MARIA DOYLE KENNEDY SERIAL

“He has quite a high voice and I have quite a deep voice. I was very happy that our singing together happened.”Īs for Brady, she’s a long time admirer of his work and feels fortunate that he agreed to partner her on ‘Hola Luna’. I knew he would only agree to sing on that song with me if it moved him in some way.

He cares very much about what he does, in the same way as John Prine and Paul Brady, my other collaborators, do. Rice features on the title track, “a lullaby for grown-ups”. But then it wasn’t for nothing that influential Irish music monthly Hot Press once described Doyle Kennedy as “the finest voice this country has ever produced”. She joins an illustrious cast who have shared a mic with Prine, among them Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Irish DeMent and Bonnie Raitt. What an amazing singer and human being he is, like a big ball of grace on legs.” I know that sounds insane, but I really did! I knew I had to get the song to him, and was overjoyed when he called me to say that he loved it and would record it with us. “After we had written ‘Yes We Will’, I heard his voice singing in my head. The 10-song collection was co-written with husband Kieran Kennedy, and features duets with Damien Rice, Paul Brady and, on the jawdroppingly beautiful ‘Yes We Will’, the legendary John Prine. That’s set to change with Sing, her fifth solo release proper.

MARIA DOYLE KENNEDY SERIAL

Indeed the raven-haired Dubliner is probably more familiar as either Katherine of Aragon, nanny to the son of a serial killer or the estranged wife of the lovely Mr Bates from the three award-winning television series, The Tudors, Dexter and Downton Abbey. Yet as a singer, Maria remains one of Ireland’s best kept secrets. Sometimes melancholy, other times joyful, always passionate – elemental folk shot through with a potent soulful impulse. “I have found my voice,” sings Maria Doyle Kennedy on ‘The Silence’, a track from her beguiling new album, Sing.

Maria doyle kennedy