When she appears on stage, Sarah McCoy has the effect of a tornado. Its volcanic tone pings the ear as much as it caresses it. An extravagant nature, she stages herself as a burlesque diva, playing roller coasters with her voice as much as her piano. His melancholy and his conviction, his petulance and his humor burn with the very fire of the blues, borrowing from rock its energy, from punk its anger and from jazz its musicality.
Compared to Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Amy Winehouse and Janis Joplin, the singer who writes all her titles has been calling superlatives since Blood Siren, her first album in 2019. Posing as a tormented Statue of Liberty on the cover, she expressed the hauntings of the old South of the United States in Boogieman (“the boogeyman”) or Ugly Dog (“ugly dog”). A raw skinned anger coupled with a provocative irony exploded in his sensational voice.
Renaud Letang directing, Chilly Gonzales producing
After this sensational landing in France, the American was transformed. The singer tames her eruptive voice to release its nuances and depth in her second album, High Priestess. A song charged with storms, melodies lined with synths, guitars, bass and drums, stripped down piano/voice or electro rhythms, metal guitars on a gospel melody… Surrounded by a fine team, including the engineer sound director Renaud Letang and Quebec composer Chilly Gonzales in production, this “High Priestess” of the blues adds to the gift of her miraculous timbre the pop expertise she found in France.
« I feel adopted by France, confides, in French, Sarah McCoy. When I debuted, I had no idea what the public was going to think. It was a shock to see how much everyone in France, without understanding English, loved my music. It was touching. On stage, I felt the fascination and the emotion of the spectators”. The 37-year-old singer flourishes so much in her adopted country that she boasts of its charms in a video made for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A seasoned performer and well-supported musician, Sarah McCoy has gained self-confidence. “ France allowed me to find my wings musically. And also, to meet an audience that listens to me”. The artist, born into a Catholic family of Irish origin, had a bumpy career. Subjected to a very strict upbringing by an authoritarian father with fixed ideas on the rights of boys and the duties of girls, she asserted herself through her art, first experienced as a fight.
“Weaponize me”, a song to break a toxic yoke
“I used to play in bars in the United States in front of drunks who yelled at me. So I was screaming too! I forced my voice, and it gave me power, she says. I knew how to use my vocal fuel to sing over people talking, refusing to listen, protesting… But I smoked two packs of cigarettes a day and drank quite a bit of whiskey. I sang two to three hours every evening. It was exhausting”.
From bars to clubs, including the famous “Spotted Cat” in New Orleans, she forged her convictions and wrote uncompromising songs, such as Weaponize Mean album peak High Priestess. In this title with a heady melody, muscled by the punch of the rhythm section, his voice rises little by little, releasing its power to break forever a toxic yoke. “It’s not my habit to sing going so slowly and I was wondering if I was going to disappear with these little notes at the beginning”, she says laughing.
“La Fenêtre”, his first song in French
In the studio, Chilly Gonzales trained her to find a balance between outburst and restraint. “ I realized that I could explore my voice and play with it. I had to tame it to find its sensitivity and not just make a blast – an explosion, I believe?,in the headphones, she says.
Sarah McCoy now sings intimate nursery rhymes, including Sorry For You or pop ballads like Take It All, from which the notes soar. All claim the right to difference and respect, except the delicious Forget Me Knot, written in the style of a traditional choir to celebrate spring. The artist even wrote a first song in French, The window, the story of a disappointed love, whispered before the gray sky of Paris. The fire is still burning, but the emotion is sweeter.