Post by DazedOblivion on Oct 2, 2005 19:53:25 GMT 1
Here is a great article that has come out about Home; unfortunately I don't now the original source!
"We called it Home because it's just the truth, isn't it? That's the place it all comes from.'' Andrea Corr, August 2005
Home is where the heart is. It's also the title of the album a lot of Corrs fans have been waiting for the band to make for a very long time - a magnificent collection of songs ancient and modern that fully reflects their Irish musical roots and Celtic influences, but delivered with a thoroughly contemporary sensibility.
It follows little more than a year after their last album, Borrowed Heaven, an astonishingly fast time to follow-up such a successful release in the modern record industry. Yet the reason is very simple. Home is a collection of the songs that are most close to their hearts and an album they made not because they had to but because they wanted to.
''The liberating thing was that there was really no pressure on us to make this record,'' says Caroline Corr, the band's drummer who on this record also spends a lot of her time playing the traditional Irish percussion known as the bodhran. ''The record company wasn't asking us for an album so soon after the last one. We made it because we wanted to do it. That was a lovely feeling. There was nobody saying 'where's the hit single?' It's not that sort of a record. It's a side of the Corrs perhaps we've neglected of late. All over the world people tell us they love our Irish stuff and that they want to hear more of it.''
The Corrs have always included Celtic elements alongside their own songs, ever since their multi-platinum debut album, Forgiven Not Forgotten, opened with the traditional Irish instrumental Erin Shore a decade ago. And the moment when they break out the tin whistles and bodhrans to accompany Sharon's violin and Jim's guitar and recreate the atmosphere of an Irish pub session on some of the world's biggest stages has long been a highlight of their concerts. Home is the Corr's present to those who've asked them to do more of it.
Many of the songs on Home are an integral part of the rock-bed of Irish culture and musical identity, such as "My Lagan Love," "Moorlough Shore" and "Black Is The Colour." A couple of them - "Buachaill On Eirne" (Boy From Ireland) and "Brid Og Ni Mhaille" - are even sung in Gaelic. ''I used to sing them in the choir at school, so we've always known them,'' Andrea Corr recalls. "And it's such a beautiful, poetic language to sing in.''
Another song from the Home sessions "Return To Fingal" (a track that will be included in additional formats) celebrating one of the greatest of all ancient Irish kings, is said by scholars to be 1000 years old. Yet there are also 20th century compositions songs by the likes of Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott ("Old Town"), so that Home represents, literally, a millennium of Irish song.
''We've always blended our Celtic influences with the songs we write,'' Andrea Corr says. ''That's the root of one side of our music and our inspiration. It's a big part of who we are. We felt we owed it to ourselves and to the fans who complain every album that there's not enough of the traditional Irish element. We've definitely crushed that complaint on this record! Now people will probably say 'where's the pop?'
A major source of the material for Home was an old handwritten songbook owned by the Corrs' mother Jean, who died in 1999 and to whom the album, like Borrowed Heaven, is dedicated. ''She used to play every weekend in pubs with daddy and she'd written all these Irish songs out in a book," Andrea says. ''They're songs we've loved over the years and because our parents played them in their band, they're very special to us.''
Other songs came from different sources. Richard Thompson's "Dimming Of The Day" was a favourite from the version recorded by Bonnie Raitt. "Old Town" was a song they'd done before on their 1999 MTV Unplugged set. "Heart Like A Wheel," written by Kate and Anna McGarrigle, was a song Jim Corr had played with Dolores Keane in his days as a session musician. "I think Jim's musicianship on this record is outstanding," Caroline says. "I don't think he's ever really had full credit for that."
The initial impetus to make Home came form Caroline but Andrea, Sharon and Jim needed no persuading. ''I think it's something we all thought the Corrs should do at some point," Andrea says. ''And once we'd decided we wanted to do it, we didn't hang about. We got together at Caroline's house and started going through the songs with Jim at the piano and working out what suited us.
It's very earthy and raw. There's nothing arch about it. And we called it Home because it's just the truth, isn't it? That's the place it all comes from.''
The entire record, with production by Mitchell Froom, who worked on the last three Corrs album, and featuring the BBC Radio 2 Concert Orchestra and arranger Fiachra Trench, was rehearsed and recorded in a matter of weeks, rather than the months the group usually spends recording. The result is that the group has never sounded fresher and more natural. It does, indeed, sound like a band coming home.
