Singer/ songwriter Eddi Reader has been in music for over 30 years. Having first hit the limelight in the 1980’s with the group Fairground Attraction, enjoying huge chart success with debut No.1 single ‘Perfect’ and album ‘First of a Million Kisses’, Eddi went on to collaborate with The Eurythmics, The Waterboys and Gang of Four. Eddi’s subsequent solo albums, eight so far, have cemented her reputation as a powerful figure in music, Eddi spoke to Limerick Post this week.
THERE is an element of truth in every good story but that shouldn’t stand in the way of making it a great story. When I get to talk to Eddie Reader on the phone from Glasgow, it is immediately apparent that she knows how to tell a great story. And she did not lick that talent off a stone, she got it from her grandmother who grew up in Tralee, County Kerry before moving to Glasgow at the age of 19.
So it is for her grandmother, Madge Nammock, that Eddie sings her new single ‘Back The Dogs’. From the current album ‘Vagabond’, the single ‘Back The Dogs’ features a tape recording of her grandmother telling a story.
“I used to tape my granny on my tape machine telling old stories. I loved it. I could sit at her feet for ages and she would tell me all about Tralee.”
Eddi’s grandmother Madge Nammock left Tralee for Glasgow in 1921 when she was just 19.
“A Catholic Irish girl from Tralee, she managed to turn a Protestant Glasgow boy into a Catholic and they had eight children. It was quite unusual in the 1930s. I am assuming she was a powerful being. She would just tell me stories about the place and make it all magical in my eyes and I was able to travel with her through her stories.
“I recorded her telling me about she used to go up Rock Street in Tralee and go greyhound racing. She never admitted she would like a flutter, it was always pretty sweet. She would call her bet an ‘optimistic double’ when the dogs won, she came back down the street dancing with her sisters.”
Eddi would regularly run away from home to be with her grandmother. When she heard her stories she would travel in her mind to places in Tralee that maybe don’t even exist, like some dark rock pools where enchanted seaweed would make you beautiful forever or the day the devil came and stole all the men’s money when they should have been at mass, by playing poker with them on the street.
You can hear Madge’s voice in the coda of new single ‘Back The Dogs’ from a recording made by Eddi in 1985. It features on her eighth and very personal solo album, ‘Vagabond’ which was released to universal critical acclaim late last year.
Eddi recalls, “She was my best friend. She passed away in 1988. I usually listen to her voice to give me comfort. It was me and her. We were ‘the optimistic double’.”
On this tour Eddi will perform with John Douglas and Boo Hewerdine on guitars, Alan Kelly on piano accordion and Kevin McGuire on double bass. Eddi Reader plays Lime Tree Theatre on Friday February 20.
