Life Love Flesh Blood Info
Imelda May has found a new groove, exploring blues, soul, gospel, folk, rock, acoustic, cinematic drama and explosive balladry. She is setting a new course with the forthcoming (April 7th) release of Life Love Flesh Blood, the boldest, most personal and intimately autobiographical songs she has ever written. May has long been admired by her peers in the music community, including Bono, who says of May, “I love the girl she used to be but I think I love even more the woman she’s become. Still mischievous and playful, still a siren, but there’s an ache in her voice now that has me with a glass at my ear to the wall of her world where trouble has entered the room. There’s an erotic power here that’s not just feminine power. She makes truth telling an invitation to intimacy.”
Life Love Flesh Blood was produced by the legendary T Bone Burnett—a veteran of sessions with everyone from Bob Dylan to Elton John. “[T Bone] said he’d had his eye on me for a long time but I wasn’t ready for him,” laughs Imelda. “He had been watching from afar and liked what I was doing, then he heard my new demos and thought the time had come.”
Burnett raves, “I’ve never met anyone quite like Imelda May. She is full of life. When I first happened onto her music, she was a punky Irish Rockabilly singer with a great band. I was intrigued by her deep feeling for and understanding of that American art form, much of which, of course, had originated in Ireland. When I ran across her several years later, she had gone through a change of lives and was writing about it with a wild intensity and singing about it in the most open hearted way. I was inspired by her honesty and her generosity, and I continue to be intrigued.”
Imelda has been through a lot in the run up to recording. She became a mother for the first time in 2012 but her eighteen-year marriage ended in 2015. “Most songwriters use writing as a form of counselling. It’s therapy, like keeping a diary that a lot of people read.” In the past she would sometimes “hide things in my songs and twist them around.” But this time, she is telling it exactly how it is. “I wanted to go straight to the bone. I had a lot to write about. Life changes, falling out of and in love again.”
Imelda knew before she had even begun work on Life Love Flesh Blood that it was time for a change of musical direction. “I love the rawness of rockabilly but it’s just one of the many genres that inspired me. I also love my punk, blues and jazz and it was always mixed in there.” Her 2014 album Tribal, she says, “meant a lot to me because I knew I had got to the end of that road. I wanted to go as far as I could, so that I could step away from it.” It was her highest chart topping album worldwide, going to number one in Ireland, and top three in the U.K.
The new album was recorded in LA with a core trio of guitarist Marc Ribot (Tom Waits, Elvis Costello), drummer Jay Bellerose (Robert Plant and Alison Krauss) and bassist Zach Dawes (The Last Shadow Puppets, Mini Mansions) with guest appearances by guitar hero Jeff Beck and piano maestro Jools Holland. Such stellar talents don’t congregate by chance. Imelda’s reputation as a vocalist can be deduced from the company she keeps, performing over the years with Lou Reed, Smokey Robinson, Tom Jones, David Gilmore, Sinead O’Connor, Wanda Jackson, Lulu, The Chieftains, U2, Robert Plant and many more. Audiences have never heard her sing like she does on this album though, moving from tender intimacy to seductive sensuality to swaggering bluesy raunch.
Imelda May doesn’t just sound different. She actually looks physically different, stronger, more sensuously feminine and adult. “I always loved the ‘50s rockabilly style, but there was a point where I felt I was almost dressing up as Imelda May. It was as if I was getting into character for a gig. And I didn’t want to do that anymore. This is me.”
Tracklist Imelda May - Life Love Flesh Blood:
1. "Call Me"
2. "Black Tears" (featuring Jeff Beck)
3. "Should've Been You"
4. "Sixth Sense"
5. "Human"
6. "How Bad Can a Good Girl Be"
7. "Bad Habit"
8. "Levitate"
9. "When It's My Time" (featuring Jools Holland)
10. "Leave Me Lonely"
11. "The Girl I Used to Be"
Released 7 April 2017
Length 44:05
Label Decca
Producer T Bone Burnett
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