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the corrs

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Post time 4-1-2005 05:05 PM | Show all posts |Read mode
ader sesaper kart cni yg minat kart the corrs??

bole tak kongsi ngan kiter info2 yg korang tau..

aku minat giler kart andrea tuh..:bgrin:

tq:hatdown:
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Post time 4-1-2005 05:30 PM | Show all posts
The Corrs ....
kumpulan adik beradik .. cam The Carpenters, The Osmond ....
The Corrs terdiri dari 4 org
starting with Jimmy "Jim", Andrea, Sharon n Caroline
Sharon yg tua, Jim second, Caroline third n Andrea is last
Sharon leh main violin n back up singer
Caroline leh main drum n bodhran
Andrea leh main flute ... tin whisel ...
Jim leh main organ, guitar
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Post time 4-1-2005 05:40 PM | Show all posts
Introduction

Many many years ago...

Jim, Sharon, Caroline and Andrea Corr grew up together with their parents, Jean and Gerry Corr, in Dundalk which is situated in Ireland's beautiful County Louth. Dundalk is a small friendly harbour town, situated mid-way between the cities of Dublin and Belfast on the east coast of Ireland. It has a population of around 35,000 and the people who live there are warm and friendly and enjoy nothing more than a pint of Guinness and a chat in the town's many pubs. Music has always been in Dundalk's blood and the local pubs and clubs are known for their live music sessions which are commonly known as "Crack". On most evenings and especially at weekends the people of Dundalk gather in the pubs to enjoy either a band playing rock and pop music or an older style band playing traditional Irish music. It was in this music environment that the Corrs grew up so it was no surprise at all that music was running through the siblings' veins from a very early age. "I don't think there was ever anything else that we really wanted to do then to play music," Andrea explains.

The band's music has meaning and depth and reflects all that both Ireland and Irish music stand for, "I think Irish music reflects something about the Irish people as a whole," says Sharon. "The Irish have a lot of hope, despite all the troubles they've gone through over the years, they've always known how to laugh and have fun. That's where the tradition of up-tempo Irish music and dancing comes from but there's that mystical, haunting sound as well, which I think reflects the Irish environment. I mean, when you get up first thing in the morning, there is literally a mist surrounding everything.

The siblings

Jim
Blue-eyed Jim is the oldest of the siblings. He is 1.72m (5'7 3/4") tall, was born on 31 July 1964 and has a star sign of Leo. He was even dreaming of family rock stardom while Andrea and Caroline were still at school and Sharon was working in a record store.

He went to De La Salle Brothers Catholic school but due to his continuing love of instruments his school work suffered and while his sisters were receiving good grades Jim's were poor as his school reports testify. Due to Jim's fascination with electronics he briefly considered taking up electronics as a career, but after attending music college for a short period of time, he decided his heart lies with music.

He comes across as a deep thinker, and is very interested in Philosophy and has often be perplexed by the "meaning of life". His view like that of his sisters is: "If you want something bad enough then make positive moves to get it". Jim is often asked if he is the leader of the band and his answer is always the same, a big NO. Jim is the guy that always has a joke or two in his back pocket, he leaves most of the talking to his sisters, waiting for the right moment to put in a funny comment and giving everybody a good laugh in the process.

Jim is a pure winner, a guy who even from a very early age was destined to be a professional musician of the highest calibre.

Sharon
Green-eyed Sharon is the second oldest sibling. She is 1.664m (5'5 1/4") tall, was born on 24 March 1970 and has a star sign of Aries. She went to school at the Dun Lughaidh Convent where she was far from the perfect student. She was suspended from school on two separate occasions for skipping lessons and was caught both times. Today she feels her one and only rebellious habit is smoking and her other somewhat addictive pastime is drinking Coffee, something she couldn't do without. During interviews Sharon is very often seen as the chatterbox, the dynamic member of the band answering questions in a long and meaningful way, showing the love and dedication she has for music.

She was once told by a nun at her school that she would be a failure all her life. "I didn't take it seriously at the time and I'm not the kind of person to go 'hey, you said I was a failure and look at me now' ". Sharon is not only diplomatic but is an optimist who always looks on the bright side of any dilemma or problem.

Caroline
Blue-eyed Caroline is the second youngest of the siblings. She is 1.625m (5'4) tall, was born on 17 March 1973 and has a star sign of Pisces. Caroline was the shyest of the siblings but has become a lot more outgoing since the band turned professional. In interviews she always looks relaxed and friendly while flashing her wonderful smile at the camera. Caroline believes that if you want something bad enough then the best thing to do is to just "go out there and get it" and it's a philosophy she believes in strongly. She has many habits, the worse are maybe sniffing her jumper, which she has stated she does for comfort, and using her mobile phone. Caroline is the ultimate example of what can be achieved through hard work and dedication.

Andrea
Brown-eyed Andrea is the youngest of the siblings.She is 1.556m (5'1 1/4") tall, was born on 17 May 1974 and has a star sign of Taurus. Andrea went to the same school as her sisters the "Dun Lughaidh Convent" and was classed as the brainiest of all the siblings. Being the youngest does have its downside because as she joined the band straight from leaving school, she is often looked upon as the sibling who missed out on her youth and a somewhat normal life. She is known to have a very overactive imagination and a very kind and romantic side. Andrea's worse and most noticeable habit is sucking her thumb, a habit she has always had since being young, another is losing or misplacing things. Andrea has something special, something that could be seen in her many years ago, when the band were trying so hard to get a record deal.


Brought up with music
The Corrs were lucky as they were brought up in house that echoed to the sound of music and this, along with their parents' persistence was most certainly one of the major reasons for them being steered in a musical direction.

Jean
For twenty years Jean and Gerry played ballads and folk tunes in local bands, and eventually formed their own band called "Sound Affair". With Jean singing and Gerry playing the keyboards they performed covers of songs by bands like Abba, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and The Carpenters. Even at this stage the Corrs were exposed to music and the four siblings travelled with Jean and Gerry to gigs in the family estate car.

Gerry
But the nucleus of this story starts long, long, ago, way before the Corrs siblings were even born. In fact a critical moment in the history of the family happened when Gerry's father gave Gerry a piano as a wedding present. This piano was never used and was left sitting idle in a corner of the house collecting dust. Tired of seeing it in a downstairs room Jean and Gerry decided to move it out of the way and they eventually shifted the piano upstairs and put it in a spare room. The room that Jean and Gerry finally decided to put the piano in was the room that would eventually become Jim's bedroom.

Jim remembers standing on tiptoe as a youngster and hitting the keys of the old piano in his bedroom and it was a potential quickly realised by Gerry, who then decided to teach him by giving him regular lessons. Whether it was luck or fate which decided that the piano would come to rest in Jim eventual bedroom we will never know but having the piano in his room was surely a major factor in Jim taking up the piano at such a young age.

So what Instruments does each member of the band play?

Jim
Jim's first instrument was the piano and it was an instrument that he mastered very quickly due to the regular lessons he was having, hard work and lots and lot of practice. He loves playing any instrument and after learning the piano he decided to take up the keyboard and the synthesiser, which as a self-conscious youth, he considered to be more acceptable and cool. When the opportunity came to learn another instrument Jim seized it and was taught the guitar at an early age by the guy who lived next door. The guitar is one instrument that Jim could just not do without and his passion for this instrument embraces Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters, as well as Guild, Lowden and Taylor acoustic guitars. Not only is Jim a very talented and skilled musician, he can also turn his hand to producing, mixing and editing. Like all good musicians, Jim has the knack of making complicated pieces on the guitar and keyboards look deceptively easy and his guitar playing has been praised for its innovation, phrasing and dexterity.

Sharon
Like Jim, Sharon started playing the piano as soon as she could reach the keys and as a toddler she used to sneak into Jim's bedroom where the piano was situated and happily hit the keys much to Jim's annoyance. Sharon started to learn the violin at the age of six and it was accidental as Gerry had invited their fiddle-playing local priest Father McNally over to teach 3-year-old Caroline but Caroline was so terrified by this man that Gerry decided to let Sharon have a go instead and it was an instant success. Between the ages of 7 and 14 she was a member of the Redeemer youth orchestra and this orchestra become renowned in Country Loath for its fine musicianship. Sharon is proud of the fact that she only ever missed one violin lesson in her whole life and today she is qualified to teach the instrument professionally.

Caroline
Like her brother and sisters, Caroline was taught the piano by her father Gerry from a very early age. She turned out to be a natural and mastered the instrument very fast and eventually became good enough to gain qualifications. As there was a family of six and only one piano Caroline decided to try her hands at another instrument and incredibly mastered the bodhran from watching videos of traditional Irish musicians playing it. Caroline said "I have always loved the bodhran, I don't know how I got interested, I just remember saying to a friend that I'd love to get one, so they bought me one and I started to learn. I learnt through a video by a guy called Stefan Hannigan, I just experimented myself and played more".

It wasn't until Caroline was 18 that an old boyfriend showed her some basic beats on the drum kit and with the help of "teach yourself CD's" Caroline was able to learn simple drum loops and rolls. Armed with this small amount of knowledge she then proceeded to become the drummer in the band and had all her training playing live.

Andrea
Like the rest or the Corr siblings, Andrea was taught the piano by her father Gerry. Due to the rest of the siblings fighting over the one piano Andrea was given a tin whistle, a small Irish flute to keep her happy.She mastered this small instrument very quickly and was seen taking it with her wherever she went, even up the shops with her parents. Andrea also showed early signs of having an extraordinary singing voice and she acted in several school plays at Dundalk's Dun Lughaidh Convent. It is Andrea's voice that is considered her main instrument, It is a voice that has a complete uniqueness all of its own which is filled with passion and strength.



source : corrsonline.com
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Post time 4-1-2005 05:52 PM | Show all posts
So how do the band perceive their own music?
The band have been asked this question on many an occasion and they have sometimes given contradicting answers. But the general feeling is that they class their music as "Irish Pop Rock" with the emphasis more towards the "Irish and Rock" rather than the "Pop".

Jim said "We think our music is the best thing since sliced bread!!. We have taken the best elements of rock, pop and traditional music and blended them into a sound that is actually hard to categorise, and that's what makes it so exciting for us".

Sharon once said "Our sound is a mixture of music that we like to listen to and music that we like to play, traditional pop and rock".

Caroline sums it up by saying "It is a blend of modern rhythms and technology with acoustic instruments, violin, tin whistle, drums and of course the voices, the marrying of these instruments is our sound".

Andrea says "All the elements are essential, the traditional side has a huge draw and it's so lively, the combination of pop, rock and traditional was a natural progression for us, you cant take one away and say, that's it. Along with that we focus very much on melody, I think good melody is what music is really all about. Our music is influenced by our environment, and we play what we feel, there is a certain paradox about it, it's a hopeful sadness."

An interesting question that often transpires is what the Corrs' music would sound like without the traditional sound provided by Sharon's violin. Its difficult to say but one thing that everyone would agree with, is that it sure would never sound or feel the same. The Corrs play a mix of traditional Irish music, pop and rock and without the violin there would be no traditional Irish sound and the band would sound like just any other normal "run of the mill" band. The violin is a very big part of their music, it is very much the backbone of everything they do and it gives them their unique sound, the sound that makes them different to most other bands and the sound that makes it almost impossible to classify their music.


