Joan Healy, music in the moment

Singer-songwriter Joan Healy will be performing in Fallons on Friday 29 December.

It took the pandemic to get Joan Healy out of her bedroom and onto the streets, writes Brian Byrne. 

OK, that needs context. It was during the pandemic that this Newbridge-based singer-songwriter first began performing in public, as a busker outside the Whitewater Shopping Centre. Three years later she is arranging and promoting her own venue gigs, has three of her own songs professionally produced and available on Spotify, and is living two tandem lives that she loves.

Joan's genre is folk and blues, the latter very much from years of listening to Nina Simone and Ella Fitzgerald in her bedroom, singing their songs for herself as well as writing her own. "Theirs were the kind of voices I grew up into," she says. "I could really feel their power and sweetness, and they opened up their hearts when they were singing, which is something I try to emulate."

All that stayed as performances in her bedroom while Joan developed her daytime career as a primary teacher. She works in a Celbridge school, which she loves, and singing with the children is an important part of her class. But going out in front of a live audience wasn't part of her life until a friend convinced her to go busking in Newbridge while the country was locked out of live entertainment. "It was something I had always wanted to do, but I didn't have the courage. My friend brought me to a place and he said, 'sing here, it's a perfect busking spot'. I remember in the back of my mind thinking it was all a bit mad, but I went for it anyway." 

She sang something — "it may have been just a scale to start" — and then recalls the realisation that, yes, she could busk. "I remember a feeling of great relief, that I was getting through the fear I'd had, of people making fun of me in the street. And I was enjoying it." From then it became a regular thing in Joan's spare time, meeting other buskers and musicians, a community which encouraged her "and showed me the hot spots." Later she busked in Dublin's Grafton Street, finding a different experience where people didn't stop and chat. "They weren't interactive, seemed too busy to stop. I much preferred Newbridge, where people would come over and say 'thank you' or that they liked my voice. They would gather around, and a set was a kind of event, about something happening."

The street as a place of performance has its 'magical' side, Joan says. "It was really cool, because I was used to being on the audience side of buskers, enjoying what they were doing. Now I had become the one who brings that magical experience to others. It is really fun, and really nice to share music. It is joyful, and people are really generous." The street gig also has its darker side, though, where a lone singer has to be their own security, protecting themselves, their equipment and their money from opportunistic predators. "But from busking I learned that I loved to share music — it's really cool to see people connect with it, or with me, and that it might become a memory with their families of a particular day."

From the busking, Joan moved on to Open Mic nights in Dublin, getting spots in festivals, and performing in spaces like the Moat in Naas, the Brady Sessions in Terenure, and regularly in the Tuesday singer-songwriter nights in Darkey Kelly's in Dublin's Fishamble Street. She has also been support in gigs by Mundy and Megan O'Neill. Along the line, she decided to do voice training. "Both in singing and as a teacher, I use my voice a lot, and there were times when I lost it just from speaking. So I went to a vocal coach, to learn techniques and to protect my voice so that as a singer I could sustain an hour or two hours of performing." She also took the music study and exams trail, and got to Grade 5 in Musical Theatre. "That made me think about what I was singing, and about my expressions and body movements. Now I'm communicating a story instead of just singing a song."

Joan has worked with other musicians, but her preference is as a solo performer. And her move into music venues as opposed to busking and bars — "I don't really like singing in pubs, I don't like the drink scene" — has changed how she presents her show. "I sing without a microphone, I only use a mic between songs to introduce them. I also mix singing with my guitar to doing songs a cappella — I like to show people what a voice is like on its own. And, as the only one on the stage, I'm enjoying it all as a challenge to myself."

Another challenge has been to completely organise her own gigs, renting the venue, doing the marketing, making the posters and tickets, and promoting a gig through messages, family, friends and colleagues. It goes against the whole concept of relying on a promoter or manager to ensure money is made. "I've kind of got used to the process now. For me it's not about the money, it's about sharing the moment. Of people enjoying the experience and looking back on it and saying it was nice."

Renowned Newbridge-based Colm Cahill has produced some of Joan's own music recordings, and the results, which can be found on Spotify and Youtube, show just how much good talent he's had to work with. That bedroom mentoring with Nina Simone and Ella Fitzgerald has arguably put Joan Healy on a road to whatever level of success she might wish for. 

You can hear for yourself on Friday 29 December, in Fallons iconic back room in Kilcullen, from 8pm. Tickets €10 on the door or from the staff at Fallons.

LISTEN: Joan Healy, Music in the Moment

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