A LITTLE over three years ago Mara Carlyle, who grew up in Ludlow, was thanking her lucky stars for her good fortune and preparing to release a new album with EMI.
Then a change of management at the record label saw the dream crash and a legal nightmare begin as Mara tried to get her unreleased album back.
The time and effort this involved brought her to the brink of giving up not the day job working with the young homeless, but the musical career she’d worked at for years.
“It was very difficult,” she recalls a couple of months after the acclaimed release of Floreat, the album she finally reclaimed from EMI.
Originally entitled Nuzzle, the new title reflects Mara’s change of mood.
“I felt less playful and Floreat means ‘let it flourish’ which seems more appropriate,” she said.
Mara, who can be heard on November 18 as part of Crunch 2011 at The Globe at Hay, also saw her music attract widespread attention last year when her song Pianni was used in an Ikea ad featuring dozens of cats, the video of which has attracted more than 1.6 million hits on YouTube.
Mara has a growing number of high profile fans – she has recorded duets with Willie Mason and Will Young among others, appearing as support for the latter at a number of gigs and performing with him at Hay Festival a couple of years ago.
She recently recorded a live session, including saw playing, for Jamie Cullum’s BBC Radio 2 show.
The show, which features a duet with Cullum, will be broadcast on November 22.
To book for Crunch 2011, call the box office on 01497 821762 or click below
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