IT'S A rare Mother's Day that singer/songwriter Eleanor McEvoy is actually at home in Ireland for but this Sunday she will be treating a Belfast audience to a long-awaited performance at the Black Box.
The prolific songwriter whose hits include A Woman's Heart and Sophie will be showcasing her latest album Naked Music as well as a few old favourites.
"It's funny that Mother's Day happens on different days all over the world, so I'm not always in the same place as my daughter when it occurs and every now and then I get this lovely message from her which is great. It's nice to be home for it," McEvoy says.
"I'm really looking forward to the Black Box. It's always nice to play at an event like that as you find people sometimes come as it’s a special night for them. I definitely do a few songs to do with that in mind, being a mum myself.
"I will do most of the stuff from the new album and also some from the back catalogue. Of course A Woman's Heart is a favourite and I always do it, particularly in Belfast.
"I love playing Belfast – there's always a great audience and a great reaction."
Naked Music, with most of the tracks solely written by McEvoy – with a few notable collaborations such as one with Lloyd Cole, Dreaming of Leaving – is very much a musical paring down for her.
"I wanted to take the songs back to their bare bones and wanted to strip them right back and see if they would stand up as songs in their own right with no bass or drums or brass or string section – that was the intention," she explains. "But then I ended up working with an artist called Chris Gollon who ended up painting a lot of paintings inspired by the songs on the album, so that was an interesting one for me.
"Chris did 25 paintings and we decided to continue and produce [Naked Music] The Songbook where we have the sheet music for the songs on one page with the painting inspired by the song on the other page.”
Both the painter and the songwriter seem to be drawn to flawed women, which is probably one of the reasons why McEvoy's song resonates so strongly with women.
McEvoy adds: "Chris tends to paint women who are quite flawed. We tend to see images of women all the time that are perfect, airbrushed. I never sit down to write a song from a woman's point of view but I always do. But it's never conscious and I'm always surprised when I look down at the results and think 'I've done it again'."
Currently touring, McEvoy is also working in the studio, with Dave Ratheray of The Beautiful South.
While she headlined to an 80,000-strong audience in Dublin in 1995 to welcome Bill and Hilary Clinton to the city, McEvoy says her big thrill is the letters and comments she gets from women in reaction to her song Sophie which is used in treatment centres in Ireland to help people, mainly women, suffering from anorexia.
"That really makes me feel great," she says.
Despite her busy schedule, she never tires of touring.
"I like waking up in a different city every day; it’s very varied. I'm in Edinburgh today, I'll be in Dublin the next night, then Dundalk and then Belfast. I do what I do on four different continents and I love it."
:: Eleanor McEvoy performs her show Naked... Live at the Black Box, Belfast, on Sunday March 26 (tickets from blackboxbelfast.com). The album Naked Music is out now.
