How It’s New York: Susan McKeown’s new CD Belong is her most American yet, really much of it about living in NYC. There’s a song called “Lullaby of Manhattan,” and one called “On the Bridge to Williamsburg.”
How It’s Irish: Susan is a Dubliner, and has special guests who are Irish on the CD, which is Susan’s 11th (her third of original music), including Declan O’Rourke.
Susan is playing tonight at 92YTribeca, 9 p.m. We have some video from the new CD! We’ll be going; stay tuned for our coverage!
We’re a big fan of Susan’s and have put up a few articles about this CD in particular:
Mike Farragher said in “Susan McKeown ‘Belongs’ in Your Collection” that the new CD
“blends folk, acoustic blues, Country kickin’ beats, and slippery jazz to make a perfect blend for your lazy Sunday morning. “
We also spoke to Susan in July, when she was making the CD, and its working title was Stars & Stripes. She told us then why the new CD sounds American:
“I’m just hearing songs that way – I’ve been here long enough and I love roots music. They’re mostly love songs – or at least, about relationships.”
And yesterday The Wall Street Journal had a rather huge article about Susan, by Tad Hendrickson, titled “An Irish Expat Flaunts Her American Roots.”
Like so many immigrants before her, she’d left Ireland in search of a new life, a new narrative. “I was 23 and I’d already been on the show that is the ‘Letterman’ of Ireland, which was great,” Ms. McKeown recalled recently at an East Village restaurant. “But I needed to get out because it was very limiting, both as a woman and as a musician.”
In that piece, Hendrickson also got comments from Frank London, with whom Susan has sung in The Klezmatics, and from English folk-rock icon Linda Thompson.
