While I am spending the semester studying at University College Cork (known as UCC), I’m not living on campus. Instead, I’m living down the River Lee a ways, in the city center. My street, Oliver Plunkett Street, is the main avenue of pubs in the city center, and can always be expected to be full, lively and loud every day of the week (with the possible exception of Sunday).
Because there are so many pubs on the street, many local artists play them in what could be likened almost to a local tour. One such artist who played a couple of pubs on consecutive nights this week was songstress Elly O’Keeffe. O’Keeffe played at both Crane Lane (which I wrote about last week) and The Oliver Plunkett, where I saw her.
The two-storied Oliver Plunkett, perhaps more than any other pub I’ve been in so far this quarter, takes on the character of whichever musician is playing there that evening. If a band is playing rowdy Irish folk songs, good luck trying to get around on the floor. If a more mellow singer-songwriter is playing, the pub can be a great place to sit and talk with music in the background.
Which brings me back to Elly O’Keeffe, a songstress with a musical feistiness and a set of lungs to go with it. Though many in the pub treated her performance as background music for a conversation, it was extremely rewarding for those who stopped to listen to her set.
Her voice was so seamless in transitions from upper register down to lower notes that it was hard to believe she had no voice breaks. It was also deeper than most prominent female singers today.
I’m going to make a comparison here, and this should give an indication of how much singing talent she has. She sounded quite a bit like Adele.
There. I said it. It’s out in the open. And while O’Keeffe didn’t quite belt it like Adele – most of what she played that night were softer songs with the occasional bolder tune – she’s got soul and some serious singing chops to go with it.
Her song choice for the evening was spectacular as well, playing a mix of original songs and a wealth of wonderful covers (“Catch the Wind” by Donovan and “Last Request” by Paolo Nutini being just two examples). In addition to respecting the original character of the song, these covers took on their own form with the help of O’Keeffe’s vocal versatility.
Her debut full-length CD is on the way (she had a couple of hard copies for sale, but it hasn’t yet hit iTunes), and that’s an album to look forward to. But until then, listeners should definitely head over to iTunes and download “Paranoia,” a great single she released in 2010 that is a little bit Florence Welch and a bit Adele. And while it’s not a particularly happy song, it’s arresting because of O’Keeffe’s beautiful vocal delivery, filled with both longing and a sense of loss: “So hard to concentrate / Can’t seem to find my faith / It’s messing up my mind.”
Or you can head over to her MySpace, where she has a few other tracks uploaded. It’s well worth a look.
And while the wait for her debut album continues, I’ll be traveling among more pubs of Cork, looking for more great local artists to write home about. But I’ll be checking iTunes periodically, because when Elly O’Keeffe’s debut album hits the market it’s going to make a splash.
Email Bain at abain@media.ucla.edu if you want to hear more about that Irish jig.