Spurred on by their enthusiasm, Claire headed over to stay with them in upstate New York after her exams, then moved on to Boston to visit her uncle, a traditional Irish musician, who honed her guitar playing over the summer. She returned to start a performing arts course at university in Liverpool but realized in a matter of weeks that her destiny lay somewhere elsewhere entirely. “I decided it wasn’t for me. The people around me had different dreams. I was busy writing songs all the time so a couple of months in, I decided to go home and rethink what I wanted to do.” (cont.)
It was the wisest decision she ever made. Soon after, Claire started playing at a local bar’s singer-songwriter evening every Tuesday, testing the water with Eva Cassidy covers before progressing on to her own songs. Advised to copyright her material, she begged local sound engineer Billy Robinson to come to her parent’s house and help her record a demo. Billy, the sound man for several well-known Irish acts including folk star Mary Black, couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“He rang a week later and asked if I’d ever thought about it as a career. As far as I was concerned, a career in music was what I was doing - playing songs in a bar. To be honest, I didn’t even know what a record deal was. I knew that there were popstars but I knew that wasn’t what I was so I didn’t even consider it for a minute.”
Billy knew he’d stumbled upon something special, though. While Claire started a music technology course at Queen’s University in Belfast, he sent her demo to a contact at Parlophone Records. Within a week, Claire had been offered a deal, and in April 2005, she signed with Parlophone in the UK and Norah Jones’ label Blue Note in the US. She then finally dropped out of university once and for all. “Obviously, it wasn’t too difficult a decision by then!” she laughs. Gathering together the songs she had written between the ages of 17 and 19, she started recording her debut album in a London studio with respected producer Stewart Levine.
“I’d never even been in a studio before and I’d definitely never worked with a producer so it was a very new experience for me and it was amazing. He got together five of the best musicians in the country to play with me and I was sat there thinking, ‘what am I doing?!’ I thought they’d laugh me out of the studio when I started playing but they were great. Within two seconds of starting to play the music, everything felt right.”
The result is a mesmerising and disarmingly honest album that lets the songs speak for themselves. Moulded around Claire’s pure, enchanting vocals, it echoes the powerful simplicity of Carly Simon and the soulful ache of Carole King but with Claire’s own thoroughly modern, youthful twist.
Protection - we do a lot of it these days. Sun cream for our skin, sunglasses for our eyes, condoms for you know where - but do you remember to protect your hearing?
Click to find all the information you need to look after your hearing now so you can enjoy music for years to come
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