Andrea Corr

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En Cannes!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rey18YIhR2s&

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Andrea actuo anoche, como parte de su promoción por Irlanda y Reino Unido en el Late Late Show. Podeis verlo aqui (sale sobre la hora y 10 minutos)

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Entrevista Irish Times

INTERVIEW: Andrea Corr is back in the public eye with a new album, after a lengthy break in the wake of her debut solo release. She tells BRIAN BOYD about her brother’s new-world musings, tabloid attacks, her acting career and shows she’s not too demure to use the F and C words

THE SETTING IS beautiful – silken furnishings, fresh flowers and the tranquil tinkle of a far-off piano. The company is resplendent – Andrea Corr looks as if she has been lovingly assembled by a crack team of Renaissance-era aestheticians. So when it happens, it’s as if there has been a violent break in the natural order; a shocking transgression that disturbs the early evening idyll. Andrea Corr has just leant in close and used the C word to describe someone. Your head jerks up to check if that word has indeed just come out of that mouth. She nods her head in affirmation and says, “You weren’t expecting that, were you?”

It’s not the only surprise today in a secluded corner of Dublin’s Four Seasons Hotel. The woman who was marketed as the pulchritudinous face of a trad-pop outfit displays a keen intelligence, no little level of astute political analysis, and a willingness to put the knife in and twist it around a bit when required.

She’s very tactile. She frequently moves her chair closer, places her hand on your arm and leaves it there until she has finished a story that invariably beings with, “Wait till I tell you . . .”

She is back in the public eye for the first time since the “battering” she took when her 2007 solo album didn’t “perform”, as the music-industry euphemism has it. “I was gutted by that,” she says. “I had written all but one of the songs myself. I had a really great producer in to work on it and Bono was on board as executive producer. It was important to me since I had being doing The Corrs since I was 15 – from 1990 to 2005 – and that’s a long time. There had been millions of records sold and there were expectations there for me.”

After being used to everything she touched with The Corrs turning to gold, the solo-album affair hardened her up a bit. “I was innocent and naive enough to think it would all go my way,” she says. “I was disillusioned because of the duplicity [of the record label]. They’d be there in the studio – the guys who wear runners under their suits – saying, ‘I love it. That’s a smash hit!’ but they didn’t like it and they were pushing other acts instead of me. There was no radio play, no TV play. They had no conviction in it. I had made a record they didn’t want. I just thought: ‘I’m not going to sing again.’ I was jaded and disappointed. I took up learning French so that whenever anyone asked me what I was doing I could say: ‘Me? Oh, I’m busy learning French.’ ”

But a phone call from Kevin Spacey got her out of her slump. He wanted her for an Old Vic production of Dancing at Lughnasa . “I had acted before, in The Commitments and Evita and what I loved about being in the play at the Old Vic was the total lack of vanity, in contrast to the music world. Of the theatre world she says, “I love the fact that you can’t revisit even what you think is your best performance on any one night. It’s all instant and on the night, which is I think is better for the ego. And unlike being in The Corrs, it wasn’t my responsibility to draw the audience in. I was just playing a character. And that got me thinking . . .”

Just before Dancing at Lughnasa , she had been approached by a music producer about doing an album of cover songs. “My first reaction was, ‘I can’t. I’m busy learning French.’ But then I thought, if I do these songs by other people I won’t have the responsibility of making them hits – and having hits rules everything in the music industry these days. This could in fact be very liberating. It would be like playing a character, singing these songs, and that appealed to me. So I gathered together a bunch of songs that all have a special significance for me and I decided to call the album Lifelines because it was a musical lifeline to me. And also because of the lifelines on your hand, because these songs have been a big part of my life.”

She suddenly pulls herself up and gasps, “Oh my God, I’ve just this second remembered something really weird that happened to me a few weeks ago. I was waiting for daddy in the garage at home, waiting for him to lock the door and come out. There’s a shelf of books in the garage and I was looking at the titles. And one of them was called Lifelines . It was an Irish charity book in which people contributed their favourite poems and wrote about why they liked them. And this is after my album had been pressed up. I remember just standing there, staring at this book and thinking that sometimes things happen to you to indicate that what you’re doing is right.

“You look like you don’t believe in any of this stuff but I do. The other day I passed by a shop that was called Tinseltown and one of the songs on the album is called Tinseltown in the Rain so that’s an indication also. I’m convinced of it.”

Lifelines is a recherchíé collection of songs that were originally recorded by acts such as The Blue Nile, Harry Nilsson, Nick Drake and The Velvet Underground. For the musically sanctimonious the pretty girl from the trad-pop band is messing with some pretty reverential material here. So, how do you want your kicking served?

“Hmm, the criticism could be debilitating,” she says. “I know some people won’t give it a fair hearing, I’m some sort of X Factor girl in their eyes. There’ll be prejudice and ‘how dare she?’ but there’s nothing I can do about it. I don’t really mind about the criticism and I really do mean that. It’s beyond my control and even if I did care, what can I do to change someone’s prejudice about me? All you can do is make something you’re proud of. It’s the person in the car who hears one of these songs on the radio – it’s their opinion I’m interested in. Besides, I believe that if you do something honest, the truth transcends all.

“These songs really mean a lot to me. The Blue Nile song I used to listen to all the time on The Corrs tour bus. The Harry Nilsson song I remember vividly from my childhood.”