Posing for the local paper (Jim to the left)

A dream of stardom
Jim had already begun performing with his parents in Dundalk's bars and clubs at the young age of only 15 but it wasn't until a few years later that he started to gig seriously. He started as a session musician with a variety of traditional Irish bands and actually was lucky enough to gig with the legendary Traditional Irish musician Dolores Keane. His first taste of proper success came when he joined an electronic based pop and rock band called the "The Fountainheads", but despite an international record deal, sales from their albums never lived up to expectations and they were fired by their record company. Jim then decided to work independently and rented a cream coloured, two storey house close to his parents. In a dark back bedroom of this house he created a studio and he split his time working as a session musician and playing in a variety of local bands. It was with one of these bands that he went touring around army bases in Germany.

Sharon was still playing with the "Redeemer Youth Orchestra" and managing a record shop but in her spare time she started to play the odd traditional music gig with Jim, often at a pub called McManus's which was run by their aunt. Andrea and Caroline was still attending school at this time.

It was around this time that Jim considered the possibility of forming a band with his sisters. It was something that was encouraged by their parents so they decided they had nothing to lose and decided to give it a go. Working in the privacy of a bedroom in Jim's rented house, and using the eight-track recording desk that Jim had bought they set about making music. Andrea sang the lead vocals, Sharon played the violin, Caroline played the keyboards while Jim played the guitar.

The siblings rehearsing, over ten years ago


As they got more enthusiastic they started to practice at all times and at weekends they would still be up singing and dancing well into the night practicing the songs that they had written. Jim was getting impatient and he began to dream of family rock success but the big question was how was he going to make it happen. The answer arrived on June 14 1990, in the form of auditions for Alan Parker's film of Roddy Doyle's book "The Commitments".

The Commitments
At the time that Jim and his sisters were trying to form a band in his bedroom Jim was also playing as a session musician. He had played in many local bands, one of them being a band called the "Hughes Version" which was run by an Irishman called John Hughes. It was this connection that gave the band the lucky break they needed.

John Hughes was asked to put together a band to star in the film adaptation of Roddy Doyle's book called "The Commitments" which was being cast at the time by Ross Hubbard. Jim happened to hear that John Hughes was recruiting a band for the part and told him about his sisters Andrea, Caroline and Sharon and asked if they could all audition. Everyone that could sing or play an Instrument went along to the Waterfront in Dublin on the 14th of June 1990 for the auditions and it was luck, or maybe fate that eventually got the four Corrs siblings the parts.


At the auditions

"It was the very first time we performed on stage together," says Jim. "I was always very interested in getting the band together. The Commitments was the pivotal thing that got us off our butts to do something about it". John Hughes added "That was the first time I met all of them together as a band, they came and auditioned for a part. They did 'Knock On Wood' and a Quincy Jones number, I have no idea what it was, but they were hilarious, lovely but hilarious!"



source : corrsonline.com
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Post time 4-1-2005 06:04 PM | Show all posts
Andrea in The Commitments

All the band appeared in the movie but casting director Ros Hubbard was so impressed with Andrea that she cast her the largest role where she plays Sharon Rabbitte, one of Jimmy Rabbitte's (Robert Arkins, the main character) sisters. She appears in the film several times and says a couple of lines, "Go and shoite!" is without doubt the most famous and common one. Andrea is very easy to spot and you can see her throughout the whole movie both in the audience and in the real acting scenes. Besides playing, the siblings also got to read prepared pieces for Alan Parker himself, and as a result of this Jim, Sharon and Caroline were paid
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Post time 4-1-2005 06:10 PM | Show all posts
John goes on to talk about the frustration he felt in trying to get the band a record deal: "Getting a record deal is like being picked for a team, you haven't played a game never mind won the cup. I tried to get a record deal in Ireland and failed miserably, I tried to get a deal in England and failed just as miserably. My failures were tremendous and they were consistent, the rejection letters just kept on coming. We spent two years explaining to everybody what a bodhr醤 was, and a tin whistle, no one had ever seen them in the pop world, nor did they want them. It was my job as manager to try to figure out now, what do we do. I could write a thesis on that assumption, pretty face, a bit of Irish fiddle and you're home and dry. That is absolute nonsense, LA is full of beautiful people who can play anything you like but who don't get signed. And as for the idea that it was an advantage to be Oirish, as they say, that is diametrically opposite to the truth. One of the other main problems was that the pop labels didn't want us because we were too folk, and the folk labels didn't want us because we were too pop, as they say, its a typical catch 22 situation. The band were out of fashion, no doubt about that but the talent was blatantly obvious, or to me it was. So we were in a position of having to try to second guess where the industry was going or just following our own instincts, so we had to do what we were good at, despite the fact that it was not in vogue. But we followed our instincts and it was a struggle and it wasn't welcome, It made it far harder to get a deal, not easier, we couldn't get signed anywhere". Andrea also adds "The problem with Ireland is that although there was a lot of interest, there's not enough independence for people there to make decisions. Plus the sort of money that was on offer wasn't enough for us to launch on an international scale, so we held out for a US deal".

But through all the darkness and despair, a glimmer of light broke and a few days before they were due to fly home to Ireland John and the band tried once more to clinch a record deal.


The breakthrough
The band decided to go back to New York and try their luck with the major record company called Atlantic Records.They had a stroke of good fortune here as they were lucky enough to met with Jason Flom who was the head of A&R at Atlantic Records. After seeing how desperate the band was to land a record deal and after listening to the bands demo tapes he was captivated and considered that the band were just what his new company Lava (a subsidiary of Atlantic) needed. He decided to see if he could book a meeting for them to see legendary producer David Foster who is the most successful white record producer in history. David was busy recording with Michael Jackson on his album "History" at the "Hit Factory" studios in New York at the time but unfortunately Jason was unable to contact him by telephone to arrange this meeting.

Not wanting to give up, John Hughes rang Jason three times a day to see if he had managed to arrange the meeting with David Foster, but Jason was having no luck and said "I can't get to him, what happens is that when he's not with Michael Jackson he switches the phones off". So on the penultimate day before they were due to fly back to Ireland John Hughes persuaded Jason Flom to give him the address of where David Foster was working and the band and John marched over to the "Hit Factory" studios.

"The band were doing an acoustic showcase at BMG Records at lunchtime that day, just the four of them standing there doing the songs," Hughes says. "And I asked someone there where this particular studio was, and the guy said: 'Just around the corner, why?'. And I said: 'David Foster was there and I was bringing the band around', and he said I'd never get in. But we had nothing to lose so I said to the band 'we're going around the corner' and they said 'right'."

It was a hot day in June and Andrea laughs "We were all dead set on going out for an ice cream after the show but John persuaded us to camp outside the 'Hit Factory' in an attempt to meet David"

John continues: "So we trooped around the corner, instruments in hand and knocked on the door. The security was very heavy as it always is around Michael Jackson and I said 'I'm here to see David Foster, I have a kind of appointment, It's not confirmed but he'll know who we are', basically I was bluffing. But we made a huge effort to look great and I have to admit that we got in because we looked the way we did".

Determined not to leave the studios before meeting David Foster they all waited patiently in the lounge until he emerged. Luckily Foster had just finished with Michael Jackson and as he came downstairs he was greeted by these three gorgeous girls (and their handsome brother). On hearing that they were all heading back to Ireland the next morning and simply wanted the chance to play for him, Foster found it impossible to say no, and invited them into his studio.


The first thing Foster noticed was the siblings' good looks. He turned to Hughes and asked: "Can they really play?". They all went into the studio listened to the tape and David Foster was impressed. Jim then asked: "Can we play for you?". "Well sure", Foster replied, and so using only a piano, a tin whistle, a violin and a guitar they played for him. The band played an acoustic version of "Runaway" and "Forgiven Not Forgotten" and also renditions of a few traditional Irish songs that were later to become a big part of the bands first album "Forgiven Not Forgotten". Foster was gobsmacked by what he was hearing and he was totally convinced that the four siblings who were playing in front of him were something very, very special. David told them: "Out of ten, I give you a ten... no, a ten-plus."

David re-accounts what happened when he saw the Corrs for the first time "They just got their instruments out, and played, just like that, and to be honest when I saw Caroline produce her Bodhran I didn't even know what it was. They sang for me live and I was dumfounded, I was hooked, completely hooked and after seeing and hearing them I knew I was looking at real talent and four quality human beings".

After performing for David Foster, the Corrs and Hughes still didn't know where they stood and still never believed that they would be offered a record deal so they went back to their hotel to prepare for their trip home to Ireland. John Hughes rang Jason Flom the next day and told him how they had managed to see David Foster without an appointment but he wanted Jason to try to talk to David Foster to see if he might be interested in taking it any further.

Hughes said "We went on packing our cases, getting ready to fly home and a little while later the phone rang. It was Jason again, and he said 'when you get home go out and spend a fortune on a big meal on behalf of the record company because you've got yourselves a record deal, you're signed'. I put the phone down and turned to Jim and said 'we've just got a record deal' and he said, 'ok, are you sure?' and continued packing. I rang the girls and said 'we've got a record deal' but it didn't seem to sink in".

In July 1994 the Corrs had finally managed to obtain a record deal and it was left in John Hughes' hands to sort out all the negotiations. John added "And then I had six months of gruelling negotiations, It's one of the most gruesomely stressful aspects of the entertainment business, contract negotiations. Because of the nature of the business, it's the more you sell, you renegotiate your position, and we've been able to do that. David liked the band and the songs and the harmonies but the fiddles, the bodhr醤 and the whistle were another story. I remember playing 'Toss The Feathers' for him and he said, 'That's great but you're not putting that on the record, surly not?', He didn't want us to. And I said it's great fun, they like doing it so why would you stop bands playing something they like?"


The band signing the contract

The paperwork was signed, and the Corrs had finally got the record deal of their dreams and were official "Atlantic Group" artists, with Foster signing on as producer. The record deal was worth an estimated one million US dollars which the band sensibly put aside to help them financially with recording and touring. A few months later, they were well on their way to recording their 1995 debut album "Forgiven Not Forgotten". Fittingly, both Foster and Flom were in the process of establishing their own Atlantic-distributed labels, "Foster's 143" and "Flom's Lava" and thus The Corrs make their debut as a joint 143/Lava release.

With the contracts signed and the record deal safely in the band's hands it was on to the daunting task of making their dreams a reality, with the recording of their debut album "Forgiven Not Forgotten".



Forgiven Not Forgotten
It was on the 5th January 1995 that the Corrs left the cold shores of Ireland for the somewhat sunnier climes of Malibu, Los Angeles, Southern California. It was one of the most important trips that the band would make as it was a journey to record their debut album "Forgiven Not Forgotten" at legendary producer David Foster's Chartmaker Studios. It was also a very sad time for both the siblings and their parents and many sad goodbyes were said at Dublin Airport on that January day. Its hard enough when one sibling leaves home but for Jean and Gerry it was even more painful as all their children were leaving home at the same time, albeit only for a short period of time. While trying to hold back tears, Jean said: "It's sad, but I am happy for them", while Gerry said: "Its a little ending on the way to the final ending".

