The Darling Bud of May
Stardom beckons for IMELDA MAY. The Dublin rockabilly queen has packed The O2 and dazzled on the BBC’s Later...With Jools Holland. Now she’s about to release her major label debut, a record that looks set to confirm her as one of the outstanding new talents in Irish music. With the countdown underway she weighs in on such diverse subjects as Jedward, the suspected suicide of a concert goer at a Swell Season show and tells us about snuggling in between Quentin Tarantino and Alice Cooper at the Grammys.
Olaf Tyaransen, 02 Sep 2010
‘Good life came callin’ I fell under its spell and kept fallin’, throatily sings rockabilly star Imelda May on ‘Pulling The Rug’, the deliciously infectious opening track on her soon to be released new album, Mayhem. As with many of the beautiful Dubliner’s songs, there’s more than a touch of autobiography in the lyric.
After many impoverished years hard slogging on the Irish and UK nightclub circuit, the good life finally came callin’ for May a little over two years ago when the producers of Later... with Jools Holland rang the then 34-year-old Liberties girl and asked if she could step in as a last moment replacement for a virus-stricken Natalie Cole.
It turned out to be a life-changing phone call. Although she’d already self-released her critically acclaimed 2005 album, Love Tattoo, and supported Holland at several gigs, appearing on his influential TV show alongside the likes of Jeff Beck, Roots Manuva and Elbow proved a definite turning point in the musical fortunes of the singer once lazily described as “Ireland’s answer to Amy Winehouse”.
She’s basically been fallin’ into the good life ever since...
“Yeah, the Jools Holland thing definitely turned it around immediately – almost overnight,” says May, in her distinctive Dublin accent. “Everything went mad, the phones were hopping, and the record deal happened very soon afterwards. It’s such an influential show. Many people watch it. A lot of musicians in particular. It’s kind of like a mini-festival in a TV show, isn’t it?”
Having flown into Amsterdam from London, May is speaking to Hot Press from the back of a tour bus en route to the Lowlands Festival for yet another show. All in a night’s work. She’s barely slowed down in the last two years anyway. Since that Jools appearance, the impressively quiffed singer has been ticking the boxes beside many long-held dreams and ambitions. She has signed an international record deal, won a Meteor Award, watched Love Tattoo go four times platinum in Ireland (and sell in respectable quantities elsewhere), shared stages with the likes of U2, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Scissor Sisters, Van Morrison, Lionel Ritchie and, most recently, the first lady of rockabilly, Wanda Jackson. She even made an appearance at the Grammy Awards in LA last January – joining Jeff Beck on stage for a musical tribute to guitar legend Les Paul.
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