Her version of Daniel Johnston’s classic Some Things Last a Long Time is very beautiful indeed. She’s already received strong letters of support from the musicians involved. “Nick Drake’s manager got back to me to say he loved what I did with the song; he was so, so complimentary. Ron Sexsmith got on to me to say he loved it and Barbara Orbison – Roy’s widow – was really nice to me about my version of Blue Bayou .

Her “but what I can do?” attitude to the music press is replaced by a far steelier and very withering assessment of the tabloid press who, she says, “make insinuations” about her private life.

“He’s a f**ker, he’s a horrible guy. He’s a pig, there’s something seriously wrong with him,” is how she details her feelings about one particular Irish tabloid reporter. “All I can tell you is what has personally happened to me. There was one time I was on the train down to Dublin and this guy sits beside me and starts talking to me. We had a conversation and that conversation was used in his newspaper article about me. He had never told me he was a journalist and I think that’s actually illegal.

“There’s been really personal, awful stuff written about me or insinuated about me – about being pregnant and that sort of thing. And stuff that was written just after I’d been married. The insinuations are horrible.

“One of the guys I’ve sued so many times I’m surprised the paper he works for hasn’t let him go, because the paper keeps having to pay money to charity and it must be costing them quite a bit.

“I don’t let him away with anything. When it’s libel, I’m happy because the charity gets more money. I can’t get hurt by tabloid lies. The people these type of journalists are writing about are the opposite of them, the opposite of cowardly. These people are being brave, going out there and saying, ‘Go on, hit me – what are you going to throw?’ For me it’s just: this is my job, this is what I love, this is what I’m going to do now. Write what you want, I don’t care.”

Andrea Corr was born on the day of the Dublin-Monaghan bombings. “The weird thing is I shouldn’t have a husband because of the bombings,” she says. “My father-in-law [financier Dermot Desmond] was in the area at the time and would have been blown to bits if he hadn’t gone into a chemist to pick something up just before the bombs went off.”

Growing up in Dundalk, the Troubles introduced themselves early into her life. “There was a pivotal moment when I was very young – it was one of those moments where you actually see the complications of something,” she says.

“When you’re a young girl and things happen you think it’s as simple as ‘he’s bad’ and ‘he’s good’ but it’s not like that and that moment for me was at primary school. For some reason me and [her sister] Caroline would always be early for school and the caretaker would always be there. He was this really kind, lovely man who would play with us before classes began and we loved him – really loved him. Then there was this thing in the paper that the school had shut and that there were arms discovered there and it was him that did it.

“We had believed this was a good man and we were confused. But you can’t project yourself on somebody else. If somebody saw their loved one killed, or whatever, in front of them, how can I in any way say, ‘No, that’s wrong’. It’s just a mesh of things and it’s painful.

“The thing about Dundalk is that the people who were ‘sympathetic’ would all know each other – and obviously certain pubs had a certain type of leaning, but if you were just going around normally you wouldn’t run into anything like that.”

She’s fiercely proud of her home town. “Daddy has lived there all his life, we all grew up there. It’s a really lovely place with really lovely people but then some English person once referred to it as El Paso and that stuck.”

What were her feelings about Gerry Adams topping the poll in Louth at the last election? “That election result has been hard on Louth because it’s pressed the refresh button on actions that have sullied our town,” she says. “People are thinking Provos, and all of that again. You try to resurrect the truth about a town and its people and then this happens and it’s ‘there we are back there again’. It’s an insult to the really lovely and good people who have suffered. I think it’s very strange just to forget and have sudden amnesia of the horrors that went on.

“There was a woman on the radio the other day. Her sister had been killed in the past and she was challenging the Sinn Fíéin person who was talking about the recent killing, in Omagh, of the policeman. Her point was that now they were saying the recent killing shouldn’t have happened but in the past they used the line ‘regrettable but understandable’. She just wanted recognition of that, she wanted it for her dead sister. ‘Regrettable but understandable,’ they used to say but it’s like, my whole life is ruined. It’s somebody I love. It’s somebody’s father, it’s somebody’s son. It’s somebody’s sister who has been killed.”

She remembers the anti-Irish feelings she encountered in the UK when The Corrs were starting off. “We were doing some radio gig and there were free drinks for everyone so no one was listening to us. The show was just a farce – someone puked up on Sharon. Afterwards, we were sitting in the van and some people who were at the gig came over to us. They started kicking the car and calling us ‘Irish pigs’ and stronger stuff than that.”

When The Corrs were awarded MBEs by Queen Elizabeth in 2005 her first thought was that, “Coming from where we come from, it is interesting to be asked”.

“Ours were after Geldof but before Bono but they’re much higher up, they’re knights. I did think about not accepting it but then would I refuse France if they decided to honour me? We sold so many records in Britain alone – ridiculous amounts of records. Would I snub all these people who bought our records? Because it’s not just an honour from the monarch, it’s an honour from the people I think. It would have been regressive not to accept it. There was something in a republican newspaper criticising us but there was very little debris from it.”

Has there been much debris from brother Jim’s new world order theories? “We got a shock. We did not know he would come out with this,” she says. “It does hurt me when he’s held up to ridicule. It hurts me for him. I don’t agree with what he says but I have respect for him going after it and what he believes in. He has this genuine belief that there is this massive cloud over the world. And he isn’t alone in these times with there being so many mysteries. He’s resilient – that’s the strength of his conviction.”

Does it necessarily rule out a Corrs reformation? “The thing is, Sharon and Caroline are bringing up their children. We might get back together, it’s not that we broke up because we’re a family and that makes it a different thing. We’re still together, just doing different things. If we get excited about something it will happen.”