Jim was flabbergasted when David Foster asked him to help co-produce the album, not only was it an honour but it also enabled Jim to ensure that the Corrs traditional Irish sound was not diluted in anyway in the recording and mixing process. Luckily David Foster was also aware of this danger and thankfully preferred to keep the Corrs traditional Irish elements and sounds rather than the Americanised style that he had applied to tracks by megastars such as Whitney Huston and Michael Jackson. "I would have completely failed in my task if the finished album had sounded completely different to the original demo recordings" Foster said. But both parties should not have been over duly concerned because the finished album actually enhanced the original demo recordings rather than deter from them. Foster merely added his expertise and already proven arrangement skills to give the album a polished finish while at the same time keeping the raw sound that the Corrs had hoped for.



source : corrsonline.com
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Post time 4-1-2005 06:17 PM | Show all posts
Foster's task was made somewhat easier as the album was being mixed by one of the top mixers in the world of pop and rock, the legendary Bob Clearmountain. Bob has worked with major artists including Bruce Springsteen, Patti Scialfa (Springsteen's wife), Crowded house, The Kinks, INXS and Del Amitri to name but a few. His experience and mixing skills also ensured that the sound the Corrs required was not deterred from in any way at this critical stage in the production of the album.

After 5 months of sheer hard work the album was finally completed with the end result, a fifteen track album containing a mix of music styles which emphasised The Corrs versatile sound. Although sounding raw, it also had a unique polished finish that only a producer of the calibre of David Foster could produce. It was an album which sold millions and in Ireland where it has since gone almost ten times platinum, it has turned out to be one of the best selling debut albums by an Irish band in the country's history. One of the album's biggest successes was in Australia where it went 8 times platinum and it has also been certified at least once platinum in New Zealand and Scandinavia.

So why did the album take 5 months to record considering most of the material was already written?. Andrea has said that many factors contributed to this but "moving to Malibu felt very much like we were moving house and we needed time to settle in before we could really concentrate 100% on the task in hand". This wasn't helped by the fact that they had to pass a swimming pool on the way to the studios every morning and very often the pool was more inviting then the daunting task of recording the first album. Besides the band would never go into the studio independently.Even if one of them wasn't needed for the day, that member would still turn up to add support. So it was a simple case of, if all four weren't ready, no one went off to the studio It was a philosophy that added to the timescale of the recording considerably.

So that was "Forgiven Not Forgotten", an album that was released 22nd September 1995 and which opens and closes with Sharon's haunting melodic violin on "Erin Shore" and encapsulates a rollercoster ride of tracks from the heartbreaking "Heaven Knows" and delicate "Love To Love You" through to the heavy guitar based sounds of "Secret Life" and "Someday". Entwine these songs with the Traditional Irish instrumentals and you have an album that cant help but appeal to people of all ages.

Because there was no real pressure on the band when they wrote "Forgiven Not Forgotten", it enabled them to take their time and also to use a natural, almost lazy approach to the songwriting. It was this approach that The Corrs tried to continue when the daunting task of writing their second album "Talk On Corners" began almost two years later.



Talk on Corners
As the band had been touring for such a long time after the release of "Forgiven Not Forgotten" then they had plenty of opportunity to experiment with different sounds and styles and it was during long spells of touring that the band started to come up with ideas for new songs and especially the harder guitar based sound that had been tried out in various concerts. Touring had also helped the band's songwriting as playing live stirs emotions in people and it was emotions that was the driving force behind a lot of the ideas on "Talk on Corners". This slight change in direction was not planned at all, it was just a natural progression brought on by experience and as Caroline said: "Although the new ideas were nerve racking the new direction was needed for the future success of the band, but we did worry that our loyal fan base might not be totally happy with this new sound".

"We were afraid we might have left it a bit too long between the first album and the follow up" Jim said. The main reason for this long gap between albums was due to the success of "Forgiven Not Forgotten" which kept taking off in various places all over the world and it was only natural that the band would want to perform in each of these new territories, which had just discovered their music. As soon as the band were preparing to sit down and think about writing the second album, "Forgiven Not Forgotten" would be a success in another country and the band had to put on hold any plans of writing new material and start off on yet another mini tour.

"Talk On Corners" took around 6 months to complete which was a similar length of time to "Forgiven Not Forgotten", but what must be considered here is that hardly any songs had been written at this stage, indicating just how quickly "Talk On Corners" was completed or paradoxically just how slow the completion of "Forgiven Not Forgotten" was.The majority of the album was recorded at various locations in Los Angeles in the summer of 1997, with the exception of "Paddy McCarthy" and "Little Wing" which were both recorded in Dublin, Ireland.

Being signed to a big record company like Atlantic has advantages as it gives the band access to some of the biggest "west coast" writers in the business. Where production on "Forgiven Not Forgotten" was shared between Jim and David Foster production on the new album was spread across a total of seven producers. These producers were big names in the pop and rock world and included Oliver Leiber, Carole Bayer Sager, Glen Ballard (who produced Alanis Morrisette "Jagged Little Pill"), Rick Nowels (of Belinda Carlisle fame) and Billy Steinberg. Both David Foster and John Hughes also helped with production with John producing "Little Wing" in Ireland. Jim, having enjoyed his time producing "Forgiven Not Forgotten" also kept his hand in and produced "What Can I Do" as well as co-producing "Paddy McCarthy" with Irish producer Leo Pearson. The Corrs were happy to have the chance to work with David Foster again on the second album albeit not as big a role as with their first album, as Caroline says: "We feel he understands our music and the way we want our music to sound, he is fantastic with vocals and harmonies. He always comes up with some other idea that you might not have thought of."




Unplugged
On October 5th 1999 The Corrs went to the Ardmore Studios in Bray, Ireland to recorded their first unplugged album. Many were surprised by this move as most bands that decide to record an unplugged album already have a multitude of albums behind them. The idea first come about after their momentous performance at Lansdowne road and the band, along with their management decided that it would be nice to go back to their acoustic roots and do something as a stop gap before the third studio album was released. It was from this discussion that Andy Murray who is Warner Europe Marketing Director for US labels came up with the idea of an unplugged album which the band approved of with excitement. Andy Murray went to MTV Europe to talk to Harriet Brand (senior vice president for talent and artists relations) and Richard Godfrey (vice president production) and they were both very keen on the idea especially as it would be the first Unplugged album handled entirely by MTV Europe without their US counterparts. The band and management decided that November would be a good time for a release as it presented various opportunities for exposure including the MTV Europe Awards in Dublin in November. They decided on a mixture of acoustic and orchestral sounds and the band mentioned that they were keen to work with Mitchell Froom because of his work with Crowded House and the fact that he is also an arranger. Froom agreed to help out and brought in strings arranger Fiachara Trench and a complete orchestra that included 20 strings, three horns, percussion and an accordion. This set-up was complemented with the usual Corrs bass and lead guitarist Keith Duffy and Anthony Drennan.



The Corrs found it a difficult task to pick the songs that would be included on the album but decided to obviously go for the major hits which lent themselves to acoustic versions such as "Only When I Sleep", "What Can I Do", "Runaway" and "So Young". The band also wanted to introduce some new songs to the fans and they had many a discussion with their management about cover versions that should be included. Someone mentioned doing a Phil Lynot song and Andrea said "We have to do Old Town". Another song, "Everybody Hurts" by REM was a song they had originally performed some months ago for the Omagh bomb victims tribute concert and the band thought it would be a good idea to do it again. The other cover was "No Frontiers", written by Jimmy McCarthy which was an Irish hit for Mary Black. This was a song that had gone down a storm on their last major tour and it felt right to include it on the album. The band also wanted to include a couple of their own written tracks and decided to re-record a song called "Radio" which was discarded from the "Talk On Corners" session. They also penned a brand new song called "At Your Side" which leant itself to an acoustic setting. Following four days of acoustic rehearsal, one day with strings and one evening's soundcheck, the album was recorded live. The album was then mixed around the middle of October in Los Angeles by legendary mixer Bob Clearmountain. Bob was a firm favourite of the band as he had already done such a great job in the past mixing "Forgiven Not Forgotten". The overall project was mastered by Bob Ludwig in Portland, Maine.



The Unplugged album consisted of 14 tracks and was released in mid November with "Radio" released as a single a few weeks later. On its release the album entered the UK charts at number 9 and went straight to number one in the Irish charts. Its best position in the UK charts was number 7 but unfortunately the album quickly dropped out of the top ten and down the charts just after Christmas. Even though some fans expected it to stay high in the charts for a longer period of time the Corrs said "We were very happy with the album and it sold far better than we expected". As it is normal with unplugged albums a cut down version of the show was broadcast on MTV Europe on November 27 with the full show released on both video and DVD soon after.

The album's content met with differing views from fans and critics alike all around the world, and unfortunately it received some bad press with music critics complaining that a lot of the songs were almost identical to the originals and thus cheating fans. But to the fans the album shows the band at their best, playing their songs acoustically and live. The album has many highlights, the opening acoustic bars of "Only When I Sleep", Anto's wonderful Dobro guitar solo on "Little wing" and the wonderful harmony arrangements on "At Your Side". This album will surely hold "pride of place" in all Corrs fans' record collections.


Going on tour
After the release of the Corrs' debut album "Forgiven Not Forgotten", the band had to prepare for the daunting task of a full world tour. Because the band were signed up with a major record company then the album would be released worldwide to many countries and this had to be backed up with a tour to support it. Gone were the days of playing in small clubs and pubs around Ireland, this was for real and was going to involve playing in front of many fans all over the world. It was this touring schedule that was ultimately going to change the Corrs' lifestyle forever.

"To tour a record, promoting it, is one of the most gruelling tasks imaginable, the amount of air miles, the lack of sleep, the continuous strain on your digestive system, the drain on your skin, everything is under assault and this goes on month after month". Hughes continues: "The record company's view was that we weren't getting radio to the extent that we needed it, at least in part because of our fiddles and bodhr醤s. They loved us, but we couldn't get into the mainstream, so we decided the best thing we could do is go to Europe on tour".


source : corrsonline.com
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Post time 4-1-2005 06:26 PM | Show all posts
The band could not perform something of this scale on their own, so they decided to recruit two backing musicians to help them on the forthcoming tour. After a few unsuccessful auditions they ended up recruiting two fellow Irishmen into the band, Keith Duffy who would play bass guitar and Anto Drennan who would play lead guitar. Jim had known Anto for many years as he used to play with Jim in a band and he had also done some session work with the rock group Genesis.They decided on Keith Duffy after he was recommended to them by a friend of John Hughes who was in the music business. Keith said "When I got the call to do it, I really didn't know who the Corrs were".

1996
The band hired out an unglamorous, single decker 30-seat white bus with not a lot of room inside and the gruelling task of the bands first world tour began. After a handful of promotional appearances in America and a few concerts in the UK supporting Celine Dion, the first port of call on the tour was on the 26 April 1996 at the West Country Hotel in Ennis, County Clare, Ireland. The concert turned out to be a sell-out with 850 people cramming into the small venue to see the band perform the first concert of their enduring tour. Hughes said "No one knew who the band's audience were or even exactly how many of them were out there, but it felt like the whole town turned out and it was a cracking gig".Young boys and girls, teenagers, married couples, moms and dads and even older people had come along to see this very special first concert that the band performed. Even at this early stage in the bands career, the basis of the Corrs audience was forming as their music was naturally appealing to people of all genders and all ages.

