Eleanor's Blog

Old New Borrowed and Blue - July 14

Eleanor McEvoy — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:14:29 +0000

From the LP Love Must Be Tough the single Old New Borrowed and Blue is released in stores solely and exclusively in the UK 14 July 2008.

tracks

track 1 Old New borrowed and Blue remixed by Ruadhri Cushnan

track 2 Whistle for The Choir ( the Fratellis)*

track 3 Old New borrowed and Blue ( album version)

track 4 Old New borrowed and Blue ( Karaoke version)**

* not available on the regular Album CD MOSCD40

** lyrics on single sleeve

Single is already getting air play of UK radio including BBC Radio 2

ELEANOR MCEVOY: 2008 TOUR DATES

Inga — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:31:32 +0000

Eleanor McEvoy’s new album LOVE MUST BE TOUGH features a band of Ireland’s finest session players and songs from a wide range of writers. Also available LOVE MUST BE TOUGH limited special edition (MOSACD304) hybrid SACD/CD with two bonus tracks.

Truck & Driver “Album of the Month” 5 out of 5 stars

If you’ve yet to come across Eleanor McEvoy, this superb blend of covers and originals is the perfect place to start. Like a female Van Morrison, she swings from the Stones to Dave Edmunds and from country to jazz and the most booze-sodden balladry since the Pogues. Tough-skinned and soft-hearted, or maybe the other way round, McEvoy sounds like the sort of woman who might greet you with a bottle of red one night and a rolling pin the next.

Word Magazine

Irish singer-songwriter Eleanor McEvoy pulls off a bit of a first by covering songs originally sung and written by men. The songs range from Jagger and Richard’s “Mother’s Little Helper” through Sly Stone’s “If You Want Me To Stay” to the gem “Shame On The Moon” from the pen of country songwriter Rodney Crowell.

BBC Radio 4 Loose Ends

Clive Anderson declares Eleanor McEvoy’s live performance of ‘Old New Borrowed and Blue’ “Excellent”

BBC Radio 2 Terry Wogan

Terry comments after playing ‘Old New Borrowed and Blue.’ “Yeah we love that, that’s a good one huh? We”ll hear more of that again.”

July - August 2008 - Ireland

19July 2008, JFK Dunbrody Festival, New Ross, St Michael’s Theatre, 10:45 pm
2 August 2008, Ballyshannon Folk Festival, Ballyshannon

“Get Ready to ROCK” review of ‘Love Must Be Tough’

Inga — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:52:01 +0000

ELEANOR McEVOY Love Must Be Tough MOSCO MOSCD404 (2008)

Eleanor’s always been a difficult artist to pigeon hole, as she’ll tell you if you ask her what genre her cd’s are likely to be filed under in the larger remaining High Street music retailers.

Normally filed under ‘folk’ and normally found treading the folk circuit, Eleanor has never felt bound by her roots and has successfully included many others in her repertoire - blues, soul, rock. And always served with a large measure of class.

But her 7th album takes an entirely new twist - in a direction first hinted at on Early Hours. With a supporting cast of Ireland’s finest musicians in the form of the South King Street Band, Eleanor takes a retro ride back to the late fifties / early sixties birth of rock and roll replete with ragtime jazz trumpets, trombones and saxes.

Originally conceived as a covers album based on the theme of hitting 40 and mid life crisis, Love Must Tough has emerged as hybrid - mainly covers/interpretations, but mixed with an original and a clutch of co-written numbers. Even the cover artwork has a typically 60’s layout.

The album opens with a quirky almost boss nova version of the 1965 Jagger/Richards penned’ Mother’s Little Helper, the line ‘what a drag it is getting old’ setting the scene for the whole set. It’s a wonderful interpretation, and only when you play it back to back with the original do you realise just how good. It comfortably eclipses the Stones’ version.

It’s followed by the title track - co written with Johnny Rivers, a track as good as anything Eleanor’s delivered. It’s got a chorus to die for and is a set highlight. As is Old New Borrowed And Blue, one of two tracks co-written with The Beautiful South’s Dave Rotheray. The faux church organ wedding march and trombone work are the icing on the cake.

Every track has something to offer - If You Want Me To Stay is a stunning percussion / vocal workout that is destined to take the place of Isn’t It A Little Late in her live set, and the one self penned track - Roll Out Better Days - is as infectious as any previous output.

The Night May Still Be Young, But I Am not - another track written with Dave Rotheray, has a Pogues feel to it, while He Never Spoke Spanish To Me has a Mexican mood and is the sort of number Kirsty MacColl would have loved to cover.

Hands Off Him is a full brass arrangement of Priscilla Bowman’s up tempo 1955 big band hit, Lubbock Woman a bluegrass story of a woman hitting 40, and Shame On The Moon a wistful cover of the Terry Allen song.

There’s a surprise revisiting of Easy In Love from Yola, which strangely adds very little to the original, and the set concludes with a lively work out of Nick Lowe’s I Knew the Bride When She Used To Rock ‘n Roll.

In conclusion then, Love Must be Tough is a bold break with the ‘Me, Myself and I’ (self played and self penned) approach of Out There, but while exploring old ground with a fresh slant it nevertheless remains an album that has all the hallmarks we’ve come to expect from Ms McEvoy - great songs, fantastic production and, of course, Eleanor’s wonderful vocals.

A UK promotional tour beckons in May / June.

****

Review by Pete Whalley