Miss Paula Flynn
When Ballygowan decided to use Miss Paula Flynn’s version of Let’s Dance in summer 2007 she was catapulted into the spotlight as the song shot into the top 5. Like many who find fame thrust upon them, Paula had been performing for years, earning her dues as the onstage partner of folk punk poet Jinx Lennon with whom she still performs.
With the success of Let’s Dance the offers and the advice came from all sides: She should release an album of quirky covers; she should lose weight; she should leave university. With a wise head on her shoulders and enough experience not to be dazzled by the glitz on offer she chose to do things the way she felt was right. She wrote an album’s worth of material that she believes in, lost three stone in a year, but only because she felt that was the right thing for her and she stayed in university, picking up DCU’s Uaneen Fitzsimons Award along the way.
What you see onstage and hear on record is the real Miss Paula Flynn, a feisty young woman with a soulful voice who doesn’t feel the need to borrow someone else’s accent, who still uses her tape machine, wears vintage clothes and antique jewellery, collects old country records, drives a pickup and who’ll tell you her favourite band is the Carter Family.
Paula wanted to make an album that reflected who she is. Country music gets a bad name but her answer to this is that she is from the country. This is her music and her stories in her own voice. There’s a touch of sadness in that voice, young and fragile at times, old beyond her years at other times but many people have been touched by it. She has had men come up to her after shows to tell her she made them cry, and in true Paula style she’ll apologise.
She wanted her record to have the same vitality that you get on those old time recordings and decided to take her band into the studio to record the tracks live so after a month of rehearsals they went into the studio with Bell X1 keyboard player Marc Aubele and the album was recorded in a matter of days. The result is the most human record imaginable – real musicians playing real instruments with nothing added.
She lights up on stage with a mesmerising presence that she herself is seemingly unaware of, captivating the audience with the emotion in her voice. So we’re back to that voice. When Skins’ director Darren Lee heard it on the radio he ended up being late for an interview, waiting to find out who he had been listening to and immediately offering to direct the video for ‘Little Miss Forkhill’. In the end, making her way into people’s hearts like that is what she really cares about.
What The Press Have Said: “Miss Paula Flynn has a voice that is crystal clear and light as air, yet strong and expressive. Miss Paula Flynn sounds like that perfect pastry tastes. She makes you feel, she makes stories, and she tells stories. Grab a glass of milk or a cup of coffee and indulge!” – Boriss M. – Ouch! Magazine, New York
Thurs 29 Oct: The Black Box, Belfast
‘Miss Paula Flynn’ was released on CD and digitally on September 25th, distributed by Caballero/RMG.
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