The concert venues that John had selected were all different types and different sizes, from hotel function rooms through to small outdoor gigs with venues averaging around the 1000 mark.One of the main problems was getting the sound right at every concert and as the band were still very inexperienced and the venues sizes differed, then every day mistakes from the previous night were analysed and corrected before trying again. The Corrs were always thoughtful to the fans who were supporting them on this daunting first part of their tour. After each concert the band would arrange a room backstage for the fans where they would talk, sign records, posters and pictures.

"There is nothing like it", Andrea said "There really is nothing like it, its not only the buzz from the crowd it's everything, and you finally realise what you are doing it all for".


Andrea at The National Statium

After more concerts around Ireland, the band came home to Dublin to play at "The National Stadium" in front of the biggest crowd yet, a staggering 2500 people. The band were naturally nervous about playing to so many people and Andrea cringed, "It's the biggest crowd yet, 2500 people, it's Dublin, and it's scary, I just cant even speak". While Sharon commented, "It really is a big point in our careers, we have been working on this for the past 6 years. We are playing the main stadium in the capital city, 2500 people, its a lot, and it's great that we have sold all the tickets out so quickly, it's wonderful". Naturally the concert went down as a roaring success but nothing could prepare them for the final date of the first leg of the Irish tour at County Cork on 12th May 1996.

The Irish leg of the tour ended after 3 weeks at the Bantry Mussel Festival in County Cork on 12th May 1996 and this was going to be a concert that was to stay in the band's mind for a long, long time. They were going to perform to an expected crowd of around ten thousand but this estimation was far short and the band ended up playing to almost twenty thousand frenzied people. Due to the sheer amount of people attending the gig it was almost impossible to get the band in by road so for safely they hired a helicopter for the final part of the trip. The show was unbelievable and the band had to stop may times during the concert to persuade the crowd to move back for fear of fans getting crushed at the front. Andrea remembers "It was hell, sheer hell, we had to be rushed in to the venue through hordes of drunken fans, it was a frightening experience".
The last night of a very successful Irish tour went out in some style.


Corrs playing rugby

Touring continued, and on the 18th May 1996 the band flew in from Amsterdam to perform at a rugby match between Ireland and the Barbarians at Lansdowne Road. This rugby event was organised by the "Peace International Group" in aid of the Northern Ireland piece process. The band played on a small stage in the corner of the ground and put on a first class performance, rocking a half filled Lansdowne road for nearly 40 minutes. But as soon as their performance was complete the band had to rush to the airport to catch a plane, not content with playing one concert in a day they were due to play again in the evening at the "Odense Festival" in Denmark.

Evening in Odense

This was a special trip, as on the plane were fans who had won tickets in a competition not only to see the band in concert but to also fly out with them to Denmark. Instead of relaxing before the concert the Corrs spent the entire flight walking around the plane talking to the lucky fans and signing many autographs and pictures on the short flight. On boarding the plane to Denmark, a weary but still smiling Andrea joked "You know, I was never meant for public transport".

"You could feel that there was something going on" John Hughes recalls. "In Paris, their debut concert attracted 2,000 people, the 'house full' notices went up in Stockholm and then the word was out from Australia, there's something crazy going on, you've got to come down here. All we'd ever played in Dublin was Whelan's and suddenly we were breaking in Australia, Japan, Canada, Spain and it was electric".

But even though the band's live performance was getting good reviews Andrea was still very critical of her own personal performances. After playing live at the launch of the European Presidency in Temple Bar in 1996, she cringed over the video of her performance. Gerry says "When the children came home Andrea was the first to watch it and she was going 'oh my god I was awful' ".

Jim on the phone at the Carrickdale Hotel

There was no rest bite for the band and the gruelling tour continued with more dates in Europe, followed by various performances in Japan and Australia. The summer months were spent in the United States supporting Celine Dion and Michael Bolton. The Corrs then returned to Ireland in the late summer to play two nights at the Carrickdale Hotel on the 26th and the 27th August in the bands home town of Dundalk. This turned out to be a nervy occasion for the band, not only because they were playing in their home town but because the audience would be made up of many close friends and relatives and supposedly old school teachers as well. Jim laughed "I believe that some of our old music teachers are going to be here tonight, this should be interesting".

1996 ended with a New Year's Eve concert at The Point in Dublin, It was a concert all the band were looking forward to as it was the venue where all the big Irish stars perform. The band looked upon this as a point in their careers where they were starting to be accepted as one of these "big bands". Unfortunately, the band had been ill over Christmas and Sharon had got the bug really bad and wasn't at all well. She was late turning up for the pre-concert rehearsals on the night and all the band as well as John Hughes were concerned. She finally arrived at the venue looking extremely unwell but she said that she was OK for the gig. After seeing how unwell Sharon looked John Hughes even considered getting a doctor on standby but Sharon decided that this was not necessary.

"All of us had this virus over Christmas but I seemed to have had it the worse" said Sharon "I had a real high fever and I couldn't even get out of bed, I could hardly walk".

Jim said "I felt lousy as well, but generally it was a good Christmas, but I am glad its over, I did some seriously heavy socialising".

As Sharon was preparing for the concert she said "I still feel ill, but the gig has to go on, I have been bedridden for the past two days, god, why does it have to happen just as we are about to play the Dublin Point on New Year's Eve".

Sharon managed to play the full concert without no ill effects and the concert was written down as a complete success. The crowd were ecstatic, and the band performed the New Year's Eve countdown and then followed this up with a wonderful acoustic rendition of "Old Lang Syne" at midnight. It was a superb concert that crowned off a very hard, tiring but wonderful year for the band.

Amongst all the joy of the band's success during 1996, there were plenty of times when they wondered if it was really all worth it as towards the end of the year they found themselves completely exhausted. Given the pressure and the endless shows the band had performed this year it was not surprising and on numerous occasions the girls had physically broken down in tears. At one stage Andrea said "I don't care if we don't sell anymore albums, right now I don't really care at all".

"We were going to cancel some shows" John Hughes said, "and we should have cancelled them, on occasions the band were so sick". "We don't just need a couple of days off, or a week off" said Sharon, "we need like a month off".

The band saw the end of 1996 as a completed chapter in their book, "We really need to move on so we don't just sit in one place stagnating playing the same songs over and over again" said Andrea. Before going on stage for the New Years Eve performance at the Dublin Point Jim said, "This is it, this is the end of 'Forgiven Not Forgotten', the end of the promotion and the end of the touring".

John Hughes echoed Jim's words "The objective this year was to sell 'Forgiven not Forgotten', literally, from door to door, country to country and stage to stage.The objective next year is for the band to gear themselves up to write some hit songs, and then we are going to have to do the whole thing all over again......amen".

It was the end of the year for the band, it was the end of one hell of a year.

1997
The new year started as frenzied as the last, with just a couple of weeks off at the start of January the band then started an extensive two month tour of Australia and New Zealand. It was a surprise that the band had embarked on such an intensive tour considering Jim's words on New Year's Eve where he considered the "Forgiven Not Forgotten" era had been completed. After another successful tour "down under" the band headed for the studio to start the awesome task of writing new material for the new album, "Talk On Corners". But the touring didn't stop for long and they were soon back on the road, this time in the UK where they performed at the Fleadh Festival that took place at Finsbury Park in London on 7th June' 1997 in front of 50 000 people. The band performed a great set which lead the London Times newspaper in the United Kingdom to say "The Corrs took only forty minutes on the main stage to demonstrate why they are a good bet for stardom".



source : corrsonline.com
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Post time 4-1-2005 06:31 PM | Show all posts
The Corrs were now finding touring in foreign countries a lot more comfortable and less daunting then they found it a year ago and they were always keen to find out a little bit more about the local people and places they were visiting. This side of touring was a bonus to the band, just being able to relax, walk around and see the sights of a country they never had visited before. They were also keen to try out the new types of food and drink that each new county offered and especially the local nightclub spots. Jim was even spotted once at an open mike club called Birdland in Halifax, Canada, trying to get his sisters onstage to join him as the "Corr Blimeys". Jim laughs "We do go mad from time to time, but when we get into our hotel rooms we generally just go to sleep in our beds, we're so tired. We're not really up to throwing television sets out of windows.''

In the late summer of 1997 the band officially announced the end of the "Forgiven Not Forgotten" tour. It was a tour that had lasted for almost 18 months and had seen them tour around the globe twice. But there was no rest bite as it was going to all be repeated again with the release of "Talk on Corners" in October 1997.

Andrea once said: "Playing live is one of the most important things a musician can do. We can all see and interact with each other, we can express ourselves and shake off any inhibitions we have, and we can clearly see the effect our music is having on the audience. Playing live has also transformed us as human beings".

"It's our first priority", Sharon says of the Corrs' live experience. "It's where you really reach your audience, where you really communicate with them, and as musicians we just love playing". "I love playing the traditional stuff live" says Caroline, "I love playing 'Toss The Feathers', which is normally the last song of our set, but I also love playing 'Dreams', because of the way the percussion hangs together".

With "Talk On Corners" released almost worldwide the band were now back in Dublin In the Autumn of 1997 spending a lot of time at "The Factory" rehearsal studios practicing and polishing up their live act in preparation for the new tour. A lot of practicing and rehearsing was necessary as new arrangements were needed for the new material that had been written on the "Talk On Corners" album.

The band's second world tour kicked off to a capacity sell out crowd at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin on the 8th December 1997. This was the first of two consecutive nights at the Olympia Theatre with both nights having being sold out long before the event.

Singing at the Vatican

The year ended in climax when they sang "O Holy Night" at the Vatican Christmas show for the pope a week before Christmas in Rome. During a break in rehearsals they meet John Paul II and this was the encounter that the band found has lived in their memories the most. The Pope presented them each with a set of rosary beads that he had blessed and he smiled when he was told that the band were Irish. The band admitted afterwards that they were greatly affected by their meeting with John Paul. Jim said: "Whether you're a churchgoer or not, its a very special occasion, because you're meeting probably the most influential person in the world. Spiritually it was a very special moment for all of us, I remember directly afterwards we found it very hard to express our feelings about the moment".

This certainly was a more peaceful and a less strenuous end to 1997 than the band had experienced at the same time in 1996. The year had still been every bit as hard as 1996 and at one stage earlier in the year the band remembered when they had a trip that went from Australia to Sweden, Sweden to America and America to Ireland. All this was within four days and with a gig to play at the end every night. John Hughes once said "No one would ever tour if they knew what it was going to be like".

But the band had also looked after themselves more this year, they were having three proper meals a day instead of just taking snack breaks whenever they could. They were also working out regularly at hotels gyms or gyms based in the towns they were staying. The band were very close to burning themselves out in the last two years, but it was a learning experience and being older and wiser they decided to spend far more time taking care of their health.

After a month's rest over Christmas and the new year the band were back on the road again and off to Australia and New Zealand for their seemingly customary "Down Under" tour at the start of each year. This was the band's fourth visit to Australia and they have described their tours there as being like a "home away from home" or a holiday. This tour was going to be anything but a holiday as the bands energy levels were once more put to the test because the real "Talk On Corners" tour was only beginning.

1998
The band were now becoming a far more professional and polished act, the quality of both their performances and their sound had improved dramatically over the last year. This was helped by the fact that many of the roadcrew dated back to the original first tour the band had of Ireland in 1996. Every member of the crew knew their part and the whole set up was more relaxed and professional compared to the madness of the "Forgiven Not Forgotten Tour". Every concert in Australia was met with a wonderful reception and this was special to the band as Australia was the first place outside Ireland that had gone for the Corrs in a big way and there was a genuine warmth between the band and their fans "down under". The band have mentioned on many an occasion how much they love Australia and even brought their parents along on this leg of the tour. Caroline said, "In the unlikely event that things go wrong for us, then we could always go and emigrate to Australia".