And despite all their international chart success, the Corrs' roots remain firmly planted in Ireland. Born and raised as a close-knit family in Dundalk, they all played instruments from an early age. In 1990 they appeared in Alan Parkers film The Commitments when Caroline and Andrea were still in school. Before long they were gigging regularly around Dublin. Their break came in 1995 when on their first trip to America, they door-stepped top producer David Foster at a Michael Jackson session and asked for an audition. Foster was sufficiently impressed to agree to produce their first album, Forgiven Not Forgotten. Released in 1996 , it went multi-platinum in Ireland, Australia, Spain, New Zealand, Denmark and the UK and gold most everywhere else around the world.
Their second album, Talk On Corners, appeared in 1997, by which time the Corrs were in huge demand, appearing at a Christmas concert in the Vatican, selling out London's Albert Hall on St Patrick's Day, singing with Pavarotti, opening for the Rolling Stones and performing at the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games. Talk On Corners became the biggest selling British album of 1998 and at one point, their first two albums achieved the Beatles-like feat of occupying the top two places in the UK chart. Talk On Corners eventually went platinum or multi-platinum in 15 different territories and gold in countless others.
1999 saw an MTV Unplugged set before their third studio album, In Blue was released in 2000. It swiftly repeated the multi-platinum success of its predecessors and gave the band their first ever No.1 single "Breathless." The following year came a timely Best Of The Corrs that included such hits as "Forgiven Not Forgotten," "So Young," "Runaway," "Dreams," "The Right Time," "What Can I Do," "Breathless," "Give Me A Reason" and "Would You Be Happier."
Borrowed Heaven followed in 2004. Arguably their most sophisticated and accomplished album to date, it repeated the success of its predecessors and included such hits singles as the exuberant "Summer Sunshine."
Now we get to hear another side of their artistry. It's not the Corrs as we've never heard them before. But it's certainly the Corrs as we haven't heard enough of them. "The thing about these songs is that they tell stories. They're very evocative and they take you somewhere," Andrea says. "People wouldn't necessarily look at Irish music and think it's sexy. But I think it's incredibly sexy. It's like someone in Victorian clothes covered from neck to toe, which can be far more erotic than putting everything on display. That's the kind of sexy Irish music has."
Thanks to captainCorr (Mathias) for posting this at the CorrBoard.
"We called it Home because it's just the truth, isn't it? That's the place it all comes from.'' Andrea Corr, August 2005
Home is where the heart is. It's also the title of the album a lot of Corrs fans have been waiting for the band to make for a very long time - a magnificent collection of songs ancient and modern that fully reflects their Irish musical roots and Celtic influences, but delivered with a thoroughly contemporary sensibility.
It follows little more than a year after their last album, Borrowed Heaven, an astonishingly fast time to follow-up such a successful release in the modern record industry. Yet the reason is very simple. Home is a collection of the songs that are most close to their hearts and an album they made not because they had to but because they wanted to.
''The liberating thing was that there was really no pressure on us to make this record,'' says Caroline Corr, the band's drummer who on this record also spends a lot of her time playing the traditional Irish percussion known as the bodhran. ''The record company wasn't asking us for an album so soon after the last one. We made it because we wanted to do it. That was a lovely feeling. There was nobody saying 'where's the hit single?' It's not that sort of a record. It's a side of the Corrs perhaps we've neglected of late. All over the world people tell us they love our Irish stuff and that they want to hear more of it.''
The Corrs have always included Celtic elements alongside their own songs, ever since their multi-platinum debut album, Forgiven Not Forgotten, opened with the traditional Irish instrumental Erin Shore a decade ago. And the moment when they break out the tin whistles and bodhrans to accompany Sharon's violin and Jim's guitar and recreate the atmosphere of an Irish pub session on some of the world's biggest stages has long been a highlight of their concerts. Home is the Corr's present to those who've asked them to do more of it.
Many of the songs on Home are an integral part of the rock-bed of Irish culture and musical identity, such as "My Lagan Love," "Moorlough Shore" and "Black Is The Colour." A couple of them - "Buachaill On Eirne" (Boy From Ireland) and "Brid Og Ni Mhaille" - are even sung in Gaelic. ''I used to sing them in the choir at school, so we've always known them,'' Andrea Corr recalls. "And it's such a beautiful, poetic language to sing in.''
