Maggie Reilly - Heaven Sent
RELEASE DATE: 11th November 2013
LABEL: RED BERRY RECORDS
DISTRIBUTION: RIGHT TRACK /UNIVERSAL
CAT # RBR008
SCOTTISH SINGING LEGEND MAGGIE REILLY TO RELEASE FIRST NEW ALBUM IN FOUR YEARS
Celebrated Scottish singer Maggie Reilly will release her new studio album, ‘Heaven Sent’, on 11th November 2013 on Red Berry Records.
An eclectic mix of contemporary songs and classic pop, with several nods to her Celtic background, ‘Heaven Sent’ is Maggie’s first album since 2009’s ‘Looking Back, Moving Forward’, which was a major hit for the Glaswegian singer across Scandinavia and Germany.
Maggie first made a name for herself fronting the Scottish blue-eyed soul outfit Cado Belle, releasing their self-titled cult-classic album in 1974. However, Maggie is best known for her singing & writing collaborations with the composer and instrumentalist Mike Oldfield, for whom she sang the vocals on the 1983 international hits singles ‘Moonlight Shadow’, ‘To France’ and the Hall & Oates hit ‘Family Man’, for which the writing of Maggie received an ASCAP award in 1984.
After having worked with the likes of George Harrison, Jack Bruce, Dave Gilmour, JJ Burnell, The Sisters of Mercy and Mike Batt, Maggie joined forces with the major German publishing house, Mambo, producing the album ‘Echoes’ in 1991, for which she wrote the massive worldwide hit ‘Every Time We Touch’ and the European hits ‘Wait’ and ‘Tears In The Rain’.
In 2006, after producing critically acclaimed albums of varying styles, Maggie returned to her Scottish roots with ‘Rowan’, an album of original songs, mixed seamlessly with traditional Scottish and English folk songs, before releasing her 2009 album ‘Looking Back, Moving Forward’.
On the subject of her new album, Maggie said, “At the end of 2012, when I started work on Heaven Sent’s title track, it felt like I was going back to a Cado Belle-type sound. At first I wasn't sure if that was what I wanted to do, but after I’d sung it through a few times it felt good - and it put a smile on my face. I knew then that the songs for this album would have a real sense of direction.”
Maggie then co-wrote two of album’s tracks, ‘Break Of Day’ and ‘Leanan Sidhe (Lay-Nan Shee)’, with her son, Fionn. Maggie said, “In 1996, when Fionn was a little boy, he appeared on my third solo album, ‘Elena’, and two years later contributed two drawings in the booklet for my ‘There And Back Again’ album, so to finally co-write two songs for ‘Heaven Sent’ was a wonderful experience,” adding, “‘Break Of Day’ is about a nightmare I had, and we wrote the song after I tried to explain to him what I thought it was about. In stark contrast, ‘Leanan Sidhe’ is about a fairy who has to enchant and persuade a human to stay with her!”
For the recording sessions, Maggie and her band booked into Rocket Science Studios in Glasgow. However, the upbeat mood of the sessions changed when Maggie’s beloved dog died. “It might sound daft to some people, but I was heartbroken and wrote ‘Fare Thee Well’ for her,” Maggie explains. “I kept bursting into tears when I tried to sing it, but then the rest of the band started telling me their own stories of having loved and lost a pet dog. Soppy I know, but it was very cathartic and brought us all closer together for the rest of the recording sessions. Yes, we Scots are a bunch of dog lovers!”
With the album coming along nicely, Maggie and the band took a short break to play the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow and a string of live shows across Europe.
On her return, Maggie’s band completed work on the music, but Maggie was suffering from a bout of writer’s block. “The final studio session was due to take place two days later and I still hadn’t completed the lyrics for three of the songs,” admits Maggie. “I just couldn't settle down to finish them, so I took my remaining dog for some long walks in the woods and, thankfully, the lyrics for ‘Juliette’, ‘If’ and ‘Cold The Snow Clad Mountain’ just poured out onto my notebook.
The musicians on the album include a mixture of guys who've played alongside Maggie for many years - Tony Soave (drums), Davie Dunsmuir (guitar), Ross Hamilton (bass, guitars, vocals), Brian McNeill (keyboards), Hugh Burns (guitars) and Stuart MacKillop (piano) – with traditional players Duncan Chisholm (fiddle) and Jarlath Henderson (uilleann pipes & whistle) complementing the line-up.
The first single to be released from ‘Heaven Sent’ will be ‘Juliette’, on 16th September, 2013. A love song written from a woman’s point of view, ‘Juliette’ is a classic slice of pop-rock that has, so far, enjoyed airplay from over seventy radio stations, signalling a strong return from one of Scotland’s most loved artists.
Maggie Reilly will be available for interview.
For further information please contact Dave Clarke at:
Phone: + 44 (0) 7966 557774
E-mail: dave@planetearthpublicity.comWeb: www.planetearthpublicity.comTwitter: @PlanetEarthDC