Before the shows the band always had their "Grip and Grin" sessions with fans where they would sign autographs, talk and generally socialise as well as have meetings with local record company bigwigs. It was a thing the band took in their stride and Jim said "Its just part of the job". The band even found time during their busy schedule to visit a local school in Canberra called the "Wannaissa high school" who were having an "Irish day", they played an acoustic set and spent hours talking with the children and teachers.

In between performances the band love to travel around and see the local sights of Australia and have visited great wonders such as the Great Barrier Reef, where Jim has gone scuba diving, the Opera House in Sydney and Queensland's tropical Hamilton Island. However, John Hughes might not have such fond memories of this country as on the 1997 tour he was swept out to sea by the strong undercurrent but was luckily spotted and brought safely to shore.

From Australia the band moved on to New Zealand where they played two concerts at each of the three main cities of Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. The band were not as popular here as they were in Australia but "Talk on Corners" had still gone to number one and all three venues were completely sold out. The band had a close shave just before playing the first of the Auckland gigs as most of the major power lines into the city were down due to overloading and it would be months before anything could be done about them. Luckily it was established that the emergency generator at the venue was powerful enough to cope with the bands requirements so the gigs went as planned.

Caroline wearing a cowboy hat in the "What Can I Do" video

On the bands penultimate day in New Zealand news was coming in that the new single "What Can I Do" was going to break in Germany and a video was needed quickly. The band set off at 5.30 a.m. the next morning, on the 26th February 1998, to head for the Manukau Peninsula on the northern Island to shot a video. The video was going to be directed by Nigel Dick and shot by Russell Swanson; both these guys had worked with the band before on "Only When I Sleep" in Los Angeles, California. The weather on the day was not very "video friendly" and the band had numerous stops for rain but amazingly, with both the skill of the band and the filming crew, the video was shot in just the single day. Caroline said "Nigel is a class director, he knew we only had the one day to shoot the video and considering all the stops for rain it showed his brilliance". Sharon laughed "We are on the other side of the world to shot a video in a place that resembles Ireland so much, but unfortunately its also resembles the foul Irish weather, rain, rain and more rain".

This video shoot signalled the band's farewell to New Zealand and also the temporary farewell to Anto Drennan. Anto had done a lot of session work with the rock band Genesis in the past and the Corrs reluctantly let him have a short time off to help out Genesis on their latest tour. With the band wrecked from having only a few hours sleep and being physically and mentally drained from the video shot they were back on the plane for the long flight back to the UK for more dates. On their return to the UK the band had to act quickly, since with Anto Drennan away touring with Genesis, they had to hire a new lead guitarist. They decided to employ on recommendation another Irishman called Connor Brady.

John Hughes had many times in the past helped mastermind the bands success in various countries throughout the world and now it was his skill that was needed to try to break the band in the United Kingdom. Hughes said that the best way to go about this was "Television exposure" and spoke to John Giddings, the band's UK agent about the situation. John Giddings suggested that it would be a good idea to hire the Royal Albert Hall as a prelude to the band's up and coming British tour. The band, although nervous, agreed with Giddings suggestion and the venue was hired. Giddings also managed to persuade a reluctant BBC to televise it live and the concert date was then set to the best possible day, the 17th of March 1998, St Patrick's day. The show was also going to be broadcast to an estimated forty thousand American viewers by the United States "Odyssey Cable Network" so there was going to be big exposure on both sides of the Atlantic.

The concert was a big gamble for the band because they never really knew how much interest was going to be shown and they were seriously concerned that they would be playing to a half empty hall. But the Corrs had a secret weapon up their sleeves in the shape of Legendary "Fleetwood Mac" Drummer Mick Fleetwood. Mick was a big fan of the band and was the member of Fleetwood Mac who was responsible for giving the band the go ahead to do the cover of "Dreams" for Fleetwood Mac's legacy album.



source : corrsonline.com
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Post time 4-1-2005 06:38 PM | Show all posts
Historical gig at The Royal Albert Hall

On the night of the concert all 7000 seats in the Royal Albert Hall were completely sold out, and with the crowd obviously containing a large Irish contingent, it turned out to be one of the fastest sell-outs in the venue's history. The concert itself was a complete success, far more of a success than the band or John Hughes could ever have imagined. Mick Fleetwood added to the concerts excitement by playing drums on "Dreams" and then doubling up with Caroline on drums for the next track "Haste to the Wedding". "It was brilliant" said Caroline, "he was lovely, and obviously for me, being the novice here, playing with Mick was a great experience". The concert ended with a thumping version of "Toss the Feathers" where Mick Fleetwood once again doubled up with Caroline on the drums. During "Toss the Feathers", a net that was suspended from the ceiling containing a mass of green and white balloons was opened and the multi coloured balloons fell upon the audience below. This was a fitting end to a wonderful concert and all the band were visibly moved when they took their final bow.

This concert turned out to be one of the biggest turning points for the band in the UK and along with the release of "Dreams" as a single, they were to finally make it big in the United Kingdom. If this had failed it would have been unlikely that the band would ever have succeeded in the UK, as both the band and the management had run out of ideas. The UK is such an important market to break into, maybe only second to America in importance, and the band had finally made their dream come true.

Sharon had said "Being a family band didn't help our cause in Britain as we were unfairly compared to The Partridge Family and The Osmonds. But if there was one thing, it was the unwavering determination and belief in ourselves and the people around us that helped make the dream come true".

Within a week of the Royal Albert Hall concert, "Talk On Corners" went straight into number thirteen in the UK charts and remained in the UK top twenty for many weeks to come and radio stations started to play the bands music almost overnight.

"Once we released Dreams, it kind of took off for us" said Caroline, "before that it was a hard struggle. We have been together as a band for eight years, so people might not realise just how long we have been together, slogging away".

At The Fleadh

With the band's new found overnight success in the UK they completed a few more gigs in various UK cities before flying out to the far east for a sold out tour of Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. Following a few gigs in Germany it was back to the UK again for their next major event, the Fleadh Festival in Finsbury Park in North London on the 6th of June. This was to be the third year running that the Corrs had performed at this event that is arranged to celebrate Irish music. Each year their appearance was closer and closer to the main act and this year they performed a stomping forty five minute set that sent the crowd delirious. The Corrs were now certainly starting to hit it off big in the UK.

The big events were coming thick and fast, and the next big performance was on the 9th of June where they performed at Luciano Pavarotti's "Pavarotti & Friends War Child Concert for Liberia" that was held in Modena, Italy. As well as singing their hit single "Dreams" the band also performed a solo with Pavarotti. Celine Dion, who was a big friend of the band also invited Andrea to play Tin Whistle on her epic song "My Heart Will Go On" from "The Titanic" movie. Caroline rated standing alongside Pavarotti and hearing him sing as one of the most incredible musical experiences she has ever witnessed. She reckons that the true power of Pavarotti's voice is impossible to convey through a television set.

Backstage at Party In The Park

There was no letup in July as the Corrs performed in front of 100,000 people at the Prince's Trust Benefit Concert in London's Hyde Park on the 5th of July. While in late August and September the Corrs had a dream come true and performed as a support act for the Rolling Stones on their "European Stadium tour" and played at Prague, Berlin and Mannheim. The gigs with the Rolling stones were a concern for the band and John Hughes reflects "Everyone was concerned, because people do get booed off supporting the Stones, they get cans thrown at them. But it was fantastic, the place was electric and we went down a storm".
Many TV promotions and concerts followed and the band even turned out on both the UK National Lottery program and at the UK radio one roadshow in Bournemouth in August.

Seen by four hundred million people

One of the biggest highlights of the year for the band was on September 21st when they played to one of the biggest audiences they would ever perform to. They were invited to perform at the closing Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The event was televised around the world and an estimated four hundred million people, including an international crowd of spectators and athletes from over 70 countries watched the event. Jim said "We could have relied on using a backing tape, but then nothing beats the adrenaline rush from singing live for that many people". The band returned to the States for another month of touring to promote the new album, and on the 21st of October, while in Chicago, they filmed the video for "So Young" before finally returning to the UK for yet more television and radio appearances.

The Corrs' remarkable year came to a close when the band kicked off their UK tour on the 3rd of December 1998 at the Nottingham Royal Concert Hall with two consecutive sold out nights. Although the set was similar to the previous "Talk On Corners" tour, it had various new additions. Firstly, a brand new piano piece by Jim that consisted of two separate Irish solos, a ballad and a jig. This was a great part of the concert as the fans witnessed a black "grand piano" being wheeled out for Jim to play his solos on. The second new piece was Sharon and Caroline singing a duet together called "No Frontiers" which was an Irish ballad that was recorded by Jimmy McCarthy and originally sung by Irish folk singer Mary Black. "I have only started singing on this tour", says Caroline, "I used to only do a Bodhran solo and as we extended the tour we needed to do more things. Sharon and myself decided we would do a song together called "No Frontiers", it's a nice Irish ballad and it goes down well every night with the fans". The other change was an acoustic version of "Runaway" with Caroline playing the piano. The band called a halt to proceedings for 1998 on the 22nd of December when they played the final concert of the year at the NEC arena in Birmingham.

This year had been a remarkable one for the band. They had their dream come true of finally making it big in the UK market as well as playing at some spectacular high profile concerts. The last six months had seen the band on everybody's wanted list and they found themselves in such great demand that they were over-committing to things, which brought with it a new type of pressure. Things that the band had agreed to do were clashing with things that the band had to do, they just never had enough hours in the day or days of the week to cram everything and everyone in. Everyone wanted a piece of the band, from the media through to the record companies and the fans and at some stages the band just wanted to be left alone. They were thoroughly looking forward to the Christmas and New Year break they had planned before setting off on the second leg of the UK tour early in January 1999.

1999

The band picking up their award at the Brits


With the Christmas and New Year's break out of the way, and the band somewhat refreshed, it was back on the road to continue with the UK tour. More gigs were performed throughout the UK before the band attended the "Brit Awards" which was being held at the Docklands Arena in London on the 16th of February. At the show, the band won the award for the "Best International Group" and celebrated by performing a cleverly combined, but shorted version of both "Runaway" and "Haste To The Wedding". "We are absolutely thrilled and delighted", said Caroline "and want to thank the fans and the people who voted for us. Last but not least, thanks to our parents Jean and Gerry and also our manager John Hughes".

But Jim stressed, "Without wanting to get egotistical about it, I think success has got to be celebrated. It takes an enormous amount of work to sell one million records, and the few awards that come our way are always very gratifying to get".

The band were back at the same arena four days later for a storming gig on the 20th of February, but it turned out to be one hell of a rush for the band that night. Just an hour before the concert began, the band were still on the other side of London performing "Runaway" on the UK National Lottery show. After their Lottery show appearance the band were whisked by escort across London for the main event of the night, their concert at the Docklands Arena. It was a great sight for the fans that night at the Docklands as they were treated to all the fun on the giant screens that hang either side of the stage. The fans were able to see the Corrs performing and talking on the UK National Lottery program and then had the great excitement of seeing the band arriving live outside the arena. Jim and Sharon arrived on motorcycles while Caroline and Andrea arrived by a more luxurious form of transport, a limousine. As they entered the arena the band were full of smiles and took the time to wave to the fans inside the arena via the outside cameras.

