I was a bit star-struck meeting Dr Phil Hammond when I did a live session on his BBC Radio Bristol show yesterday morning. I saw his stand-up show at Komedia in Bath a couple of years ago and thought he was absolutely brilliant. In person he was lovely and I sang ‘For Free’ and ‘Start Over Again’ with Christian on double-bass. I’m doing a live Radio 2 session with Clare Balding on Sunday 30 April.
Blog
Cambridge Junction
Thanks to everyone who came to my gig at the Cambridge Junction on Saturday night. It’s such a fantastic venue and I really enjoyed it. And thanks to Jon Hill for a very cool pic. Next up is Artrix Arts Centre in Bromsgrove on 1st April.
xx
Birthday and a new video
It’s International Women’s Day and my birthday. I’m feeling immense gratitude for having had a really good year and looking forward to what’s coming next.
And next up is a gig at The Junction in Cambridge next week, followed by gigs in Bromsgrove, Bath, Helmsley (York), Penzance, Carlisle, Milton Keynes, Leeds, Newcastle, Maidenhead and Southampton (check my gigs page for dates and details).
Please do spread the word if you’ve got friends or family in any of these places – my audience is all based on word of mouth. Here’s a link to a hidden page on my website to introduce my music: https://www.emilymaguire.com/htm/introducing.htm
Finally, I’ve just posted another video in my ‘Songs From My Attic’ series. The song is the album version of my radio single ‘For Free’. Here it is…
I hope all’s well in your world.
xx
Album launch gig
Thanks to everyone who came to my album launch at St Pancras Old Church in London last Friday. It was so lovely to see you all there.
Special thanks to Brendan Collins, Rebecca Kemp, Laurence Dyer, Simon Nilsson, Mike Garrett, Mike Watts and most of all my fabulous bass player Christian Dunham for making it a night to remember. You can see photos of the gig here.
My next gig is at Farnham Maltings in Surrey this Friday. Click here for tickets.
The release of ‘A Bit Of Blue’
I am so happy to tell you that my fifth album ‘A Bit Of Blue’ is out today. I’d like to say a huge thank-you to the fans who so generously sponsored this album and made its release possible. Thank you all so much for your amazing support – we couldn’t do it without you.
I’d like to thank my producer Nigel Butler for once again transforming my raw songs into such a beautiful record. Thanks also to Pix Vane Mason in Australia for giving me the perfect place to record the vocals. And thanks to Christian Dunham as always for making it all happen.
This album follows a dark time in my life. I wanted these songs to be stripped bare, haunting and as beautiful as they could possibly be. I wanted to say that a bit of blue is sometimes a good thing: to make you think, reassess, find some freedom in this crazy world we live in.
I have so many things to be grateful for – most of all that tonight I’ll be playing my piano and guitar with Christian in St Pancras Old Church in London just like old times, but with new songs, new arrangements and new sounds… can’t wait.
xx
Warm-up gig at the Square & Compass Inn
It was fab to be back for a warm-up gig at my favourite pub in the UK, the infamous Square & Compass Inn (surely the only pub with a dinosaur in the back room).
I sang my first ever song in public in this pub thanks to my great-uncle Tony Viney who said very firmly he was going home unless I took my guitar in. It was a music night.
Being a bit frightened of my great-uncle I reluctantly took it in and hid it in a corner and I thought I’d got away with it until this booming voice (my great-uncle) announced to the whole pub that EMILY IS GOING TO SING A SONG. I nearly died of embarrassment. Ah well, I’ve come a long way since then :).
The Square & Compass Inn is in Worth Matravers which is in the Isle of Purbeck which is my spiritual home and I try and do a gig there at least once a year. Well worth a visit for the beer alone… and the dinosaur of course.
Thanks to Kevin Hunt (pictured) for having us again and to everyone who packed in the room. It was a great night.
xx
Songs From My Attic: ‘Old Valentine’
Another song recorded in my attic, this one ‘Old Valentine’ from my album ‘Bird Inside A Cage’ which seemed appropriate for Valentine’s Day. Some of the songs I write take a lot of time and effort but others just seem to come out of nowhere. This one just fell out of my head onto the page.
xx
Reviews and other news
Counting down the days now to the release of my fifth album ‘A Bit Of Blue’ on 24th February. I’ve been so delighted reading the reviews – the latest one in from Maverick Magazine.
Thanks to BBC Radio Scotland who have been playing my single ‘For Free’. The song has also been getting airplay on BBC Radio Wales, Ulster, and Merseyside. You can watch the ‘For Free’ video here. This is the radio mix… the album version has two extra verses.
Finally one of the highlights of my career so far… watching my 7-year-old nephew Vincent Taylor sing my song ‘Anything You Do’ today with which he has got through to the second round of the St Stephen’s Got Talent contest. I am so proud of him. Next round on Wednesday…
Hope all’s well in your world.
xx
Songs From My Attic: ‘Falling On My Feet’
Here is another song recorded by me at home in my attic studio. This is ‘Falling On My Feet’, a song I wrote in a hospital in London called Park Royal Centre For Mental Health. The staff there very kindly let me keep my guitar with me on the acute ward. In the midst of a psychosis, I scrawled the lyrics over and over in my book trying to put the words into some kind of order.
When I recorded it in Australia the following year for my album ‘Stranger Place’ it took several takes and some sangria to get through the verses without tears. But despite the fact that it was written at a terrible time the song turned out to be a premonition – I’d thought I was just falling but actually I was falling on my feet.
xx
Songs From My Attic: ‘Start Over Again’
We’ve just released the first in a series of videos called ‘Songs From My Attic’, basically me performing acoustic, unplugged versions of my songs at home in my lovely attic studio. I’ve been wanting to do this for ages.
Here’s the first one which is ‘Start Over Again’, a song very close to my heart (it’s on my third album ‘Believer’). I’ll also be doing readings from my books as well as singing songs. If you follow me on Facebook or subscribe to my Youtube channel you’ll get a notification when I put a new one up.
xx