Her time acting in Dancing at Lughnasa and, more recently, Jane Eyre at the Gate fundamentally changed her and made her realise just how important live performance is to her well-being.

“It’s like this shared experience and only the people there really know it. And if something shifts that night – if it’s been a really good performance – then the audience and the people on stage go back out into the world a little altered. “You feel very much alive, very much in the moment. And that’s why I feel I have to go back out on tour again with this album. The live experience is the only time these days when people feel all together – really together. It’s a magnificent thing. And it’s just like love, sometimes you’ve got to walk away from it to know that you need it.”

[Serena]

Entrevista! (Telegraph)

Andrea Corr has always been something of a contradiction.

She was the lead singer in the Corrs, the lovely singing siblings whose wistful tunes made them one of the biggest-selling bands in the world throughout the late 1990s, yet she is the least comfortable in the limelight.

She is fragile-looking with huge dark pools for eyes and a haunting voice. But she is strikingly and surprisingly tough.

She is the youngest of the Corrs, a four-piece band made up of herself, her brother and two sisters. Now 36, she’s as gorgeous as ever, svelte and smiling in a Vera Wang top with flawless skin and sparkling eyes.

Much has happened since we last met a couple of years ago.

She reinvented herself as a theatre actress, playing an acclaimed Jane Eyre at the Gate in Dublin last year, and appeared in the Olivier Award-winning Dancing at Lughnasa at the Old Vic in London the year before.

She is coming up to her second wedding anniversary to Brett Desmond, a hedge-fund manager and son of the Irish billionaire Dermot Desmond, whom she married (in front of celebrity guests including Bono) at a golf club in County Clare.

And, after an unsuccessful solo release left her feeling she never wanted to sing again, she’s recorded a new album. The album in question, 'Lifelines’, is a collection of covers of songs from different eras, from John Lennon to Kirsty MacColl. It takes courage to cover Billie Holiday’s I’ll Be Seeing You, and it takes soul to sing it with as much emotional impact as the lady herself. Corr’s version is shockingly good.

She is playing it to me on the top-floor studio of the north London home of her producer, John Reynolds. Afterwards we wander through the high-ceilinged rooms trailed by Reynolds’ enormous mastiff.

Corr is feeling relaxed, enthusiastic, and – a word she uses many times during our interview – liberated.

Both her part in Brian Friel’s play Dancing at Lughnasa and the role of Jane Eyre required her to be plain. Corr, experiencing an emotion that perhaps only the truly beautiful can understand, was thrilled with the idea of looking drab.

Did they have to use special ugly make-up? 'No, I just wore very little make-up. There’s a plain girl in everybody.

'I remember when I did a shoot for the poster for Dancing at Lughnasa, the girl who was doing my hair said, “I’m sorry, this isn't going to be very flattering.” And I thought, “Oh good!” I really wallowed in that lack of vanity.’

Perhaps what was liberating was being freed from the world’s expectations and idea of Andrea Corr. Perhaps it felt good to be seen as capable instead of pretty.

Lughnasa is about three sisters in 1930s Donegal. 'I was playing a woman who had a child out of wedlock, which was heavy jelly in Ireland in the 1930s.

'They were generally sent off to work with the Magdalenes – the nuns – or something. They would never see their children for the rest of their lives.’

Corr clearly took to the theatre. 'It was a great experience,’ she agrees. 'We finished [Jane Eyre] at the end of January and now it’s gone forever. That’s what I love about it. It isn’t recorded. Even if it’s a brilliant night it will disappear.

'I thought that was a perfect counterbalance to this world.’ She means the world of music which, with its relentless marketing and categorising, has perhaps not treated her so kindly.

'After the last record [Ten Feet High, which she released in 2007] I was doing other things. I learnt French just because it’s a beautiful language. I wanted to step out of recording so that I could be enthusiastic about singing again,’ she says.

Ten Feet High was well received – critically, at least. 'Unfortunately, I don’t think it was heard. I suppose you can’t have everything,’ she says.

'I felt that we made a good record. I was happy with it, as was Nellee Hooper [the producer, who also works with Bjí¶rk, Gwen Stefani and Madonna].

'But I don’t think the record company believed in it. They wished that the record was Andrea-turns-into-Karen-Carpenter as opposed to the record that I did, which was a lot more edgy.

'I have had a lot of commercial success in the past. But this record came out when James Blunt was everywhere,’ she says with a faint shrug. Unlike Blunt’s pining love songs, Ten Feet High was raw and confrontational.

'After that I felt disillusioned. I didn’t even sing in the shower anymore. I lost my…’ She pauses as if she can’t quite put the loss into words. 'I thought, “I’m not going to do anything until I have my enthusiasm back, and if I don’t, I don’t.

'I’m just going to be living my life.”’

But then she met the producer (and Siníéad O’Connor’s ex-husband) John Reynolds, about a year after the release of Ten Feet High, at a tribute record recording for the singer and guitarist of the Dubliners, Ronnie Drew.

'John asked to meet me afterwards,’ she says speaking fast and earnestly. 'He said, “I love your voice and I’d love us to work together. There are some songs this generation hasn’t heard that are amazing.”

'I said, “I only do my own songs,” but he talked more about it and I thought, “Actually, it might be a joy to sing and not have someone asking, 'Where are the hits?’” It was liberating. Total freedom to enjoy singing.’

The songs on the record are all 'songs that helped me do something, or songs I fell in love listening to, or helped me get through a break-up. That’s the wonder of songs, the way they can be a vehicle to a past emotion.’

