Alison O'Donnell, formerly of 1970s folk group Mellow Candle, is back with a new album, writes TONY CLAYTON-LEA
THE YEARS may have passed but still singer-songwriter Alison O'Donnell has managed to sequester for herself a little piece of Ireland in the music history books. It might not have seemed likely almost 40 years ago, when O'Donnell was a member of Irish folk band Mellow Candle. The band released one album, Swaddling Songs, to no great acclaim in 1972, but it has since become recognised as one of the pivotal folk-rock albums of the era.
Back then, in the early but heady days of a relatively young music industry – when the likes of UK music industry entrepreneur Simon Napier Bell and Blow Upactor David Hemmings could team up and sign a record deal with Irish teenagers – the thought of still talking about and singing songs by a band that many people have since rarely ever heard of was unthinkable.
“We were teenagers when we made the album,” recalls O’Donnell, “which meant that everything had to be in the now. You don’t think about five years down the line, so we never gave longevity a thought. One of my regrets is that it didn’t last longer than it did.”
There were the usual reasons for this, of course, one of which was the industry’s inability to properly market the band.
“Mellow Candle was the big thing for all of us. We were totally immersed in and submerged by it. We lived together for a short while as well. But with such a fragile sort of way of working, of not having enough income, things are bound to go horribly wrong. I mean, how do you support five people who don’t have money? You can do it for a short time – we temped, worked hard, but it was a very difficult existence, and we weren’t getting the gigs because no one knew how to categorise us, we just didn’t fall into any obvious area.”
Fast forward 30-plus years and O’Donnell is still around, still making music. Since returning to Ireland some years ago from the UK and raising a daughter, and a period of time spent in Flanders, she has slowly re-emerged as a leading, if somewhat heretofore unheralded, light of the psych-folk movement.
She can (and does) thank Mellow Candle for the recognition factor. Over the past few decades, the band has grown in cult status. The likes of psych-folk leaders Devendra Banhart and Espers have cottoned on to the scant Mellow Candle back catalogue, while O’Donnell herself has (and will be) collaborating with the likes of Espers’ Greg Weeks, low-key UK psych-folk act, The Owl Service, Celtic folk/metal act, Moonroot, Winnipeg-based psych-folk band, Mr Pine, and Ireland’s experimental unit, United Bible Studies. Does it bemuse her that she is now held in high esteem by members of a sub-genre?
“Well, Mellow Candle is the base point from which I have jumped into many different areas. As for the sub-genre thing – I’m actually in so many of them I don’t quite know how to define it. If someone asks me what I do I tend to give them a long list of things. As a songwriter I don’t define what it is I do – I wait until someone tells me what it is.”
Despite her skills as a singer, songwriter and collaborator (all of which can be heard on her latest, debut solo album, Hey Hey Hippy Witch), little things occasionally rankle, notably the fact that so few people know about the cross-decades, slow-filtering success of Mellow Candle.
“I have trouble with people not having a notion of who or what Mellow Candle was and, indeed, still is. Heads of radio stations don’t know about us, and trying to get the album played in some kind of ‘Classic Album’ slot is something that people don’t seem to be interested in. I find that a bit of a pity, because although our achievements might be viewed retrospectively it still means something. Why aren’t we a bit more proud of it?”
Another thing that niggles, perhaps inevitably, is the passing of time and the ageing process. “I’m 58, which is, let’s be honest, comparatively old. Sometimes it’s hard for people to get past that problem, even though I have a lot of energy. Each step to get into any niche of work has been incredibly hard work. I don’t have resources, and can’t make albums as beautifully as I would like to. It’s a slow process, but, you know, bit by bit. . .”
Hey Hey Hippy Witchis on release through Freeworld Records
