Emily Maguire is an independent singer-songwriter from London based on a farm in Australia. Originally a cellist and pianist, she discovered guitars and Bob Marley and when illness forced her to give up work, she started writing songs. A few years later, back on her feet and fed up with grey skies and concrete, she got a phone call that put her on a plane to Australia where she decided to give up her flat in London for a shack made from recycled wood, tin and potato sacks in the hills behind the Sunshine Coast.
Nowadays she runs her own record label with partner Christian Dunham, tours the UK, practices the dharma, and makes the famous Coolabine feta goats cheese to finance her music. She still plays the cello and piano, and loves classical music in the shack on Sunday mornings. She has written and recorded string arrangements for other artists and for her own albums, borrowing instruments to record all the violin, viola and cello parts herself.
In 2004 she was commissioned to record her own version of Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ for the 'Electric Storm' audio-visual installation on London’s South Bank. That same year she released her acclaimed debut album 'Stranger Place' and did her first UK tour. She now spends part of the year touring the UK with bass player Christian, and the rest of the time writing, recording and making goats cheese on the farm in Australia.
In 2007 she opened the Cambridge Folk Festival followed by a 32-date tour of the UK and was just about to get back on a plane for Australia when she was featured on Radio 2 and offered the chance to tour the UK and Ireland with Don McLean. She cancelled her flight and went back on the road - this time instead of pubs and folk clubs, she was playing the biggest concert halls in the country including the Royal Albert Hall. She loved every minute of it.
Best-known for her strong, thought-provoking lyrics and "the kind of vocals that will melt your stereo" (Scene Magazine), Emily’s voice is striking, her music sparse and vital, and above all she tells it how it is. She did a live session for the Bob Harris show on Radio 2 in Nov 2007 and her songs have been getting airplay on Radio 2 and many regional radio stations across the UK and Australia.
Her new album 'Keep Walking' has been acclaimed as "music and lyrics of an artist that goes leaps and bounds beyond... a decades and genre spanning piece of work that should be admired as a whole as much as for each individual song" (IndepenDisc).
'Keep Walking' was released through Universal in the UK and Ireland at the end of November 2007, and is available in HMV, Virgin and all good music shops. Emily's debut album 'Stranger Place' is still available through her website at www.emilymaguire.com. You can also download songs from both albums from iTunes. Have a look and a listen and if you like what you hear, let her know you’re out there.