The album takes its name from a Harry Nilsson song. 'It might sound a bit dramatic but songs can be lifelines.

'You hear something and then you don’t feel so alone, you feel you’re not the only one suffering – so maybe you’ll stay alive another day.’ She laughs a little darkly.

There’s no doubt that Andrea Corr is tough. I remember her telling me once that she fell down the stairs, fracturing her ankle. 'I didn’t want to feel it,’ she said at the time, 'so I pretended in my head that I didn’t have [the injury].’

When she was a child her mother saw that her head was swarming with nits. 'I didn’t feel anything,’ says Corr. 'I didn’t want them to be there so it was mind over matter.

'I would let my socks fall down so they were under the balls of my feet. I would walk around like that instead of pulling them up. I have a high tolerance for discomfort.’

It seems she’s always wanted to prove that she isn’t fragile. Even when her mother died of a rare lung disease when Corr was 25 her reaction was determinedly stoical.

'I thought, “Nothing is going to hurt as bad as this and I’ll be able to cope with other things better now.” And to a certain extent that’s true. I think things get better.

'Life does throw some hard stuff at you as you get older, much harder. But you are more able to deal with things.’

It’s not for nothing that she chose to cover Donna Summer’s song State of Independence.

She has hinted in the past at having felt steered by her siblings during the glory days of the Corrs; perhaps being the youngest made it difficult for her to assert herself. She doesn’t seem to feel that lack of control anymore.

'Those years were the most self-conscious and self-critical of my life,’ she says of the height of the group’s success. 'I was always hiding under my hair.’

The tabloid interest in Andrea became particularly intense after her siblings married and she became the only remaining available Corr.

In one short period she was supposed to be seeing Robbie Williams, Mick Jagger and Simon Fuller. None of the stories had any truth to them.

'The Simon Fuller one was a really big spread and I remember going, “Whose story is this? Is that me? Where is that?” They had pictured us both coming out of the Brit awards.

'But there are much harder things in life than what tabloids are writing about you,’ she says. 'If you love what you are doing you cope with that. You can’t live in your own secluded world. If you’re not on the Tube, on the bus doing normal things, how can you relate to people?’

She lives in a flat in west London with her husband. She’s still close to the other Corrs but there’s unlikely to be a revival.

'Sharon put an album out last year and she enjoyed doing that. It’s not all about the commercial success. She has two children. That’s the best creation. Jim’s doing his own thing and has one child.

And Caroline has three kids and she’s really happy.’

Does that make her want children? 'Yes. I look forward to that time. I do hope to have children.’

Is she ready? 'I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. And from what I’m told you’re never really ready. You can’t say you’re not ready for ever, so you might as well go for it. If that happens that would be a priority.

'I’m not not allowing it to happen, if you see what I mean. I’m leaving it to He Who Knows Best, and she, my mother. I believe she’s up there working away. I think she looks after me.

'It’s funny,’ she continues with a smile. 'With retrospect I’m glad Ten Feet High didn’t work because I wouldn’t have done this album; the record company would have loved me and I’d be making another album with them and I wouldn’t be having my own creative journey.

'I’d be being manoeuvred. And manoeuvring doesn’t work at all.’

She says she is a cat person. 'We had 11 when I was growing up and I remember feeding the kittens and their eyes were all closed. My husband doesn’t like them; he likes dogs.

'But the thing about dogs – and this is not a good thing – have you noticed when you step on a dog’s foot it sort of looks up and apologises?

'But if you step on a cat they’ll let you know it. I like that edge. I don’t want to apologise if someone stands on me.’ She shakes her head and laughs. 'That would be awful.’

[Serena]

Mañana, Andrea asistirá al programa BBC Breakfast, donde será entrevistada sobre su segundo álbum, Lifelines. Dicho programa se emite en la BBC One a partir de las 06:00h (07:00h horario peninsular).

[Serena]

Gracias a la página web oficial del Isle Of Wight Festival, ya sabemos que Andrea actuará el sábado dí­a 11 de junio en el Garden Stage. No obstante, queda aún por confirmar la hora en la que tendrá lugar su actuación.

[Serena]

Tras cuatro años de su primer disco en solitario, Andrea viene de nuevo con un álbum bajo el brazo. En Lifelines podemos encontrar una diversa gama de versiones de otros artistas o grupos cantados por Andrea desde el interior de su corazón y con una emoción sincera.

Lifelines lo forma una selección de canciones muy bien elegidas de otros artistas y que han formado y forman parte de la vida de Andrea. Versiones de Velvet Underground, Ron Sexsmith, o Blue Nile. El elemento principal durante todo el proceso de grabación del álbum ha sido la voz de Andrea, ala que podemos escuchar en una gama más amplia, mucho más allá de sus grabaciones anteriores.

Andrea nos explica: “Esta es la experiencia más agradable que he tenido. Lo hicimos con tranquilidad. Ha sido una experiencia realmente autíéntica. Cuando cantas canciones de otras personas, de alguna forma eso te permite ser una cantante y solamente una cantante. Todo lo que tuve que hacer fue interpretar. Hay una gran libertad en eso.”

