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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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I have not
Died or disappeared
It’s just this
Rollercoaster
Has been
The biggest
Of them all
So you did not
See me
When I flew above the clouds
And when I fell
I fell so fast and so far
You did not see me
Then either
And then the hole
I fell into
Was so deep and so dark
I disappeared for a long time
And then when I came
Shooting up again
You were looking
The other way
I’m sure someday
My ride will run out
Part of me hopes
It comes to rest
On solid ground
So this time
You can see me
Can see I have not
Died or disappeared
Just been reborn.

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My seventh album ‘A Light To Follow’ is out today.  

It has been three years in the making.  The writing, arranging, recording, editing and mixing has all taken much more time than I’d ever imagined.  But I know it wouldn’t be the record it is if any of the steps along the way had been different. 

The songs on this album are all pieces of my heart.  I hope they bring you some joy, some comfort.

I am hugely grateful to Shane Nesic, Sarah King and Dan Lyons for adding their creativity and talent to this record.  Thank you to Nigel Butler for helping us yet again.  Above all, huge and heartfelt thanks to my husband Christian Dunham for listening to my umpteen demos, and engineering, mixing and producing ‘A Light To Follow’.  I couldn’t do it without you.

CDs will be dispatched from the UK and Australia.  If you don’t have a CD player you can still support my music by ordering the digital album from Bandcamp.  The album will be available on all streaming sites including Spotify.

If you would like to know more about the story of the album, we’ve published a book with behind the scenes photographs, lyrics, works in progress and my own personal notes on the inspiration behind each song.  This book comes with an album download card.

Both the CD and book are available in my website shop.  You can listen to clips from the album here.

Thanks so much for your support.

xx

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We’ve just released today a short film about my new album ‘A Light To Follow’ which was recorded here at Shaktu, our home on a goat farm in a place known as ‘the back of beyond’.  The documentary includes footage of our life here – the farm, the animals etc.  It also includes behind the scenes footage of recording and interviews with me and my husband, producer and bass player Christian Dunham.  The album ‘A Light To Follow’ will be released next week (28.02.23).

You can watch the film here.

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The release date of my seventh album ‘A Light To Follow’ is getting very near – it will be out on Tuesday 28 February. If you’re on my mailing list, I’ll send you an email to let you know when it’s out.

The album launch will take place in Bundaberg, Australia at Oodies Cafe on Thursday 2 March. Doors open at 5.30pm, the show starts at 7pm.  Tickets are $35.  Book now if you’d like to be there.