The band ended up playing a total of seven sold out nights in the capital with six of them at the Wembley arena, it was something they never ever thought they would achieve. Sharon said "To sell out Wembley twice would have been unbelievable, but to sell it out all those times, well no words can describe how we all feel".

Caroline added "Its going great, this tour has been really, really great. We're doing six Wembleys which is fantastic, so we couldn't be happier. The tour keeps getting extended, we started before Christmas, and then we started back again in January". Caroline continues, "Obviously its a lot of work for us, but its our time to do it now, and if we can fill these venues then it's better we do it now rather than never get to do it at all".

More gigs followed around Northern Europe before the band jetted off to America where they joined up with the Rolling Stones to perform with them once again as their support act on no less then six separate occasions. "The gigs with the Rolling Stones were amazing", said Caroline, "for us it was seeing them on stage, forget us doing our gig, we just wanted to see them perform, it was a huge thing for us". Mick Jagger had also publicly announced that he rates the band highly and was seen on many of the gigs standing in the wings, clapping and dancing as the Corrs performed. St Patrick's day was also spent in the States and it was a night to remember as they rocked 3000 fans at the Roseland Ball in New York.



source : corrsonline.com
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Post time 4-1-2005 06:43 PM | Show all posts
The band returned to the UK on the 30th of May where they headlined the "City In The Park Concert" at Nottingham in front of over 30 000 fanatical fans. Andrea describes this as one of the best gigs that the band have ever performed. "I loved that gig in Nottingham, It had all the love, I could feel the love coming back. It was very special".

Andrea also showed her kindness after this concert when she donated the whole of her performance fee to the Kosovo Refugees. "How much am I getting for this show'' she asked John Hughes after coming off stage after the concert. "I don't know, you never have asked before, why do you want to know, but It's a lot of money'' said John "Good,'' answered Andrea "I want to give the cheque to the Kosovo refugees''.


Performing in front of a screaming crowd in Glastonbury

In June the band performed for the first time in their careers at the Glastonbury Festival on the 27th of June. They were obviously nervous as they were concerned that their music was not quiet right for this sort of festival. Jim commented on the amount of traffic around the festival and Sharon joked "All the fans were leaving before we came on stage". But the Corrs were old hands at festivals and they performed an hour long set before immediately going back to Dublin after the concert. The band were off on their travels again a few days later when they flew out to Sweden for the "Skelleftea Festival". July continued with more very big concerts performed in front of very big audiences and they performed at the Prince's Trust Benefit Concert in front of a one hundred thousand people strong crowd and performed five songs.

But nothing could prepare the band for what happened on 17th July when they played their "homecoming concert" in front of 42 000 fanatic fans at Lansdowne Road, Ireland. Prior to the concert the Corrs were taken to a room and surrounded by journalists taking pictures and asking them the same routine questions that they have been asked many times before. The band arrived at about 1.00 p.m. for the sound check and spent hours perfecting and rehearsing to get the sound just right. Performing at a stadium this size requires a lot of checking and double checking and sound and vision has to be adjusted so that its absolutely perfect. The band and roadcrew already had experience of this sort of sized concert a few months ago at "City In The Park" but on that occasion they were one of many bands, this time they were on their own. The band came on at around 9.00 in the evening to a tremendous reception as the introduction music played before the band launched into "Only When I Sleep". The band performed a stunning set that lasted for almost two hours, including a rousing extended version of "So Young" which allowed the fanatical crowd to sing along. This concert has gone down in both the band's and the fans' eyes as the best concert the Corrs have ever performed.

"If I'd spoken to you ten years ago and told you I'd be trying to headline Lansdowne Road in 2001 with The Corrs, who'd have believed me? Now we're doing it a year ahead of schedule" Hughes said.


Corrs fighting world poverty

The bands' touring schedule took a short break until they were invited to take part at Netaid, a concert to promote world poverty on October the 9th. The Concert was hosted in three different places simultaneously with the Corrs performing at Wembley Stadium. This concert was a first, as it was the first concert of this size to be broadcasted live on the internet.The Corrs performed a five-song set that lasted for around 25 minutes, and including a rendition of REM's "Everybody Hurts".

On November 24th the band's mother Jean who had suffered from respiratory disease suddenly passed away while waiting for a lung transplant. This caused various promotional appearances that were planned for the "Unplugged" album to be cancelled. However, the band did make one appearance on December 11th when they performed a four-song "Unplugged" style set with an orchestra at the "Nobel Peace Prize Concert" in Norway.

The band put in one final appearance for the year when on New Years Eve they performed "So Young" at the Millennium Dome. This was a strange concert as the band had to use a stand in drummer for Caroline who was taking a break in Australia. It was a holiday that she had planned long before they were asked to perform at this event.

It was a year when the band went through more emotions than at any other time in their lives. From the huge sold out events of Lansdowne and Wollaton park to the emotional turmoil that hit Jim, Sharon, Caroline and Andrea at the time of their mother's death. It was a year the band were never going to forget.


2000
The new Millennium started off as maybe the quietest the band have known for a long, long time. With the new album destined for release this year it was no surprise that the band wanted to concentrate all its efforts into recording.

Andrea and Jim did make an appearance at the Brit awards at Earl's Court Arena in London on the 3rd of March. They were there to present the award of best international group to TLC, the award that the band had won themselves in 1999.

The band's next major appearance was back at the Royal Albert Hall on the 9th of April to headline the "Concert for Peace" which was organised by Mo Molan. This was a venue that brought back fond memories and they performed on stage for about 30 minutes, performing a six-song set with a thirty-piece orchestra.

On the 10th June the band were back in London again where they headlined the Fleadh Festival at Finsbury park. This concert saw the band perform a seventeen song set which included new songs off the yet unreleased third studio album "In Blue".


source : corrsonline.com
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Post time 4-1-2005 06:46 PM | Show all posts
Conquering the world
Every band that makes music wants to succeed in the states, it is the biggest music arena in the world and an artist is not really considered to have truly been successfully until their music has been accepted in the USA. As the Corrs were signed to an American label then naturally one of their first ports of call when releasing "Forgiven Not Forgotten" was going to be the US. Unfortunately things never went as planned, as despite major success in Ireland, Australia and the far east, America and surprisingly the United Kingdom had eluded the band.

The Corrs needed commercial radio exposure to obtain record sales but they were just not getting it. In the USA, commercial radio is segmented into 'formats', each format plays a certain type of music. The Corrs music (and this is something that they themselves admit) is a poor match on all US formats, but closer to some than others. Commercial radio in the US does not establish their playlists based on listener requests, all the songs you hear on radio, with very few exceptions, have been market tested by companies generically known as "Radio Consultants" to determine public reaction to songs before they are ever played on radio. The results of the Consultants' research is then sold to major market radio stations who use that information, and factoring in other concerns, form their playlists. So if you call a station requesting The Corrs, and The Corrs are not on the playlist already, they won't get played. But despite all the lack of publicity, the band did get some radio airplay just after "Forgiven Not Forgotten" was released when the first single off the album "Runaway", was played on various smaller radio stations. This occasional radio airplay in itself was not enough so the band took to selling the album into their own hands and started to visit many radio stations and playing acoustic versions of the songs in the studios. This turned out to be quite comical as some of the radio stations they visited hadn't even heard the single at this time. This small amount of radio success enabled the band to perform a mini acoustic tour of the smaller venues in the US in March 1996. The band spent most of their time touring and promoting the album in the States, and managed to obtain around 300,000 sales of the album.The bands debut album was less than the kind of rip-roaring success they had been hoping for.

John Hughes pointed out, "In America you've got 5,000, 10,000 or a couple of million sales, 300,000 leaves you in a strange place where everybody goes 'that's a helluva lot of records' and yet it has neither succeeded nor has it failed. The record company had sold 40,000 albums there, and so our agent John Giddings said we'd do a short tour there then go back to Europe and then go back down to Australia. And so we did that and by the time we went back to Australia, we'd sold 400,000 records, which was unbelievable."

It was a similar story in the United Kingdom, the album was just not getting the required airplay. In the countries where the album had been a success such as Australia, Spain and Denmark, the album had been launched alongside TV, radio and poster campaigns. The Corrs had also headlined live shows in these countries but due to such a small fan base this was not possible in the UK.

There were many reasons why the band initially had no success in the UK but the main culprit was simply that the band was refused radio airplay on some of the bigger known London Radio stations. Another major factor was when the Corrs embarked on their chosen profession, the mass media were preoccupied with so called "Britpop". It has always been the case that when a new "production line" band grab the headlines, then the real and credible musicians find it difficult to get a look in. Then there was the fact that they were Irish and played traditional Irish music, but also leant towards both pop and rock. This caused a problem for British record shops who simply didn't know which rack on the record shelf to stick them in.

Sharon said "Our image as a family band didn't help us in the UK as for some reason family bands are frowned upon and never do that well". Sharon continued, "And another serious problem was that our brand of music was classed as 'unclassifiable' by many of the leading record outlets".

At this time there just didn't seem to be a place for The Corrs music with its traditional Irish strain in the US or UK. The band undeterred by this failure just got their heads down and set about writing more songs for their follow up album, "Talk On Corners". But the band writing the new album was not what the record company wanted to hear, they didn't want to trust the band to write their own songs, they wanted to bring in outside writers instead. When Atlantic record executives first heard "Talk on Corners" they wasn't very impressed in fact they hated the record and they didn't want to release it.

"They were convinced we didn't have a hit single on the album and so it came down to a very direct conflict" said John Hughes."They were saying, 'It's not coming out John, get it straight', and I was insisting, 'it is coming out, it's got to come out, if we miss this our career's over, It has to come out'. And they said, 'we need a hit single off the record and we don't have one'. I said, forget about the hit song, nobody writes flops, you just don't like it but that doesn't mean that other people won't". The record company decided to go along with Hughes but the proviso was that the album would not initially be released in the states and the expected sales would have to top 3 million. "Sometimes the industry wants it tailor-made, but they may not like the tailoring" Hughes adds. "And you have to insist and shove and push and plead and so there were shouting matches. And the upshot was that we got the album released but we had to sell 3 million records or we were dead, or I was at least".

Andrea said "We always wanted to have a hit in America, thats what we are looking for, an even bigger hit with this album then the last one". Another unfortunate problem bestowing the band was the notion that their music was just planned and packaged by their record company.

"This was a group playing music that they liked, independently of anybody and actually having to fight to get it on the record," Hughes says. "So I don't understand these journalists who say that we're pandering to a taste or a fashion. In the first place there's an assumption that people are stupid and that you can just pander to them, the French, the Spanish, the Japanese, the Americans, and that they'll buy it just because it's got fiddles on it". Hughes continues, "The other thing is that if you could manufacture it, I'd do it every month, I'd do it again and again but it can't be done, show me how I can do it and I'll do it. Not because I'm greedy but because the idea intrigues me that you can wake up one day and say 'Let's create artists, pander to someone's tastes and make a fortune'. Again we're back to the presumption that you can turn up on a doorstep in L.A., smile and be pretty and be Irish and automatically sell 5 or 6 million records. First you have to have the talent, you have to have the natural ability for harmonies that they have, you have to be able to write songs the way they do, you have to have a sense of timing. You need the windows of opportunity to be there and to seize them, and then you've got to have the kind of disposition which means that you're willing to work non-stop. And people call that manufactured". Hughes continues, "So much of what we've been labelled, it's actually been completely the opposite. Like the Irishness, we fought for that against an inbuilt scepticism and then we're criticised because of pandering. People talk about bland music, it's alive, it's got passion and fight, it's free, we define ourselves and in doing so we've established a real independence".

