Mary out to finish in style in Siamsa

Ahead of her upcoming show in Siamsa Tíre on Friday night, Fergus Dennehy looks back at the career of the undoubtedly talented and equally tormented singer, Mary Coughlan.

MENTION the name of Mary Coughlan in any household or office in Ireland and you are bound to evoke a reaction.

Whether through her hugely popular singing or by her own well - publicised battle with drugs and alcohol, the County Galway singer is well known throughout all corners of the country.

Mary has been touring around the country since September 8 and is set to round off the tour with a final flourish in the hallowed theatre that is Siamsa Tíre on the night of Friday November 3, with tickets currently still on sale.

Described as one of the “greatest female vocalist these islands have ever produced”, there are many reasons why the now 61 year old singer has been likened to the legendary giants of jazz such as Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf, but one reason that stands out amongst all the rest is the unique quality of her voice.

“Ireland has never produced a singer quite like Mary Coughlam” is how ‘The Irish Times’ has described her, while ‘New Music Express’ say that “Mary’s live performances must be seen to be believed. Finishing off the round of applause for this amazing singer is Melody Maker who says that “a song is not complete unless it is sung by Mary Coughlan.”

Blending the whisky-blurred, smoke-seared, husky notes and laconic wit of Billie Holiday and Peggy Lee with the ardonic, bitter - sweet defiance and despair of the Piaf chanteuse, Mary’s voice has carried her back up from the depths of despair, back onto the stage where she rightly belongs.

First noticed by Dutch musician and producer Erik Vissier in the early 1980’s, Mary was given a helping hand in recording her debut album entitled ‘Tired and Emotional’, which went on to sell an unexpected 100,000 copies in Ireland.

Her name now well and truly on the national stage, Mary continued to receive widespread acclaim and on her second album entitled ‘Under the Influence’ in 1987, she revived a number of classics, including the 1948 Peggy Lee hit ‘Don’t Smoke in Bed’ and the Billie Holiday ballad ‘Good Morning Heartache’.

Despite this success, Cough-

lan, due to apparent mis-management of her career, lost her contract with the Warner Music Group. In 1990, she signed up with East West Records, where she released her third album ‘Uncertain Pleasures’, which was a return to form for the singer.

Having landed on her feet again, Coughlan went on to release a number of albus, including her first live album ‘Live in Galway’ and ‘After the Fall’ in 1997.

This success on the stage though was in stark contrast to her personal life off it however, a personal life which saw the singer hospitalised over 30 times due to alcohol problems, an addiction that in 1994 led to one of the defining and most tragic incidents of her life.

In a sea-front house in Bray, near Dublin, around 1994, a heavily pregnant and very drunk Mary Coughlan fell onto her kitchen floor in a stupor, a piece of bread and butter plastered to her unconscious face and that was how her husband and three children found her when they returned from shopping.

The next night Mary was taken to hospital where she miscarried, something that she has borne the brunt of ever since.

In 1994 she went into rehab in Dublin and with her family’s support defeated her alcoholism and hasn’t taken a drink since.

This was after a murderous decade of drinking in her 30s, consuming bottles of vodka or tequila a day, which dragged her in and out of hospital more than 30 times, led to the death of her unborn child and almost killed her one night in intensive care where she needed tubes through her neck artery to feed her heart the drugs needed to get her through the night.

In 2001 Mary consciously identified herself with her musical inspiration in her liner notes to ‘Mary Coughlan Sings Billie Holiday’, a live recording of her homage show to Holiday staged in Dublin and London, ‘Lady Sings the Blues’.

“Mary is our greatest female singer because over twenty-five years and ten albums she’s made the most grown-up, uncompromising, wholly personal and utterly universal music on either side of the Atlantic about what goes on between men and women,” said Carmody Smith, a member of Mary’s PR team.

“She has taken the classic standards of jazz balladry and the recent gems of rock and Irish song-writing, shaken them and offered them up anew, like jewels dripping from the deep, strewn on black velvet.

Tickets for Mary’s show on Friday November 3 are currently on sale from the Siamsa Tíre box office and are set to cost between €20 and €22.50.

Don’t miss out!

In a sea front house in Bray, around 1994, a heavily pregnant and very drunk Mary Coughlan fell onto her kitchen floor in a stupor...the next night Mary was taken to hospital where she miscarried.