Another song from the Home sessions "Return To Fingal" (a track that will be included in additional formats) celebrating one of the greatest of all ancient Irish kings, is said by scholars to be 1000 years old. Yet there are also 20th century compositions songs by the likes of Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott ("Old Town"), so that Home represents, literally, a millennium of Irish song.
''We've always blended our Celtic influences with the songs we write,'' Andrea Corr says. ''That's the root of one side of our music and our inspiration. It's a big part of who we are. We felt we owed it to ourselves and to the fans who complain every album that there's not enough of the traditional Irish element. We've definitely crushed that complaint on this record! Now people will probably say 'where's the pop?'
A major source of the material for Home was an old handwritten songbook owned by the Corrs' mother Jean, who died in 1999 and to whom the album, like Borrowed Heaven, is dedicated. ''She used to play every weekend in pubs with daddy and she'd written all these Irish songs out in a book," Andrea says. ''They're songs we've loved over the years and because our parents played them in their band, they're very special to us.''
Other songs came from different sources. Richard Thompson's "Dimming Of The Day" was a favourite from the version recorded by Bonnie Raitt. "Old Town" was a song they'd done before on their 1999 MTV Unplugged set. "Heart Like A Wheel," written by Kate and Anna McGarrigle, was a song Jim Corr had played with Dolores Keane in his days as a session musician. "I think Jim's musicianship on this record is outstanding," Caroline says. "I don't think he's ever really had full credit for that."
The initial impetus to make Home came form Caroline but Andrea, Sharon and Jim needed no persuading. ''I think it's something we all thought the Corrs should do at some point," Andrea says. ''And once we'd decided we wanted to do it, we didn't hang about. We got together at Caroline's house and started going through the songs with Jim at the piano and working out what suited us.
It's very earthy and raw. There's nothing arch about it. And we called it Home because it's just the truth, isn't it? That's the place it all comes from.''
The entire record, with production by Mitchell Froom, who worked on the last three Corrs album, and featuring the BBC Radio 2 Concert Orchestra and arranger Fiachra Trench, was rehearsed and recorded in a matter of weeks, rather than the months the group usually spends recording. The result is that the group has never sounded fresher and more natural. It does, indeed, sound like a band coming home.
And despite all their international chart success, the Corrs' roots remain firmly planted in Ireland. Born and raised as a close-knit family in Dundalk, they all played instruments from an early age. In 1990 they appeared in Alan Parkers film The Commitments when Caroline and Andrea were still in school. Before long they were gigging regularly around Dublin. Their break came in 1995 when on their first trip to America, they door-stepped top producer David Foster at a Michael Jackson session and asked for an audition. Foster was sufficiently impressed to agree to produce their first album, Forgiven Not Forgotten. Released in 1996 , it went multi-platinum in Ireland, Australia, Spain, New Zealand, Denmark and the UK and gold most everywhere else around the world.
Their second album, Talk On Corners, appeared in 1997, by which time the Corrs were in huge demand, appearing at a Christmas concert in the Vatican, selling out London's Albert Hall on St Patrick's Day, singing with Pavarotti, opening for the Rolling Stones and performing at the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games. Talk On Corners became the biggest selling British album of 1998 and at one point, their first two albums achieved the Beatles-like feat of occupying the top two places in the UK chart. Talk On Corners eventually went platinum or multi-platinum in 15 different territories and gold in countless others.
1999 saw an MTV Unplugged set before their third studio album, In Blue was released in 2000. It swiftly repeated the multi-platinum success of its predecessors and gave the band their first ever No.1 single "Breathless." The following year came a timely Best Of The Corrs that included such hits as "Forgiven Not Forgotten," "So Young," "Runaway," "Dreams," "The Right Time," "What Can I Do," "Breathless," "Give Me A Reason" and "Would You Be Happier."
Borrowed Heaven followed in 2004. Arguably their most sophisticated and accomplished album to date, it repeated the success of its predecessors and included such hits singles as the exuberant "Summer Sunshine."
Now we get to hear another side of their artistry. It's not the Corrs as we've never heard them before. But it's certainly the Corrs as we haven't heard enough of them. "The thing about these songs is that they tell stories. They're very evocative and they take you somewhere," Andrea says. "People wouldn't necessarily look at Irish music and think it's sexy. But I think it's incredibly sexy. It's like someone in Victorian clothes covered from neck to toe, which can be far more erotic than putting everything on display. That's the kind of sexy Irish music has."
Thanks to captainCorr (Mathias) for posting this at the CorrBoard.