Caroline and Andrea smiling to the camera

There were further insinuations that the management were using the bands looks, especially the girls looks to cover over the music. "I don't know," said John, "It certainly helps initially but it's kind of counterbalanced by the other expectation, oh yeah, three bimbos, they're never going to pull it off, so it can work against you. But with The Corrs, once they're on stage after four minutes their gender goes out the window, all bets are off because they can play. Once you've seen them live, or if you know their music, their craft is never in dispute."

After another sold out tour of Australian and New Zealand in early 1998, John Hughes and the band went back to the drawing board to try to think of a way to find proper success firstly in the UK and secondly in America. The band needed to be heard in the UK now not in six months time and the whole career of the band was balancing on them finding the right ingredients to hit it off in the UK. The States would have to wait, that was going to be a big job, and it might be slightly easier if they had the backing of the UK music public behind them.

Caroline said "We need to be heard in the UK, we feel our future is in the balance, we wont rest until we have achieved success".

"We had gone gold in the UK," said Hughes, "and the whole feeling was 'you've done it now, you can go home', and yet I was thinking how do we break England? The album had gone gold and I couldn't even get radio the way we really wanted it let alone television, we weren't it, we weren't hip. we weren't part of the sound".

The band needed TV exposure and it came about on March 17th 1998 in the form of a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

"I figured if I could get TV any day, it would be St. Patrick's Day, we needed a London show that would be broadcast on TV. The Royal Albert Hall was a far bigger venue than we wanted" said Hughes "but what the hell, It might be prestigious enough to swing the BBC". The Concert went down a storm with everyone and it ended up being shown live on both sides of the Atlantic which would do the bands chances of success in the US no harm at all. The fact that 100 out of 250 PBS television stations showed the St.Patrick's Day concert certainly helped the bands increasing publicity in the States.

The week following the Royal Albert Hall Concert saw "Talk On Corners" move back up the UK charts to number 13. "The album had debuted at No.7 in the UK and by the second week in March it was in the 50s," Hughes elaborates "but after the gig it was on fire and went straight up to number 13".

The momentum created by the BBC Royal Albert Hall broadcast was critical to the bands success and the then chairman of Warner, Rob Dickins, who was a strong supporter of the band, began looking for new ways for the band to exploit the UK and ultimately the American market even more. The Corrs had an ace up their sleeves in the form of the song called "Dreams", which they had initially recorded for the Fleetwood Mac's Rumours Revisited album. The band got remix master Todd Terry to create a remixed version of the song and all of a sudden Radio One and the unbelieving British public loved the record and the band.



source : corrsonline.com
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Post time 4-1-2005 06:52 PM | Show all posts
The British media and public were not the only people who loved the record, when Rob Dickins from Warner records heard the remixed version he also loved it and the single consequently rocketed into the US Top 40 in April 1998. The band were in shock by the success of one song so they set about making remixes of "What Can I Do" and "So Young".

John Hughes takes up the story "So we stripped it onto the record and we went top 10 places in the charts, and it went onto Radio 1's A-list, and Capitol Radio, and then it just exploded. And then we did 'What Can I Do', the remix, and suddenly everybody realised that there was something special going on here, when we remixed it everyone felt better. The interpretation that had been imposed on the songs in LA, in a way it had suffocated everybody, now we felt this is how it should have been in the first place."

Unplugged also sold well

"The X-factor kicked in" John Hughes reflects, "It's a phenomenon where nobody does anything extra and a record starts selling an unbelievable amount. That's been happening, we are well over 2 million albums in the UK now, we're touring at the moment, we've been nominated for the Brits, so we should get to 3 million. The biggest-selling album ever in the UK is 3.8 million or 3.9 million, so we may not be too far off that."

By September, Jim was even joking about how good it felt to be selling more records than their compatriots, Boyzone, and by October, their next single "What Can I Do" was receiving more than 1,700 plays a week on the UK radio. In November and with the success in America increasing by the day, the band performed a successful heavily promotion and gigging tour of the East side of the states, taking in such cities as Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston and New York City. This was followed up by the bands biggest ever UK tour in December 1998, playing over 25 dates around the country with tickets for the venues selling out within hours.

"It isn't just the time" John says, "And it isn't just the money that's at risk. There's a momentum involved in something like this and if you lose it, it may not be possible to regain it. It's like a weightlifter getting the weights up to shoulder height, that's the long haul. You can raise it up and bring it down to the chin when you want to but if you put it down on the ground, then you're back to square one, you have all the hard work to do again." But not everyone was a fan of the new remixed Corrs songs and the bands swift diversion from folk/rock to the dance format of the remixes split the fanbase in two. Some were pleasantly surprised, but most were outraged with the fans pointing the finger at John Hughes rather then the band. A spokesman for Warner UK claimed that there had been no complaints from any fans but it was obvious that this "survey of fans" did not extend beyond record company doors. This was further fuelled by Jim who actually defended the remixes stating "I loved them". Indeed, the band may well have 'loved them' but the trouble with The Corrs is that they don't really moan or complain about their record company. This view was understandable as the remixes helped the bands increased success which had seen their bank balance triple over the past two years. The Corrs popularity has skyrocketed since the spring of 1998 to an extent that has even surprised the band. The bands videos dominate TV stations like MTV, and their music is a regular fixture of radio playlists around the world. Their live shows sell out rapidly and provide an unforgettable spectacle for the millions who attend. Yet there is never even a glimpse of the huge egos that often come with superstardom.

"I've been at many industry dinners where people have been thanking themselves over the success of 'Talk on Corners', It happened but my job is not to crow, 'I was right and you were wrong'. You have to believe in yourself completely because this type of business switches off like a light,'' says Hughes.

"And it was gratifying that in the end it was our own songs that did the business'' says Jim, "This time we have the ability to be self-contained and we are certainly going to exercise that".

But success has still not completely been confirmed in the states, which is probably the last place in the world that has not been completely taken back by this wonderful band. John and the band would be the first to agree that it is getting their, but painfully slowly.

John says, "When you find yourself selling in Sweden, Spain, England and Japan, then you know that it's a global situation. And America is a melting pot, when we get to Middle America, it'll explode. It gets back to vision versus planning. I can see it".

Side projects
The Corrs have been involved in various side projects in the last few years either as a band or individually with the most famous being The Commitments in 1995. This film was an important landmark in the band's history as without this lucky break the band might have not been together today. All members of the band appeared in Alan Parker's adaptation of the film but none of the band members played any significant part in the film. Andrea had the largest role when she played the sister of the central character, Jimmy Rabitte while Sharon, Caroline and Jim only had walk on parts. Andrea is easy to spot and you can see her throughout the whole movie both in the audience and in the real acting scenes but Jim, Sharon and Caroline are much harder to spot.

Jim can be seen at 1 hour, 19 minutes and 31 seconds into the film and plays a member of a 'Avant-Garde-A-Clue' band. You can see him on the screen for about one second playing the keyboard. Sharon can be seen at 1 hour and 47 minutes into the film and plays the violin in a Country and Western band. Caroline can be seen at 1 hour, 31 minutes and 20 seconds into the film and can be spotted in the audience twice but she is really hard to spot.

Jim was busy later in the year when he played the acoustic guitar on the soundtrack of the 1995 film "Casper". This soundtrack was produced and arranged by David Foster who was responsible for producing "Forgiven Not Forgotten", David was quick to use Jim's acoustic guitar skills on the track.

1995 also saw Sharon, Caroline and Andrea sing backing vocals on a Paul Brady track called "Just In Time" which was taken from the album "Sprit's Colliding". Anto Drennan also featured on this album when he played the acoustic guitar on the moving ballad "Help Me To Believe". This year was turning out to be a very busy year for the band in terms of side projects and they climaxed the year when they were special quests in episode 16 of season 6 of the very popular soap "Beverly Hills 90210". Their appearance in this film happened by chance as John Hughes met the producer of the show Aaron Spelling at an LA restaurant. He mentioned the band and managed to persuade Aaron to speak to the band about the possibility of starring as special guests in the film.

John said "I told Aaron about the band and after showing him a photograph of the girls he was very keen to met up with them and discuss it further".

The band got the part, and they performed in the New Years' Eve 1995 episode called "Turn Back The Clock" where they performed a full version of 'Forgiven Not Forgotten' at the club called "After Dark". They also sang "Auld Lang Syne" at the strike of twelve and "Runaway" can also be heard playing in the background but the cameras are not on the band during this song. As well as the Corrs performing their songs the main characters actually mention the band several times during the episode.

Andrea's chance at acting took another good turn in 1996 when she landed a role in another Alan Parker directed film called "Evita" in which she played the 15 year old mistress of Juan Domingo Peron (Jonathan Pryce) alongside Madonna's Eva. While Caroline, Jim and Sharon got to receive a well-deserved vacation, Andrea flew to Budapest to portray the 15-year-old mistress of Juan Peron (Jonathan Pryce). Eva (Madonna) is seen walking up to Peron's (Andrea's) bedroom where the mistress is sleeping and throws her out of the house. The scene is called "Another Suitcase In Another Hall" and Andrea sings "Hello And Goodbye" together with Madonna and Jonathan Pryce.

Legacy

With the heavy touring schedule of the band in 1996 and 1997 it was no surprise that they had little time for side projects but in 1998 the band returned with an appearance on the Fleetwood Mac album called "Legacy: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac's Rumours" where they played "Dreams". The band also performed with Rod Stewart on a one off TV program called "An Evening with Rod Stewart". The band joined Rod on stage and performed a super rendition of Ronnie Lane's & Ron Wood's masterpiece called "Ooh la la". Rod was so impressed with the results that a studio version was included on his new album "When We Were The New boys". This song featured Caroline on bodhran, Andrea on tin whistle and Sharon on violin.

The David Foster connection came up again when the band were involved in the Warner Brothers first fully animated movie called "Quest For Camelot". In this film Andrea plays the sweet singing voice of heroine Kayley, who funny enough looks a bit like her. Andrea sings two songs in this movie, "On My Fathers Wings" and "Looking Through Your Eyes", the second being a duet with Country and Western singer Bryan White. Both songs were written by David Foster and Carole Bayer Sager and were performed by The Corrs. The band and David Foster are credited on the soundtrack for a total of three songs.

From the "I Know My Love" video

Towards the end of 1998, the band joined up with their friends and heroes, the traditional folk band The Chieftains to perform a song on the band's new album "Tears Of Stone". This was an album that celebrated a woman's view of love through traditional Irish songs. The Chieftain's leader, Paddy Maloney, had brought together some of the most powerful women in music including Sinead O'Connor, Lorena McKennitt, Bonnie Raitt and Joni Mitchell to sing on the album. The Corrs sang a Mary O'Hara song called "I Know My Love" which had a distinctive Latin feel to it and the Corrs did not think that Paddy was serious when he suggested the song due to its Latin feel.This album was eventually released in April 1999.