El álbum tambiíén se beneficia de formar parte de un proceso colaborativo, respaldado por los productores Brian Eno y John Reynolds. Como pasa con muchas grandes colaboraciones artí­sticas, este álbum dio a luz por medio de conexiones casuales. Durante la grabación de una canción tributo a la fallecido leyenda folk irlandesa Ronnie Drew, un amigo mutuo introdujo a Andrea al renombrado productor John Reynolds, quien habí­a trabajado previamente con U2, Sinead O’Connor, Damien Dempsey y otros. John habí­a admirado durante mucho tiempo las habilidades musicales de Andrea. John le habló a Andrea sobre su voz única, sobre como sonaba, el calor que desprendí­a y la cercaní­a que transmití­a. John y Andrea empezaron a hablar sobre canciones y en trabajar juntos.

Pero antes de esto, la vida de Andrea habí­a estado yendo en otras direcciones desde que se habí­an tomado en The Corrs un respiro entre las grabaciones y las giras en el 2005. Se le dio tiempo a florecer en su carrera como actriz. El periódico Irish Times llamó a su actuación en Jane Eyre, en el teatro de Dublí­n, como “feroz y seria”. Andrea apareció en el teatro Old Vic en la obra Dancing at Lughnasa de Brian Friel, con el Daily Telegraph describiendo su actuación como “un notable debut sobre el escenario” mientras que Variety Magazine describí­a su actuación como “fuerte y apropiadamente radiante”.

Se tomó la idea de hacer un álbum de grandes canciones escritas por artistas respetados en el mundo de la música para reencender la pasión de Andrea por el canto. No se trata de una recopilación al tun tun de versiones antiguas. Se trata de una selección escogida con pasión y pedigrí­ musical, teniendo cada canción una fuerte resonancia personal para Andrea.

Andrea: “Antes de grabar el álbum estaba haciendo diferentes cosas, como aprender francíés y actuar, entonces conocí­ a John Reynolds. Me habí­a desilusionado no tanto con la música, pero sí­ con aspectos de la industria de la música. Decidí­ apartarme de la música hasta que estuviera ilusionada de nuevo. Pero es curioso porque a veces cuando dejas ir algo, eso mismo te vuelve a traer. Justo en el momento en el que estaba pensando en alejarme de la música durante un tiempo, John me llevó de nuevo a ella y estoy contenta de que lo hiciera. Fui a su casa y hablamos sobre cantar y esa ilusión volvió allí­ de verdad.”

Despuíés de reunirme con John, casi orgánicamente una lista de canciones evolucionaron, trabajando con ideas con gente como Brian Eno (que ha trabajado como co-productor en el álbum) y Gavin Friday. El foco principal en este álbum está en la voz de Andrea, libre, desnuda y autíéntica. Algunas de las canciones de este disco se eligieron por sí­ mismas como el clásico de Roy Orbison titulado Blue Bayou, que tiene una resonancia personal para Andrea.

Ella explica: “Mis padres tení­an una banda llamada The Sound Affair y estuvieran de gira durante un tiempo. Ellos solí­an tocar en un pub los fines de semana. Papá tocaba el teclado y mamá cantaba. Hicieron una grabación durante sus vidas cuando fueron a un estudio y una de las canciones que grabaron fue Blue Bayou. Tení­a muchas ganas de hacerlo por esa razón.”

Tambiíén la canción Lifeline de Harry Nilson tiene un sonido muy especial para Andrea. “Esta es una de las piezas de música que he escuchado y que más me ha llenado. Estaba viendo la pelí­cula Midnight Cowboy con mis padres cuando era una niña, tendrí­a 12 o 13 años. Despuíés de la pelí­cula, el presentador de la televisión dijo que no la apagáramos ya que el siguiente programa iba a ser muy especial. Lo que vino despuíés fue una extraña grabación de Harry Nilsson en la BBC en 1972. í‰l era conocido por algo así­ como un intíérprete incomodo en sus directos y sin embargo, durante esta actuación no tuvo miedo de burlarse de ese hecho o de sí­ mismo. Dentro de toda la teatralidad del espectáculo, las canciones fueron lo más significativo. Y se me quedaron grabadas, en particular los ritmos de la canción Lifelines se quedaron conmigo.”

Versiones que tambiíén incluye la canción ‘No. 9 Dream’ de John Lennon y el tema The Don’t Know de Kirsty McColl. El primer tema que Andrea grabó para el álbum fue Some Things Last A Long Time de Daniel Johnston, y tambiíén incluye el clásico Tinseltown In The Rain de Blue Nile.

El álbum se ha hecho detrás de la atención de los medios, sin plazos comerciales y sin la presión de la industria de la música. Esta es sin duda la grabación más considerada y personal de Andrea que ha sido grabada hasta la fecha. Es una colección de canciones por las que ella siente pasión, cantadas de forma natural, de la forma en la que ellas las quiere cantar.

El sonido es a la vez seguro y vulnerable, tal vez el reflejo de una nueva etapa en su evolución como cantante. Las grabaciones son sinceras, ligeramente producidas e í­ntimas. Andrea explica: “No me preocupa este álbum a nivel comercial. Esta es una grabación totalmente diferente y orgánica. Es un sonido real. Puedes escuchar los pedales e incluso imaginar a los músicos en la habitación si cierras los ojos. Creo que la producción es realmente bella y evocadora. Lo siento así­ tal vez porque yo no las escribí­ y no siento presión, y eso se nota en el disco. Suena exactamente como debe sonar.”

