Culture That Made Me: Niamh Kavanagh on Fargo, Wuthering Heights and Maria Callas
Niamh Kavanagh includes the film Fargo, and opera great Maria Callas, among her touchstones.
Born in 1968, Niamh Kavanagh grew up between Finglas and Glasnevin, Dublin. In 1993, she won the Eurovision Song Contest at Millstreet, Co Cork, singing ‘In Your Eyes’. In 2017, she won Celebrity MasterChef on TV3. She lives in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim, with her guitarist husband Paul Megahey and two sons.
The Illegals with Niamh Kavanagh, 8pm, Saturday, 29 April, The Everyman, Cork. See: www.everymancork.com.
Maria Callas first came onto my radar when I was young. She’s widely regarded as one of these dramatic sopranos who lived this wild life. She was very involved with Aristotle Onassis, who was married to Jackie Kennedy. I was fascinated by that side of her. There was probably better sopranos, but you felt she lived her songs to the full. Her life reflected that, living this Greek drama on the side. It was very much who she was. It was a great learning thing for me to see how you channel who you are emotionally into music.
Aretha Franklin is the queen of soul. She was amazing, but there was lots of brilliant vocalists around that time. The thing that sets her aside is that – like Maria Callas – she lived her life, her emotions, through how she sang. If she thought one note would do it, she didn't bother with two. You never felt any effort in Aretha. To watch her, you knew she was living it, but she wasn't killing herself while she was doing it. It always seemed effortless. It's because the truth was always in there. She was so in control of herself while she sang.
I read Wuthering Heights in school. My English teacher ignited this love in me of really getting into a book and understanding it, understanding all sides of the human psyche, and what you might get from a book. On the surface, it’s a sweeping love story between Cathy and Heathcliff, but there's more going on in there. It's like a soap opera. It brings you on this great journey of different human conditions and responsibilities. I reread it every five years. I discover something new every time.
I discovered the Eagles properly in my mid-teens. They were already split up, already this mysterious band who created a back catalogue of great songs. They were a funny mix. They had great country songs – I love country because good country has amazing soul – but then they also had those lovely songs like Wasted Time, Desperado, songs that you could really vocally open out and enjoy the experience of singing them. They were also in the male register. I loved that because it pushed another part of my voice.
The first time I heard Bonnie Raitt sing I Can't Make You Love Me in the National Stadium in Dublin was in the early 1990s. It’s probably one of the best love songs about letting go. I don't think I took a breath the whole way time she took to sing it. I was so invested in this woman. From the second she came out on stage, and said, “Let's smack this puppy against the wall”, I was ohmigod I love you!
I love the Coen Brothers’ movie Fargo with Frances McDormand. After watching it in the cinema, I was thinking, Ohmigod, I'm in love with this woman – Frances McDormand. She was amazing; everybody was amazing in it. There’s almost cartoon violence going on in it, when the body is put in the wood chipper and so on, but then you have Frances McDormand’s character, and [adopting a Minnesota accent] she’s kinda funny looking. I love when a movie completely surprises me. It’s an outstanding film.
Ella Fitzgerald is the rock that it was built on for me, as far as jazz divas go. Her voice was immaculate. Her storytelling was amazing. She had that casual quality where she just sang and didn’t think about the mechanics of what she was doing. She could “scat” with the best of them, where she would do bebops. It’s a rhythmical thing where she improvised a vocal. If you watch her performances, the musicians are completely with her. They love what she does. She was phenomenal.
The New York Rock and Soul Revue: Live at the Beacon is an album that fell into my lap in the early 1990s. It has Donald Fagan, Michael McDonald, Phoebe Snow, Boz Scaggs, all coming in to sing soul classics. That CD changed my life. It’s a live concert in New York. Donald Fagon is the heart of Steely Dan. After hearing it, I went away and loved all of what Steely Dan did. A lot of Steely Dan music is magnificently created. It’s almost manicured. Very technical. Very far out, very jazz-based. There’s a sense of humour and irony in their writing. The New York Rock and Soul Revue has all of that, but it has that really R&B, loose soul thing. Go and listen to it!
I am passionately devoted to Terry Pratchett. I like a bit of fantasy. He has the best humour. There's so much wisdom in his books. I reread them regularly. Every time a new book came out I thought, “I'm afraid to read this. Am I going to love it the way I love his other books?” I was never disappointed. A wonderful aspect is that sometimes a main character from one book becomes a side character in another book. It’s like living in his world the whole time, like knowing his characters as real people.
Anne Tyler’s Ladder of Years is about a 40-year-old woman that came off the beach one day and left her family because she felt inconsequential to them. It was through a series of misadventures she left. I thought it was a tragic book when I read it in my twenties. I promised myself I'd reread it when I was in my forties and I laughed through most of the book because I recognised different aspects that I missed when I was younger. Back then I was too deep in the tragedy of the story!
I saw a lot of Saturday afternoon movies as a kid. As a comedy, Some Like it Hot is masterfully created. Jack Lemmon is one of my favourite comic actors, an outstanding actor. It's genius from start to finish. A classic. Whenever it’s on, I sit and watch it. I know nearly every line. Every character is so well observed. There are slapstick elements to the humour in it, but it's so clever and so well done.
