Sidine intervention
She's a scion of the Dublin literary family but Ciara Sidine hopes to make her mark in the gritty world of rock 'n'roll.
Peter Murphy, 17 May 2011
Ciara Sidine is not used to this interview lark. Or rather, in her guise as book editor and scion of a mini lit-dynasty (her mother is the novelist June Considine, her uncle the writer Dermot Bolger), she's more used to hearing authors talk about their craft than explaining her own creative urges.
Sidine, soft spoken but articulate, has just released her debut album Shadow Road Shining, a collection of rootsy songs that echo Lucinda Williams and Gillian Welch as well as elder stateswomen like Dolly Parton, and features a distinguished cast of players including Conor Brady, Dave Hingerty, Steve Wickham and Jack L. But despite such pedigree, Sidine admits she came to the game late enough.
"I've sung always, and had a love of words," she says. "Literature was my first love, I've worked as an editor for a good few years. I was interested in lyrics, but it somehow didn't strike me to write songs until I picked up a guitar when I was in my late 20s, and that was a real moment of revelation. I didn't realise the mechanics of it could be so direct. So I began to put words and melodies together."
Many of which revolve around natural musical textures and elemental symbols: the road, the moon, the stars, rain, wind.
"Yeah, it's funny, you're not necessarily conscious of it at the time, but when I look on it as a piece, I do get a sense of the whole nature thing going on. I would be drawn to those kinds of metaphors."
Did she, per chance, hear Appalachian recordings blaring through the house of a Sunday morning?
"No, that wouldn't have been part of the tradition. My dad's record collection was the big influence, and that was very much rock 'n' roll. But as long as I can remember I had a slightly embarrassed love of country music, 'cos it was never really hip or cool when I was a kid. It was the directness of the songs, the way they speak.
“As an extended family, after the chit-chat was out of the way, the singing began. I didn’t recognise that inheritance for a long time, and it was a very rich inheritance. There was a very easy reverence for song as this quiet god. You’d get the Irish and American influence quite strong, songs from every decade, so I had a really wide love of different genres. There were songwriters in my grandmother’s family, rebel songs, Irish roots as well as American ones.
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