Andrea continua: “Cuando era joven solí­a escuchar música a todas horas, a primera hora de la mañana, antes del colegio y tan pronto llegaba a casa. La música es uno de los únicos lugares donde puedes viajar por tu mente, olvidarte de ti mismo y convertirte en otra persona. La música puede hacer un momento eterno. Te permite revivir lo que sentiste con tan solo poner esa canción de nuevo. De repente estás ahí­ de nuevo… enamorándote, con el corazón roto, perdida, encontrada y perdida de nuevo. Lifelines (lí­neas de vida).”

[Serena]

State of independence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpMJTvPos1Y&

[Serena]

Hoy, Andrea ha sido entrevistada y ha interpretado Blue Bayou en acústico en el programa de radio Woman's Hour en BBC Radio 4.

[Serena]

Andrea responde!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Sipw7M-YtI&

[Serena]

Having tasted success in the family group The Corrs, 60 million albums sold worldwide and playing sell-out everywhere, Andrea Corr has released her second solo album and taken a completely different direction – on stage and on screen.

By Margaret RODDY
Wednesday May 25 2011

'WHAT'S it like in Dundalk?' Andrea Corr wants to know. Like her famous siblings, the petite singer and actress has never forgotten her roots and although she now divides her time between Dublin and London, she is still a regular visitor to the family home in Dundalk where her father Gerry lives.

'I love going home. I was home a couple of weeks ago. I generally go down to Daddy and just go out and visit relatives and friends,' she says.

The first time I interviewed Andrea she was a school girl at St. Louis, propelled into the spotlight after getting a speaking role as Jimmy Rabitte's sister in ' The Commitments'.

Her father sat shotgun, displaying parental concern that the teenager wouldn't be exploited by the media.

This time, it's a quick telephone call. Andrea has just sung songs from her new album 'Lifelines' to 20 lucky listeners of 2FM who won tickets to the intimate studio performance.

She's delighted to be out on the road, promoting the album which features covers of songs by an collection of singer/songwriters including John Lennon, Velvet Underground, Nick Drake, Ron Sexsmith, and The Blue Nile.

'It's great, I'm really enjoying it. It's great to get to play the songs to an audience.'

It is, she says, an eclectic collection of songs that she loves and are very personal to her. Music has always been part of her life and is her 'passion', she says.

'When you grow up in a house where your parents are musicians and in a band, you hear a lot of music and it becomes part of your life.'

Having gone straight from school into the band with her older siblings Jim, Sharon and Caroline, one could say that music is the only life she knows.

The band's 'rags to riches' story is well known at this stage. Their appearance in ' The Commitments' brought them to the attention of manager John Hughes, and they were invited to the United States after Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith saw them playing a gig in Whelan's.

They recorded their debut album 'Forgiven, Not Forgotten' in 1995 which launched them on the road to international stardom, although it wasn't until they released their version of the Fleetwood Mac hit 'Dreams' that they achieved success in the UK.

The band recorded five albums over a ten year period, 'Forgiven, Not Forgotten', ' Talk On Corners', 'In Blue', 'Borrowed Heaven' and 'Home', as well as a number of live albums and compilations, selling over 60 millions records worldwide.

During that period they spent a lot of time touring in Europe, America and Asia, and took part in several high profile charity events, sharing the stage with the likes of Bono and Pavorotti, and were awarded MBEs for their work.

In 2005, the band decided to take a break and concentrate on their own lives and careers.

'Most families flee the nest and fulfil their own individual goals, but we went out and did it together, so it's only in the last few years that each of us has focused on our individual lives,' says Andrea.

Even while with the band, Andrea was working on her own projects.

In 2003 she recorded the song ' Time Enough For Tears', written by Bono and Gavin Friday for the film 'In America'.

And having got a taste for acting in ' The Commitments', she followed this up with roles in 'Evita' which was also directed by Alan Parker, and in ' The Boys From County Clare', for which she won the Film Discovery Jury Award for Best Actress in the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival and was nominated for Best Actress in the IFTA Awards.

More recently Andrea has turned her talents to stage work, appearing in 'Dancing at Lughnasa' at London's Old Vic, and in 'Jane Eyre' in The Gate Theatre in Dublin, getting favourable reviews for her performances.

'I feel I'm very, very lucky,' she says.

'I wouldn't have dared to dream of doing a play in The Gate or a Brian Friel play in the Old Vic. I really, really love acting. It's very intense, very hard work but I feel very much alive when I'm doing it.'

Right now, though, she's concentrating on her music. She recorded her first solo ' Ten Feet High' in 2007. She has admitted that she was disappointed that it didn't get the commercial success which she felt it deserved and took refuge in her acting career.

That album, produced by Nellee Hooper who had worked with Bjork, featured songs that she had written herself so the disappointment must have been all the harder.

This time she has turned to songs by others, songs that, as she says herself, she loves.

'To be honest, I took a break from music for a while. I decided I only wanted to sing when I was really excited about it.'

The album was recorded over the past three years although she says that she didn't feel as though she was making an album.

'I would go and sing when I felt like it. John Reynolds, the producer, has a studio at the top of his house, so I felt very free when I was recording it. No one knew about it so there was no pressure.'

During that time, she also got married to stockbroker Brett Desmond, son of billionaire Dermot Desmond, in Milltown Malbay, Co. Clare on August 21st 2009.

Their wedding made top billing on the news, but living in the media spotlight is something she has grown used to.

'I feel we've always been respected by the media and that's probably because we never courted the media. We've always been very, very private about our lives and the media seems to respect that.'

Although the family have been getting on with their own lives in recent years, Andrea doesn't rule out the possibility of them getting together as a band.

'We don't have any definite plans for it as yet but it's highly likely that we will do something together in the future.'

