For Lisa O'Neill, from Ballyhaise, it'll be the third time performing at the Stradbally festival, but this time she's been upped to the main stage in the Body And Soul area..
The band will include Swedish Stina Sanstrom, Pixie Delamere from Dublin, Japanese harpist Junshi Murakami, Mossy Nolan from Galway on banjo and mandolin and Stephen Morgerley on double bass.
"I always liked listening to music, but it wasn't like it was a hugely prominent thing in our house," she says. "I got guitar lessons when I was about 15 and started singing then too... It was very enjoyable."
Lisa writes her own songs throwing in the occasional cover, naming Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Joni Mitchell, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, the Everly Brothers, Simon and Garfunkel and The Dubliners as influences, she describes her music as folk, pointing out that this means writing songs about the people. "Whether I'm writing about my own life or what I see around me, it is folk music, though some people would have different ideas about what folk is," says Lisa, adding that her influences are "storytellers".
Last August, she brought out her first album, Lisa O'Neill Has An Album.
Asked how it's going, she puts it simply: "We released it independently and we don't have many copies left, so I think that's good. It's selling and getting a nice reaction," she says modestly. Critics, however, are more lavish with praise."She's an exceptional talent who writes beautiful, funny and unusual folk songs which she delivers in her unique and awe-inspiring voice," was what the News Of The World said.
Lisa's busy writing new music at the moment, as well as doing gigs and working in Bewley's on Dublin's Grafton Street.
© Anglo Celt
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