Carmel McCreagh's torch songs suggest slow dancing in the small hours, writes Mary Russell
Hard to put your finger on it. Is it the tilt of the head, the lazy smile, the long drawn-out sigh at the end of a phrase? Or the way she cosies up to the mike, like a cat that's had the cream but is after a little bit more? Maybe. "I want a little sugar in my bowl," she purrs. "I want a little sweetness down in my soul."
Carmel McCreagh releases her first album, Nice Girls, next week, and when I say Carmel McCreagh, think torch singer with a bit of slow dancing in a late-night bar. Or, if you want to pin her down, think jazz-blues crossover. "I used to do straight-ahead jazz," she says in her home, in Delgany, Co Wicklow. "We'd use jazz chords but then give them a different treatment." The we is herself and Fiachra Trench, who plays piano on the album - a treat in itself. He is also the producer and arranger of the whole thing. "What Fiachra has done is magnificent," she says, but then she would - they have been an item since they met in London in the 1970s.
By the 1990s Trench had established himself in the music world, having worked as an arranger, producer or performer on nine Van Morrison albums, as well as on the Pogues' Fairy Tale of New York, the Boomtown Rats' I Don't Like Mondays and many others.
In 1991, with their four children (two with each other and one each by previous relationships), they moved back to settle in the Delgany house, an 18th-century farmhouse, which now boasts a musicroom that is used by the whole family. (All three sons are drummers.) The way up to the musicroom is covered with gold and silver discs presented to Trench for his work on albums that have topped 500,000 sales.
Singing has always been an integral part of McCreagh's life. Brought up in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, she moved to England at the age of 11, when her mother went to join her father, who had been working there for some years. "My mother always sang," she says, "and even when she got Alzheimer's we sang together, because she never forgot the words."
This first album, Nice Girls - as in Nice Girls Don't Stay for Breakfast - has been a long time in the making. "We've been working on some part of it ever since we got together. Then we were at a party at Brian's house [ Brian Trench, brother of Fiachra] one May Day, and we met Keith Donald, who played sax with Moving Hearts, and we all got together. It was a leap of faith. I thought, holy moly, I'm working with professional musicians."
Her first gig was down the road in the Wicklow Arms, and some of the neighbours were amazed. "We thought you were just a mammy, doing the school run," they told her. Her day job had been in counselling - she worked for Relate for a time. "Now I just therapise people with music," she says, "and they all go home happy. Singing's my full-time job."
She practises three or four times a week. "I'll do seven or eight songs, working out where I'm going to place my voice.Things like that." She's taken lessons with Honor Heffernan. "I didn't know her, but I got in touch, and she's been marvellous. So free with advice."
One of things I want to know is does being, well, an older woman help? She doesn't think so. Not particularly. "I've heard young singers do blues well. What you have to do, though, is tap into a song, be a very good interpreter of it, and then make it your own."
People say she's sexy, but she doesn't see it like that. Though she does admit that each song is like a performance, as if she's in a play. Yes, I want to play the part of a cat who's got the cream.
But in fact, watching her perform - and that's best done in a small, dimly lit room where everyone has a glass in their hand - it's clear that she has developed a style that is her own. Many of the songs she sings are old favourites - I'll be Seeing You, Good Morning Heartache, Someone to Watch Over Me - but the treatment is her own. You don't think, ah, Nina Simone or Billie Holiday. You think Carmel McCreagh. She's got her own favourites, of course. "David Bowie, I absolutely adore him. Then there's Joni Mitchell and Elvis Costello, Leonard Cohen."
She pauses for breath, and I leap in to point out severely that she's only allowed to name three, because space is at a premium, but later she sends an e-mail with an add-on list: Shostakovich, Songs of the Auvergne, Lou Reed, Radiohead's Amnesiac.
She and Trench are about to fly to New York, where he is doing some arranging. They'll be staying at the Algonquin, and McCreagh can't wait. "It's still new. I didn't get into a plane until I was 26," she says.
Meanwhile, there's household stuff to attend to. A recent fall of rain means the garden is full of weeds. It's 4pm and, upstairs, her son Rian is still asleep. "Because he was working on his music all through the night," she says protectively, "and he has band practice this evening." Trench has made lunch - red-pepper soup and yogurt ice cream - and the dogs have been let out. Then I remember my last question: what kind of venue does she prefer? She goes a bit dreamy. "Bewley's Cafe Theatre is great. So is the Mermaid in Bray. Basically, anywhere that's intimate." Intimate? When you hear her, you'll know what I mean.
Nice Girls is released next Friday. Available from CDBaby.com and iTunes.co.uk