In the meantime, she's happy to be on the road again, promoting her new album which has rekindled her enjoyment and excitement about music.

'We've all got to fulfill our own individual dream. That doesn't stop at any point. When you get to do something you love, it doesn't feel like work.

'I'm really happy doing this now,' she says.

'I've got some concerts coming up in England and I will be playing Vicar Street in Dublin on Saturday June 5th so I'm rehearsing and getting ready for that.' 'WHAT'S it like in Dundalk?' Andrea Corr wants to know. Like her famous siblings, the petite singer and actress has never forgotten her roots and although she now divides her time between Dublin and London, she is still a regular visitor to the family home in Dundalk where her father Gerry lives.

'I love going home. I was home a couple of weeks ago. I generally go down to Daddy and just go out and visit relatives and friends,' she says.

The first time I interviewed Andrea she was a school girl at St. Louis, propelled into the spotlight after getting a speaking role as Jimmy Rabitte's sister in ' The Commitments'.

Her father sat shotgun, displaying parental concern that the teenager wouldn't be exploited by the media.

This time, it's a quick telephone call. Andrea has just sung songs from her new album 'Lifelines' to 20 lucky listeners of 2FM who won tickets to the intimate studio performance.

She's delighted to be out on the road, promoting the album which features covers of songs by an collection of singer/songwriters including John Lennon, Velvet Underground, Nick Drake, Ron Sexsmith, and The Blue Nile.

'It's great, I'm really enjoying it. It's great to get to play the songs to an audience.'

It is, she says, an eclectic collection of songs that she loves and are very personal to her. Music has always been part of her life and is her 'passion', she says.

'When you grow up in a house where your parents are musicians and in a band, you hear a lot of music and it becomes part of your life.'

Having gone straight from school into the band with her older siblings Jim, Sharon and Caroline, one could say that music is the only life she knows.

The band's 'rags to riches' story is well known at this stage. Their appearance in ' The Commitments' brought them to the attention of manager John Hughes, and they were invited to the United States after Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith saw them playing a gig in Whelan's.

They recorded their debut album 'Forgiven, Not Forgotten' in 1995 which launched them on the road to international stardom, although it wasn't until they released their version of the Fleetwood Mac hit 'Dreams' that they achieved success in the UK.

The band recorded five albums over a ten year period, 'Forgiven, Not Forgotten', ' Talk On Corners', 'In Blue', 'Borrowed Heaven' and 'Home', as well as a number of live albums and compilations, selling over 60 millions records worldwide.

During that period they spent a lot of time touring in Europe, America and Asia, and took part in several high profile charity events, sharing the stage with the likes of Bono and Pavorotti, and were awarded MBEs for their work.

In 2005, the band decided to take a break and concentrate on their own lives and careers.

'Most families flee the nest and fulfil their own individual goals, but we went out and did it together, so it's only in the last few years that each of us has focused on our individual lives,' says Andrea.

Even while with the band, Andrea was working on her own projects.

In 2003 she recorded the song ' Time Enough For Tears', written by Bono and Gavin Friday for the film 'In America'.

And having got a taste for acting in ' The Commitments', she followed this up with roles in 'Evita' which was also directed by Alan Parker, and in ' The Boys From County Clare', for which she won the Film Discovery Jury Award for Best Actress in the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival and was nominated for Best Actress in the IFTA Awards.

More recently Andrea has turned her talents to stage work, appearing in 'Dancing at Lughnasa' at London's Old Vic, and in 'Jane Eyre' in The Gate Theatre in Dublin, getting favourable reviews for her performances.

'I feel I'm very, very lucky,' she says.

'I wouldn't have dared to dream of doing a play in The Gate or a Brian Friel play in the Old Vic. I really, really love acting. It's very intense, very hard work but I feel very much alive when I'm doing it.'

Right now, though, she's concentrating on her music. She recorded her first solo ' Ten Feet High' in 2007. She has admitted that she was disappointed that it didn't get the commercial success which she felt it deserved and took refuge in her acting career.

That album, produced by Nellee Hooper who had worked with Bjork, featured songs that she had written herself so the disappointment must have been all the harder.

This time she has turned to songs by others, songs that, as she says herself, she loves.

'To be honest, I took a break from music for a while. I decided I only wanted to sing when I was really excited about it.'

The album was recorded over the past three years although she says that she didn't feel as though she was making an album.

'I would go and sing when I felt like it. John Reynolds, the producer, has a studio at the top of his house, so I felt very free when I was recording it. No one knew about it so there was no pressure.'

During that time, she also got married to stockbroker Brett Desmond, son of billionaire Dermot Desmond, in Milltown Malbay, Co. Clare on August 21st 2009.

Their wedding made top billing on the news, but living in the media spotlight is something she has grown used to.

'I feel we've always been respected by the media and that's probably because we never courted the media. We've always been very, very private about our lives and the media seems to respect that.'

Although the family have been getting on with their own lives in recent years, Andrea doesn't rule out the possibility of them getting together as a band.

'We don't have any definite plans for it as yet but it's highly likely that we will do something together in the future.'

In the meantime, she's happy to be on the road again, promoting her new album which has rekindled her enjoyment and excitement about music.

'We've all got to fulfill our own individual dream. That doesn't stop at any point. When you get to do something you love, it doesn't feel like work.

'I'm really happy doing this now,' she says.

'I've got some concerts coming up in England and I will be playing Vicar Street in Dublin on Saturday June 5th so I'm rehearsing and getting ready for that.'

