to listen to me sing at the fantastic Queens Head pub in Newton, Cambridgeshire, last week.  I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to see so many familiar faces and get such big hugs from everyone I haven’t seen for the past 5 years.

A huge thank you to Tim Pardoe for coming all the way from Sussex with my CDs and books, to the lovely landlord Robert Short for lending me his pub, to Mike Watts for taking photos and most of all to my old friend Ecki who lent me his guitar. And big love and thanks to my audience who came from far and wide and squeezed into the room to hear my songs played unplugged for the first time since my first ever public performance at the Square & Compass Inn in Purbeck back in 1996.

If you have a folk club, a music or community group, or a living room with friends you think might like my songs, please get in touch with me direct.