Sarah McQuaid

Sarah McQuaid is a Spanish-American singer-songwriter and guitarist whose work sits in folk and singer-songwriter traditions. Born in Madrid and raised in Chicago, she lives in rural England. She is known for moving between her own songs and a wide range of material, including 1930s Cuban jazz, 16th-century lute music and contemporary covers.

Early life and influences

McQuaid learns piano and guitar from her mother, who sings folk songs. She also cites an early influence from meeting her distant cousin Gamble Rogers, a singer, songwriter and storyteller, at her grandmother’s house in Indiana. From the age of twelve she tours the United States and Canada with the Chicago Children’s Choir. At eighteen she spends a year in France studying philosophy at the University of Strasbourg.

Career

McQuaid moves to Ireland in 1994 and lives there for thirteen years, working as a music journalist and magazine editor. She re-releases her debut solo album, When Two Lovers Meet, in 2007 and begins her solo career with a performance on Irish national television on John Kelly’s The View. She also plays major festivals including Sidmouth and Trowbridge.

Her second album, I Won’t Go Home ’Til Morning, appears in 2008. It focuses more on old-time Appalachian folk than her debut, while still including her own compositions and a cover of Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe”. In 2009 she releases Crow Coyote Buffalo under the band name Mama, a collaboration with fellow Penzance resident Zoë, with whom she co-writes the songs.

In 2010 her first two solo albums are re-released as a double-CD set in North America and reach No. 1 on both the album and artist Folk-DJ chart. Her third solo album, The Plum Tree and the Rose, appears in 2012. It is recorded in Trevor Hutchinson’s studio in Dublin and produced by Gerry O’Beirne. Compared with her earlier work, it contains more original material, alongside an Old Occitan dawn song, two Elizabethan pieces and a cover of John Martyn’s “Solid Air”.

Walking Into White and later work

Walking Into White is released in 2015. McQuaid travels from Cornwall, England, to Cornwall, New York, to record it with co-producers Jeremy Backofen and Adam Pierce, her cousin. The album is recorded and mixed in less than three weeks and includes songs shaped by Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons books. Other material includes “Jackdaws Rising”, built as a three-part round, a setting of “Canticle Of The Sun/All Creatures Of Our God And King”, and a version of Ewan MacColl’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”.

Writing, tuning and workshops

McQuaid is associated with the DADGAD guitar tuning and is described by one festival organiser as a “guitar queen”. She writes The Irish DADGAD Guitar Book, which The Irish Times describes as a help to aspiring traditional guitarists. She also leads workshops on DADGAD, songwriting, tour booking and related topics at festivals, music schools and venues in different countries.