- Margaret RODDY

[Serena]

Large Talks to Andrea Corr!
Andrea Corr, the famous Irish vocalist, will be releasing her new, widely anticipated album Lifelines at the end of this month. She spared a few minutes to update us all at Large on what it’s all been like.

After five minutes of excited chatter with Andrea I was instantly in awe of how benevolent and genuine she was, how passionate about her music she is and how grounded she seemed.

“I’ve been fully immersed into music for as long as I can remember.” Corr tells me.

Her parents, who were equally passionate about music, performed with Andrea even before she was born:

“They had a band and my mother sang live on stage with my father when she was pregnant with me!”

Andrea firmly believes that her parents are her inspiration for her music, impelling her to pursue her musical dreams and share her musical endowment.

Excitedly, Andrea gushes about the music she’s enjoying listening to at the moment; “I really like Anna Calvi’s new record, I’m listening to The Weepies, which are husband and wife, I love their songs. I also love, LOVE, Elbow, really love their music.”

Andrea Corr is the youngest of the Corr family, and the four-piece family band The Corrs. After deciding to go their separate ways a few years back, Andrea admits she still misses playing with her family.

“ I do miss playing with my family, it’s a lot more responsibility doing it on your own, but at the same time though its kind of different, we all flee’d the nest together in our twenties. It was amazing, we shared our dream and passion for music, but it was good for each of us to follow our own individual paths.”

Her astute knowledge of the music industry is admirable. The head smart musician remains completely grounded, partaking in charity work, theatre acting and balancing her solo career at the same time.

So what advice does Andrea have for aspiring artists?

“Remember it’s all about the music. These days it’s very intense and not very balanced on the whole celebrity thing, it’s a very extreme celebrity culture and I think that it’s the wrong focus. Always remember the reason why you got into it”

So with that in mind Andrea Corr is set to release her new album Lifelines, an album with a variety of music, which for the first time has not been written by her, including covers from a selection of different eras.

So what was it that made Andrea sing songs that weren’t written by her?

“I thought about how music is unique and it lets you revisit memories when listening to the song and time travel back to certain times and what you were going through.”

Hence the name of the album. Andrea wanted everyone to be able to relate, like she did, to the songs on the album.

“The idea that music makes you feel less alone - which is a wonderful thing for everyone.

One of the most flattering things a person can say to you is ‘your song helped me through something’ and I thought about that in relation to me and moments in my life.”

So with her new album tantalisingly close to release, Andrea is set to tour the country, performing live at festivals such as the Isle of White festival, and will be gracing the city of Manchester next week, which she admits to being very excited about:

“I love Manchester. I’ve been many times! I played there a lot with the Corrs, but I haven’t played there by myself yet so I’m really looking forward to it. I’m excited!”

The album consists of soothing tones, heart-warming songs that bring out the vocal talent of the Irish beauty.

A really good album is one where you can listen and enjoy every single song. Luckily for us, Andrea has nailed it with this one.


By Kelly Greene

[Serena]

Como ya hiciera su hermana Sharon el mes de agosto del año pasado, este domingo dí­a 29 de mayo, Andrea asistirá al programa Weekend Wogan, presentado por Terry Wogan y emitido de las 11:00 a las 13:00h (de 12:00 a 14:00h en horario peninsular) en la BBC Radio 2. En el programa, Andrea será entrevistada e interpretará algunas canciones en directo. Tanto la entrevisa como la actuación serán grabadas en ví­deo y posteriormente subidas a la web del programa

Sir Terry Wogan eases you into your Sunday lunch with music and musings. He chats to Caroline Quentin and invites Andrea Corr into the studio to perform.

Surrey-born actress Caroline Quentin appeared in the chorus of the original cast of Les Mis before moving into television work with parts in programmes including Casualty and Mr Bean. She then starred, in her most recognisable role, in Men Behaving Badly from 1992 to 1998, alongside Martin Clunes, Leslie Ash and Neil Morrissey. In 1996, Quentin And Ash released a single, which reached No. 25 in the UK charts. Caroline then went on to her roles in Jonathan Creek, Blue Murder and Life Begins. Quentin is currently appearing in Series 3 of comedy show Life Of Riley on BBC One.

Irish singer-songwriter Andrea Corr is best known as one quarter - and lead singer - of Irish folk/pop group The Corrs. The family enjoyed international success during the Nineties and early Noughties and when the group took a break from music, Andrea embarked on a solo career, releasing her debut solo album in 2007. Her second album Lifelines - a compilation of old songs and covers - is released next week

[Serena]

El pasado 20 de mayo, Andrea acudió al programa de radio Strawberry Alarm Clock presentado por Jim Jim Nugent y Mark Noble en FM104. En el programa, Andrea fue entrevistada e interpretó Pale Blue Eyes, Blue Bayou y I'll Be Seeing You en acústico

Pale Blue Eyes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZTYlpNd8TA&

Blue Bayou

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qkUhaiAu9w&

I'll be seeing you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFJUF48JyrA&

[Serena]

Concierto en Birmingham!!

No. 9 Dream
They Don't Know
Blue Bayou
Pale Blue Eyes
I'll be seeing you
Runaway
From the morning
Shame on you
Hello boys
Ten feet high
The Crystal Ship
Dreams
Tomorrow in her eyes
State of independence

Encore
Some things last a long time
Tinseltown in the rain
Breathless

The Crystal Ship

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSl81uCdhX8&

Some things lasts a long time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vuf58IwieOc&