A SINGER songwriter who tours in her own black hearse will be performing songs of unrequited love, lust and eloquent farewell at Dorchester Arts Centre this month.

Eleanor McEvoy, one of Ireland’s biggest music stars, will perform at the county town’s School Lane venue on Saturday, February 21.

Her career started as a session musician, including a long stint with The Irish National Symphony Orchestra.

However, it was whilst playing with The Mary Black Band that McEvoy decided to develop her own career, and in 1992 two opportunities came along that would change her life forever.

Mary Black and her record company manager/husband decided MvEvoy’s song ‘A Woman’s Heart’ would be a fitting title and lead track for the compilation they were putting together of contemporary Irish female performers.

Simultaneously, Tom Zutaut, the legendary A&R of Geffen Records, who signed Guns & Roses, Motley Crue and Edie Brickell, was on a scouting mission to Dublin. After hearing McEvoy perform at The Baggott Inn pub, he offered her a worldwide recording deal.

McEvoy was soon touring the world to promote her eponymous debut album for Geffen, which went on to sell 250,000 copies.

At the same time ‘A Woman’s Heart’ entered the Irish charts, selling over 750,000 copies. The album established McEvoy as a star, and remains one of Ireland’s biggest selling albums of all-time.

McEvoy released her latest album ‘Stuff’ to great acclaim in May 2014. An 11-track miscellany, Stuff was the result of a purposeful mission by Eleanor to find and release the ‘stuff’ the fans wanted but couldn’t find.

Eleanor says, “After I’d tracked down single mixes, audiophile tracks and songs I’d written and performed on other artists records, the project soon took on a life of its own, with more tracks recorded and everything re-mastered.”

In addition to performing a live session for BBC Radio 2’s Weekend Wogan show, the first single released from Stuff, ‘Please Heart You’re Killing Me’ was playlisted by the station for five weeks, during which time Eleanor embarked on a six-week sell-out tour of Australia, before returning to the UK and mainland Europe to perform further live dates.

McEvoy’s live performances are said to be intimate, emotional, uplifting affairs in which she explores soul, love and humour, using own compositions and interpretations from other songbooks in her unique style.

Contact Dorchester Arts Centre for tickets.