It’s been one hectic rollercoaster year for Dublin soul diva Laura Izibor. And yes, she’s already written the material for her second album and picked the song she wants to have sung at her otherwise unplanned wedding! Jackie Hayden caught up with her in New York for this exclusive interview for MQ.
Laura Izibor’s debut album for Atlantic Records, Let The Truth Be Told, was released to considerable public and critical acclaim in the summer of 2009, culminating in her being nominated for a Soul Train Award. She’s attracted sincere nods of approval from soul royalty like Aretha Franklin and Al Green. Outstanding tracks like ‘Don’t Stay’, ‘From My Heart To Yours’ and ‘Shine’ heralded the arrival of a major soul talent, one who has set the American music industry alight and proved that Irish musical talent isn’t confined to boyband pop, rock and trad acts.
Izibor crackles with down-to-earth good humour, but even she admits it’s been quite hectic this past while. “It’s been a fantastic year, getting the album out and it being so well received. It’s been great fun too. There were so many times I wondered if it would ever get to this at all. Now, I’m really lovin’ it. It’s so much sweeter. It’s really organic. I enjoy working hard, doing all the promo stuff which initially I thought was going to be a bit of a drag. In fact, after the first three months of promo in the USA, I was ready to quit because it wasn’t fun. If you ask The Script or anybody else they’ll tell you that promo work in the USA is really a hard slog, non-stop rushing from place to place without a let-up. But then the album came out and people started coming to my shows and writing and saying nice things, and that’s when I realised what all the promo had been about. Thinking that I was going to be touring with all these great musicians made me see that this was what I’d been aiming for from way back. Besides, I’m learning about the business all the time. I’ve just done gigs in New York and Boston, and I’ve got a bunch of headline gigs coming up in Orlando and Miami in Florida, London and Paris and so on. So it’s busy, busy, busy, just the way I like it.”
She was also invited to perform at the beginning of November for the prestigious Endeavor charity event in New York at the behest of Warner’s biggest cheese Edgar Bronfman. It’s a heavy-duty show that traditionally attracts an audience of penguin-suited, lavishly-dressed millionaires. Was she fazed by this at all?
“Well, corporate shows are always tough, but this one really rocked and we actually managed to get them up off their seats. I was later told that in the five years of the event nobody had managed to get them off the seats! But when you’re playing with such great musicians for an audience who are obviously enjoying what you do, you’d have to be mad not to love doing it. I’ve even sometimes lately actually asked myself: is it supposed to be this much fun? And we get paid as well!”
There have been setbacks for her along the way, and when I suggest she might have a stubborn streak, she laughs. But did she ever think of just giving in? “I think it’s more than just being stubborn. I’ve never had that stars in the eyes thing that some people get. It was more like ‘feck the lot of them’ when things would go wrong. I just want to do this thing no matter what and to enjoy it, and that’s exactly what’s happening now,” she told MQ.
With musical influences that include such soul legends as Stevie Wonder and Roberta Flack, Izibor is equally clued in to the contemporary scene as well. When asked what she has on her iPhone, she replies, “I just love my iPhone! But my trumpeter was teasing me the other day because I just added ‘I Ain’t Missing You’. I also just bought ‘Fever’ by Elvis Presley. That’s my favourite version of that song. I’ve got Corrine Bailey Rae who I love, especially ‘Like A Star’. That’s going to be my wedding song. I haven’t actually got a wedding planned or anything. Maybe in about ten years! But I have the music sorted!”
For Let The Truth Be Told Izibor eschewed collaborations, preferring to keep it focused on her own talent. But how is album two shaping up with new songs?
“I’m just so looking forward to it. I have all of the songs already written and I’m hoping to have some collaborations with some interesting artists on it. Nothing has been confirmed as yet. I went home to Dublin a few weeks ago and without thinking about it I straight off wrote what will probably be three singles for the next album. There’s no doubt that being back in the familiar surroundings of family and the city I grew up in helps that creativity. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve written some good songs while away, but they just come out of nowhere when I’m at home. It must be the comfort of being at home. I write nearly always on the piano, but occasionally on the guitar.”
In terms of marketing, has Izibor a sense of her audience? “Definitely now much more than when I started out. Having been through the first album, I think I now have a strong idea as to where I fit in the music business and who my core audience is. I have a much clearer idea of the direction I need to go, and that’s exactly where I’m going.”
Laura was only 17 and in geography class when she got the call telling her that she was going to support James Brown. How did the rest of her class react to this? The disarmingly frank Izibor tells me, “To be honest, I didn’t really know which James Brown it was. When I realised who it was, I was out of there! I didn’t have time to worry what the other girls thought. I was out of there so fast!”
That focused impulse and unerring instinct reflects a woman far more mature than her years suggest, an artist who has a firm grasp of who she is and where she’s going. And that place is called Up.
