Burning it up
Few modern artists have bridged the musical divide between Ireland and Australia as seamlessly as Marcia Howard. Her acclaimed new album was recorded in Dublin and features friends such as Mary Black and Tim O'Brien. It may be the best work yet from this former star of Aussie rockers, Goanna.
This, Marcia Howard must accept, is the rest day. Yesterday there was her daughter’s 12th birthday bash to get up and going; tomorrow she’s on stage at another music festival on Australia’s east coast.
But today is better. There was only the little matter of driving to the festival, unloading the kit, doing whatever sound checks she could, caring for her two kids and a couple of their stray friends that happened by, and answering those increasingly-pesky phone calls from a daft but well-intentioned reporter asking if she’s found that promised time for a chat yet. Easy. The salad day.
“I’m used to doing a bit of juggling,” says Howard, caught somewhere between an exhale and a chuckle. “There’s the music, then I also do all my own management, publicity and gigs. As a single mum, there’s a lot of juggling there.”
Too true. So it comes as an even sweeter surprise that out of this contented chaos can come an album as original, appealing and personal as Howard’s new release, Burning in the Rain. It is her second solo album, following her 2000 debut, Butterfly, and showcases Howard at her creative and musical best.
Burning in the Rain is an album that deserves to be explained as much as reviewed. It was recorded in Ireland and took more than two years to complete, with Howard flying across to Dublin whenever money, opportunity and school holidays fatefully coincided. Produced by Aussie ex-pat Steve Cooney, a man long familiar with bringing class Irish and Australian acts together, the 12-track work features some of the greatest names in modern Irish music. Among the most notable is Mary Black, who performs on most tracks. Kevin Burke, Tim O’Brien and Maria Doyle Kennedy of The Commitments are others who stand out among the contributors.
In a way, you could track the album’s origin back to 1991. Howard, fresh from 80s’ rock success with Goanna, the band that made an entire Aussie generation stop and think with their land-rights-lobby-cum-landmark-hit, Solid Rock, is running a B & B in her Victorian hometown of Port Fairy. Her brother, Shane, the most celebrated of the ex-Goanna artists, is supporting Mary Black on her tour of Australia. When they pull into Port Fairy for the town’s music festival, Mary gets put up at Marcia’s place. They hit it off.
“She and her band stayed at our B & B and we had a great session in the house,” recalls Howard. “[Later], Mary heard my first album, Butterfly, and sent me an email asking if I wanted to come and open for her at the Olympia in Dublin.”
That was 2002, so we’d better briefly connect the dots of eleven years. In between, Mary Black kept up close contacts with the Howard family – Shane joined her on more international tours, and Marcia, united by shared interests in motherhood, songwriting and performing, stayed a valued friend. At the Olympia, Howard soon found she was not just opening for Black, but also joining her on stage at the end of her sell-out shows for duets of songs such as Bob Dylan’s Forever Young. It’s no surprise that Howard speaks fondly of Black.
“I love working with Mary,” she says. “She is a really generous performer. How many people give you the opportunities that she does?”
“She allowed me to sing a verse of Forever Young on her latest [CD and] DVD, Live at the Olympia. We do it together at the end of the show. It was a great opportunity to be introduced to her audiences. She’s great fun, a great singer and performer, and just a fantastic person.”
As well as their recorded work on Forever Young, Howard and Black also combined to record Poison Tree for the A Woman’s Heart: A Decade On album. There, Howard shares the billing with such Irish luminaries as The Corrs and The Chieftains. Poison Tree is included on Burning in the Rain.
Black is also responsible for Howard meeting Cooney. He was playing in Black’s band for the Olympia gigs. He knew Howard’s work from Australia and urged her to record again. She credits his energy and enthusiasm with ensuring the album’s quality.
“Steve was fantastic encouragement. He told me I must do another album. I said to him, ‘How can I afford it?’ and he just said, ‘It’ll be right, we’ll do it.’
“He pulled together all the best Irish trad musicians, all those great people you hear on the album. It was a labour of love: he worked far and above the time he should have put into it. His belief was terrific. You are just blessed to have someone like that who believes in you.”
In many ways, Burning in the Rain is a homecoming for Howard. Born into a large, boisterous and musically-merry Irish family and community in southern Victoria, she says songs and melodies were always important to her. The chance to perform and record with great Irish artists in Ireland makes her very proud.
“I am a third generation Australian,” she says. “The area I grew up in down in southern Victoria is still very Irish. Most of the people from around home came from within a 50-mile radius of each other in Ireland back in the 1850s, from around Tipperary and Limerick".
“Mum played music and sang – we’d all be singing at the church and at weddings, parties, anything. There were seven siblings; [I’ve] five brothers and a sister. That’s how I learned to sing harmony – you couldn’t hear you own voice otherwise!”
Howard still lives in Port Fairy, which was originally called Belfast. Shane is nearby in Killarney, named because the local lakes reminded European settlers of Kerry. Another brother, Damian, performs in The Ploughboys and keeps close ties. The Howard’s corner of Victoria is a part of Australia where you can’t help but be influenced by Irish themes and culture.
“The folk tradition was what I grew up with,” she says. “By putting a rhythm section into Goanna, it made the music more rock-based, but it still came from very much a folk origin. Solid Rock had a social justice theme running through it.”
Howard’s aim now is to promote her album, both locally and in Ireland, in the upcoming months. She made a big impression supporting Brian Kennedy at his recent shows in Sydney and Melbourne. The plan is to take a family break for Christmas, then return to the Aussie festival circuit. On the horizon is a solo tour of Ireland, a place where she now feels very comfortable as an artist and a person.
“Subtlety is something only appreciated by a few here,” she says. “In Ireland, people really appreciate the songwriter and they come to listen.”
With Howard on stage, one trusts they’ll be very happy with what they hear.
Burning in the Rain is released by Newmarket Music and available nationally. The album can also be purchased online at
By TJ Cranley
