"Music is a hard life, especially when you're raising three kids while you're touring, but it's been wonderful. Over the years I've learned to wear two hats: one is for Mary Black the singer, performer and musician; the other is for Mary Black the mother, wife and friend"
As she embarks upon her final US tour and launched the story of her life in book and song, Jenny Lee chats to Irish songstress
Mary Black about the many roads along which life has taken her
S HE'S been performing since the age of eight and now as she approaches her 60th year Mary Black has decided to "slow down" and make her last call on world touring.
Launching her autobiography and accompanying soundtrack this month as well as beginning her last American tour, however, she is as busy as she's ever been. "Our house is like a train station. It's great to be busy but I've toured for over 30 years. I've had fantastic times touring to the US, Australia and Japan - but when do you stop? I know I will miss it but I've always wanted time to do other things and I don't want to do it when I'm too old to enjoy it."
Her semi-retirement plans include indulging in some abstract painting, reading more books, learning Spanish, enjoying her two young grandchildren at home in Kerry and spending more time in her father's old homestead on Rathlin Island. She turns 60 next May and plans to celebrate it with a 1960s theme party in the holiday home she's recently bought in Spain.
But fans need not fear as singing will still be very much part of her life. "My eldest memories are of singing and I could never imagine living my life without it in some form."
On her eagerly awaited Irish tour - her first in four years - Mary will play 15 dates in January including Armagh's Market Place Theatre and Derry's Millennium Forum.
And she doesn't rule out another album. "I'm keeping my options open.
It might be a different format, perhaps a concept album. You don't know what ideas will pop up." In her long-awaited memoir, Down the Crooked Road, the title of which is taken from the lyrics of Carolina Rua, a hit from her 1989 album, No
Frontiers, Mary takes us back to the roots of her musical heritage and to the influences that helped to shape her as an artist and a woman.
Born into musical family of seven - her father was a fiddler, her mother a singer - Mary grew up in a tenement building on Dublin's Charlemont Street with an indoor toilet her father built, to the envy of their neighbours. Although money was scarce it was a happy childhood, with much of the siblings spare time spent immersed in music."
From the time I was a little girl, I sang with my older brothers. They dragged me along to sing at places where you just signed up and sang and to the clubs. We never thought of it as a career. We were doing it for the love of it, for the joy of the music," recalls Mary who at the age of 13 worked six days a week during the summer holidays in a factory making 'lucky bags' in order to pay for her school uniform.
At the school in the well-to-do area her mother was so proud to have her attend, the nuns made clear their disdain for her humble background - an experience that dented her confidence into adult life but also made her determined to succeed. "People's opinions do affect you, but if you follow something that is important to you and you get a good grounding, which I did with my family, you can come through anything." A bigger challenge was to come later in life when she suffered from bouts of depression. "The first time it happened me, it was the worst feeling I ever had in my life. This darkness descends and you can't understand how people could be laughing or happy about anything," she recalls.
Help came in the unlikely form of Christy Moore, who had given a young Mary her big break when he invited her to sing on his TV
show Christy Moore and Friends even before her debut solo album. Following the birth of her first child Mary was reliant upon anti-depressents and had put her musical career on hold. But when Conor was seven months old the next chapter in her life was to begin with a knock on her door from Christy Moore who asked her how she felt about supporting him for two nights in the National Concert Hall. With her acceptance also came the 'loan' of his guitar player Declan Sinnott - it was a musical partnership that would last 13 years and propel Mary
to international acclaim with recording invitations from the likes of Joan Baez.
Her advice to those who find themselves suffering from depression or anxiety is to "get help". "Don't think you are going to be able to handle it yourself because more times than not it can manifest itself into something more serious. The second time I knew I needed help and the first time round I didn't go for it in time. I always said I wouldn't do that again and I didn't."
Reflecting upon her 30 years of touring, Mary is continuously surprised that singing has provided her with such a lengthy career and she looks back with "no regrets". "Music is a hard life, especially when you're raising three kids while you're touring, but it's been wonderful. Being a Gemini, I've always felt that my life took two roads So over the years I've learned to wear two hats: one is for Mary Black the singer, performer and musician; the other is for Mary Black the
mother, wife and friend. I couldn't imagine being fulfilled without either side of the coin, and I've been lucky enough to have had a healthy serving of both."
The Black musical genes have continued through to her own children. Her son Danny plays in successful indie band the Coronas and her daughter Roisin O is a singer-songwriter working on her second album who is supporting her on her Last Call tour.
The Down The Crooked Road album and book goes hand in hand, with the album serving to
act as the soundtrack of her life. "There were moments in my life where three or four lines from a song really represented a certain time or place. "I have notes in the album explaining why I choose certain songs because it meant something to me - pivotal moments such as when my mother died. If you listen to the album on it's own you will probably miss something," she explains.
Has she a favourite or most meaningful song?
"A song like The Loving Time catches me in the chest but it's probably one of my more obscure songs. Who Knows Where the Time Goes is so appropriate too for my life - that's why you have to make these difficult choices because the rollercoaster keeps going round and round and you can't get off.
n Down The Crooked Road - My Autobiography is published by Transworld Ireland. The accompanying album is available from today.