Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 15, 1992 TAG: 9201140218
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
WORKING MUSICIAN
If nothing else, Irish-born Nashville singer Maura O'Connell is a realist."It doesn't look like I'm about to overtake Madonna or Paula Abdul," she said in a telephone interview last week from her home in Nashville. "And really, I'm not about to try."
No, O'Connell - more in a category with cutting-edge artists k.d. lang, Lyle Lovett or Michelle Shocked than the aforementioned pop divas - knows she will have to wait awhile for any widespread success.
Listeners will have to find her. She's not going to blitzkrieg them with hype, music videos and pounding dance tracks.
Not that she doesn't want a higher level of success. She just wants it on her terms, like her idol, Bonnie Raitt, sticking to the kind of music she wants to sing.
O'Connell performs tonight at the Iroquois Club in Roanoke.
She believes it is better to slowly build an audience that will remain loyal to her over the long haul, rather than following the latest music trend.
She's realistic.
Somewhat of a musical oddball - an Irish singer working in country music who covers songs by the Beatles, Tom Waits and John Hiatt, among others - O'Connell said she understands that her music will always have a difficult time finding a niche on mainstream radio.
But so what?
She may never be the next Madonna, but she is confident nonetheless that her music will find its place. Already, she has been nominated for a Grammy in the best alternative music performance category.
"I nearly blew a gasket," she said of the nomination two years ago. "It was serious."
Plus, she's just happy to be working in the music business. If she wasn't, she probably still would be working in the family fish business in Ireland, she said.
It was there that O'Connell started singing on weekends at colleges and in clubs.
Originally, she was drawn to American blues and folk music, borrowing styles from Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith.
From a musical family - her mother was an amateur singer in the local opera - she grew up around traditional Irish music and says now that having heard so much of it growing up may be what drove her to American sounds.
Yet in 1980, she was offered a job singing with the traditional Irish group, De Danaan.
Ambivalent to the group's musical approach and reluctant to join, O'Connell nevertheless agreed to a six-week American tour, not willing to pass on a chance to see the country that had so influenced her singing.
Six weeks turned into two years with De Danaan and resulted in the recording of "Star Spangled Molly," a collection of Irish songs that were actually written in America for vaudeville.
A hit in Ireland, the record made O'Connell a star in her native land, where she still enjoys more renown than in the U.S.
"It's a smaller country," she explained.
In 1983, she visited Nashville at the urging of her manager, was taken with its music scene and began splitting her time between Ireland and Tennessee, which she still does.
A solo album followed, "Helpless Heart," which garnered her the Grammy nomination. A second, "A Real Life Story," was released last year.
"It was a great, great hobby, but I never expected it to be my business," she said.
Currently, she is half-finished with her next album, which she said she couldn't categorize. "I'm never quite aware of what's unfolding until it's done."
She has never really called it country music, even though she records in Nashville: "Just because there's a dobro in there doesn't mean its country," she said.
At The Iroquois, O'Connell will be singing with two acoustic guitarists. But she said don't expected an entirely mellow night of music. She said they play with an attitude.
"We call it heavy wood."
The acoustic arrangement, however, is more out of necessity than anything, she said. She would prefer a larger band, but can't yet afford it. "You have to do your math."
She tours about 150 days a year and has only recently started playing some larger venues opening for John Prine and Mary Chapin-Carpenter.
That doesn't mean she hopes to pack arenas some day. Being a realist, she doesn't ever expect to. She just doesn't make the type of music that packs arenas, she said.
"I'm a working musician."
MAURA O'CONNELL: Tonight at The Iroquois Club, 324 Salem Ave. S.W., Roanoke. 982-8979.
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