Rootsy sound of the Henry Girls for Arts Festival

Date Published: 04-Jul-2012

The Henry Girls play Monroe’s Live on Friday July 20, as part of this year’s Galway Arts Festival. The folk and roots band is fronted by three sisters – Lorna, Karen and Joleen McLaughlin – who hail from Malin in County Donegal. Why did they call themselves The Henry Girls when their surname is McLaughlin?

“Well, we just thought that McLaughlin was a bit long winded!” says Lorna. “Up here in Donegal, every clan gets a family nickname so ours is Henry, after our grandfather. And we thought The Henry Girls was a bit snappier!”

The Inishowen Peninsula is a popular spot for traditional music, which would have been an early influence on Lorna and her sisters.

“There was a lot of traditional in the house, growing up,” she says. “I remember one time having a session over in Granny’s house with The Dubliners there. And then some members of Altan were in our house, [as well as] Four Men and A Dog. That’s the scene around here, folk and traditional.”

Yet there’s a swing to The Henry Girls sound that suggests they aren’t hemmed in by any one genre.

“Our Mum’s really into singing, she was always a fan of jazz music – she would’ve listened to a lot of Ella Fitzgerald,” says Lorna. “She’s not a professional musician, but she would’ve sung a lot around the house. I think that passed on to us.”

The Henry Girls also add some American folk to the mix, and plan to return to the US soon, having done a brief tour there.

“We’ve been listening to loads of bluegrass in the past three or four years,” Lorna says. “We did collaboration with The Fox Hunt, a bluegrass band from for Virginia, for the Earagail Arts Festival, a couple of years ago. We wrote songs together and did a tour around Ireland, and also went to Celtic Connections in Scotland with them.”

Last year The Henry Girls released their fourth album, December Moon, an ambitious offering that will appeal to fans of more commercial folk acts like The Dixie Chicks, while also remaining rootsy.

“It was recorded this time last year in Glasgow, in a new studio, by Calum Malcolm,” says Lorna. “He’d be a well known producer, particularly in Scotland – Clannad, Wet Wet Wet, Simple Minds and The Blue Nile.”

Malcolm’s experience proved vital to the making of December Moon.

“He was fantastic to work with,” Lorna says. “It was the first time in a while we worked with a producer, and there’s such a difference when you’re working with somebody, to give you that direction. When you’re sisters, you’re trying to keep everything equal; it’s hard for us to direct each other.”

To help them explore their jazzy inclinations, The Henry Girls called on an in-law.

“Karen, the fiddle player, her husband is a saxophonist,” says Lorna. “He’s part of a brass ensemble and they played on the record as well. It was quite a lot of work, but it was really worth it.”

The Henry Girls may draw on the folk tradition, but they are not relying on old songs to make albums. December Moon sees them take a step forward as songwriters.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.