Singer-songwriter Sarah McQuaid in Ilkley, Middlesbrough and Sheffield
Cornwall-based singer/songwriter Sarah McQuaid is set to play concerts at Ilkley Manor House on September 12, Middlesbrough Little Theatre Club on September 13 and The Samuel Worth Chapel, Sheffield on September 15 as part of her autumn UK and USA tour.
As she prepares for the tour, Sarah is working hard on material for a new album to be recorded in the garage she’s in the process of converting to a home studio.
“I’ve been playing three of the new songs live during my spring tours in Europe, Ireland and the UK,” she says, “and they’ve been going down really well, so I can’t wait to finish off the rest of the half-written tracks I’ve got in the pipeline and then get properly stuck into pre-production for the album!”
She’s also continuing to make and release what she anticipates will be an ongoing series of “Garage Sessions” videos.
The first of these, “I’m Slowing Down As I Get Older (And That’s Good),” can be viewed on Sarah’s website and YouTube channel. It’s been mooted as the new album’s title track, and has a bluesy flavour that evokes Sarah’s roots in Chicago, where she spent most of her childhood before moving to Ireland and then on to Cornwall.
“And we’ve already filmed the next two,” says Sarah. “The first week of June was our last chance to do anything in the garage before work got under way on the roof repairs, so as soon as we got home from the spring tour we unloaded the van straight in there, set up our PA and stage lighting, and recorded two more songs before packing it all away again!”
The garage studio — where Sarah plans to write, rehearse and record all her future albums — is being made possible in part by a crowdfunding campaign that’s still in progress, with thank-you gifts for donors ranging from CDs and LPs to original artwork, online guitar lessons and free downloads for life to all Sarah’s current and future releases.
On top of all this activity, in May of this year Sarah quietly released Walking Into White Live In Rapid City, recorded back in 2015, when she was performing that year’s album Walking Into White live, track for track, as the first half of every show.
“My wonderful manager and sound engineer Martin Stansbury was sorting through some old hard drives when he stumbled on the files,” Sarah explains, “and after listening back to them and hearing how good they sounded, he suggested we go ahead and put the live version out as a ‘surprise album drop’ to mark the 10th anniversary of Walking Into White.”
Restored and mastered by Stansbury, the album is available only as a download via Bandcamp, and not via streaming services or as physical product.
It also features three bonus tracks from the second half of the Rapid City concert, among them a rare solo performance of “Crow Coyote Buffalo”, the title track of the album Sarah made with Zoë Pollock (writer and performer of 1991 hit single “Sunshine On A Rainy Day”) under the band name Mama.
Visit Sarah’s website – sarahmcquaid.com – for details of all tour dates, a link to the crowdfunder, all her albums, and videos including a 10-minute video intro to the artist and her music.