One of the band's most serious side projects was in November 1998 when they instigated a project to help the Omagh fund. This fund was set up to help the people of Omagh recover from the bomb which claimed 29 lives and injured over 300 in the Tyrone town on August 15th 1998. Andrea used her considerable influence in the music industry to help victims of the Omagh tragedy and she managed to attract big names like U2 to perform a one-off benefit concert on the late, late show on RTE. The band performed an acoustic version of REM's "Everybody Hurts" on the show and also helped raised
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Post time 4-1-2005 06:55 PM | Show all posts
Andrea said, "We really felt like doing something to help the victims of the bombing, so I phoned Bono and it all started to come together. It's a declaration that it's not forgotten, something like this should never happen again".

A compilation CD was released in July 1999 called "Across The Bridge Of Hope - in aid of the Omagh fund" with all sales proceeds going to the Omagh fund. The band donated their song "What Can I Do" for this album.

In late 1999 the Corrs were involved in a project call "Abbamania". This project was to engage more English schoolchildren into music with all profits from the CD sales invested into a special charity fund whose purpose is to help the youth to start singing and performing music. Many stars turned out in October for the event which took place at Wembley Arena in London and was also screened on TV a few days later. Due to pressures of working on the "Unplugged" album the band did not perform at the actual event but they did record a studio version of "The Winner Takes It All" which featured mainly Andrea on the vocals. The CD, which included this song was released In early December.

Sharon has recently been involved with Jean Michel Jarre's album "Metamorphoses" where she plays a beautiful violin solo on a track called "Rendez-Vous
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Post time 4-1-2005 07:12 PM | Show all posts
Andrea Jane Corr



Date of birth : 17 May 1974.
Star Sign : Taurus, The Bull.
Height : 1.556m (5'1 1/4)
Instruments : tin whistle & lead vocals.
Bad Habits : Sucking her thumb, being messy.
Worst character : I lose everything.
Like people who : Live life and are down to earth.
Dislikes people who : Don't try and give up easily.
Holds Drivers Licence : Yes.


"Our parents were musicians, so we grew up with a lot of music in our house. I suppose it was always our intention to become a band. I don't think that there was anything else that we really wanted to do. I think if music provokes any sort of emotion, it's working. Whether someone is laughing or crying, happy or sad. That's what it's all about."

Brown-eyed Andrea is the youngest, as well as the shortest, of the siblings. She is the lead singer of the group, plays the tin whistle, and is the main lyricist of the band. Like the rest of the Corr siblings, Andrea was taught the piano by her father Gerry, but it's her voice, filled with such passion and strength, that is the main asset to the band.

Andrea went to the same school as her sisters, the Dun Lughaidh Convent, and was classed as the brainiest of all the siblings. But, being the youngest had a downside because, as she joined the band straight from leaving school, she is often looked upon as missing out on her youth and a somewhat normal life. This might explain why Andrea is often shy at interviews, sometimes sitting there silently while her siblings take the questions, and then sheepishly looking lost for words if suddenly the conversation turns to her. But, all is forgiven when she either bursts out laughing or flashes her fantastic smile as she realizes she hasn't been paying full attention.

Andrea, who was voted sexiest woman in Ireland, admits to sometimes making a lot out of a simple situation, being an eternal optimist, and, with some reluctance, being the messy one of the family. She is also known to have an overactive imagination, which, along with her romantic side, forms the foundation for her lyric writing. It is these factors that give the feeling and drive to a lot of the band's songs. Andrea also loves to read and watch movies, the latter often making her emotional, which she views as the perfect platform for her proven emotional lyric writing.

Andrea is very self-critical and very rarely likes her own work. She has been known to come off stage and publicly denounce her performance. But, despite all her self-criticism, she is known as the joker of the family, making people crack up with laughter as she drops a quick sharp comment or pulls a funny face. All this is understandable, considering she is attracted to people who are down-to-earth and live life to the fullest extent. Andrea, who is not public transport's biggest fan, loves visiting the world and sees it as a huge bonus that the band not only does something they enjoy for a living, but has the luxury of traveling and meeting people of many cultures, as well getting the chance to sample the different styles of party life in all corners of the globe.

Andrea's worst and most noticeable habit is sucking her thumb, a habit she has had since she was young. When the Corrs were in the States towards the end of 1998, someone pulled John Hughes aside and suggested that Andrea should get some therapy to try to get her out of the habit. But, Andrea has often been quoted saying that she doesn't see it as a problem whatsoever. She also has the habit of losing things, which is why she sees the tin whistle as the perfect instrument - they are cheap to replace.

Andrea is also an aspiring actress in her spare time and has now appeared in two films directed by Alan Parker - "The Commitments" and the cinematic version of "Evita." While Caroline, Jim, and Sharon got to receive a well-deserved vacation, Andrea flew to Budapest to portray Juan Peron's mistress in "Evita." Andrea was also the singing voice for Kayley, one of the main characters in the animated movie "Quest For Camelot" and, together with the rest of the group, she performs two songs on the soundtrack. In 2003 she got her first leading star role in Nicholas Adams's "The Great Ceili War". It's her acting roles that have caused the other members of the band to give Andrea the title "family drama queen".

Onstage is where Andrea portrays her true love for the band's music. Anyone watching Andrea perform live is mesmerized by being in her presence. Dressed in either colorful baggy dresses or tops or in complete black, Andrea is a giant on the concert stage. She can hold an audience spellbound with the variety of facial expressions she has, ones that range from pure sad to pure sexy. The emotion she portrays in her powerful and strong, yet charming voice, the way she loses herself in the music and lyrics, and the way she acts the songs out like a story is what makes this woman so unique. One minute, she is dancing around the stage, while the next, she's standing sultry by her microphone while running her fingers through her hair or holding her face almost in anguish. Not a single performance goes by without Andrea making some mistake, be it accidentally dropping her tin whistle or her microphone, playing when not supposed to, nearly tripping over, or introducing the wrong song or part of the show. She is a lady who makes mistakes, and enjoys making them. Jim has been quoted as saying, "I sometimes look at Andrea in our concerts and wonder what next unplanned thing we are all about to witness." But her mistakes, we just could not do without. They're a vital part of the concert that we, as fans, all look forward to witnessing.

All since the band hit stardom Andrea has for been linked with any person who will "stick," especially by the tabloid press. Because the band is a family, and the fact that any time Andrea manages to get off from her busy schedule the time is spent with family and friends, she has only had two relationships the past few years.

Andrea is something special, no one could disagree with that statement. Something extraordinary could be seen in Andrea many years ago, when the band was trying so hard to get a record deal. Her irresistible little smiles and cheeky grins, the presence she portrays on stage for one so small, her songwriting and, especially, her lyric writing talents hold no boundaries. These are just a few examples of what makes this lady an amazing woman who will go down in history as one of the greatest females that has ever graced popular music.

Andrea is a giant amongst giants...



source : corrsonline.com

[ Last edited by fly_in_d_sky on 4-1-2005 at 07:16 PM ]
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Post time 4-1-2005 07:15 PM | Show all posts
Caroline Georgiana Corr



Date of birth : 17 March 1973.
Star Sign : Pisces, The Fish.
Height : 1.625m (5'4).
Instruments : Drums, Bodhr醤, Piano, occasional backing vocals.
Bad habits : Pulling at her hair.
Like people who : Are funny and charismatic.
Dislikes people who : Cannot take a joke, make a mess with the toothpaste.
Holds Drivers Licence : Yes.


"Our music is a blend of modern rhythms and technology with instruments - with violin, tin whistle, drum and of course, the voices. The marrying of these elements makes our sound."

Blue-eyed Caroline is the second youngest and the second shortest of the Corrs. Her main instrument in the band is the drum kit and the bodhran, but she also occasionally plays the piano and sings backing vocals.

Like her brother and sisters, Caroline was taught the piano by her father Gerry from a very early age. She turned out to be a natural, mastering the instrument very fast and eventually becoming good enough to gain qualifications. The bodhran was another instrument that Caroline mastered from an early age. She incredibly learned this instrument solely from watching videos of traditional Irish musicians playing it. It wasn't until Caroline was 18, when the Corrs were without a drummer, that she started to learn the drums. An old boyfriend had a drum kit, and he showed her some basic beats. With the help of "teach yourself CD's," Caroline was able to learn simple drum loops and rolls. Armed with this small amount of knowledge, she then proceeded to become the drummer in the band, and had all her training playing live. Caroline laughs, "It was a nightmare. I had only been playing for a short time, and there I was being chucked in at the deep end. Luckily, people never noticed all the mistakes I used to make, or if they did, they were too polite to tell me." While learning the drums Caroline, had the continuous problem of sore and blistered hands, but she overcome this by using a special brand of Equestrian gloves. Nowadays, Caroline has decided that golfing gloves offer her even more control and they're now her number one choice. This type of glove enables Caroline to get the grip and comfort required to play the drums continuously for over 90 minutes at a time in concert.

Caroline was maybe the shyest of the siblings, which, is surprising, because, as a youngster, she was considered a bit of a tomboy and befriended many boys. She has become a lot more outgoing since the band turned professional, and, in interviews, she always looks relaxed and friendly while flashing her wonderful smile at the camera. But, don't be fooled, as beneath that fun exterior lurks a serious side to her nature and seriousness towards her instruments and music career that should never be underestimated. Caroline believes that if you want something bad enough, the best thing to do is to just "go out there and get it." That's a philosophy she believes in strongly.

Caroline has many habits, the worst maybe being sniffing her jumper, which she has stated she does for comfort, and using her mobile phone. Along with Sharon, she is known to run up very high mobile phone bills and has stated that she could never cope without her phone. She also confesses that she hates cleaning mirrors and loathes bathrooms where someone has made a mess with the toothpaste. She doesn't rate photo shots either, as she has said that "they suck" on many an occasion.

Caroline has a broad taste in music and likes current bands like Garbage, Radiohead, and Oasis, as well as some of the older rock bands. She rates standing alongside Pavarotti and hearing him sing as one of the most incredible musical experiences she has ever witnessed.

Onstage, Caroline is a force to be reckoned with. From the minute she sits behind her kit at the start of a concert to the final minutes when she is reaping the crowd's applause, she is pure energy. Dressed normally in short tops to keep her cool, trousers, her customary sneakers, and headphones perched on her head, Caroline looks the typical rock drummer, ready for anything. Although out of sight most of the time, it is still easy to spot her throughout a concert when she claps along with the crowd or waves her drum sticks forwards and backwards above her head in time with the music. One of the greatest parts of a Corrs concert that everyone looks forward to is when she appears from behind her drum kit, sits on a stool at the front of the stage, and then proceeds to play her bodhran with her now-famous 'head down in concentration' pose. After completing her bodhran solo, Caroline gives her fantastic smile, gives the crowd a huge wave, sometimes blows a kiss, and trots back up to her drum kit, expertly avoiding all the wires on the stage floor. Caroline has been praised by many drummers who have graced the drum world. She is admired not only for her amazing power and strength that has seen her crack cymbals on numerous occasions, but also for her confidence, determination, and the sheer love she shows when playing her kit. From the little glances and cheeky smiles she throws at bassist Keith Duffy, to her interaction with the other members of the band in the final beats of a song, Caroline is a professional through and through.

Caroline is married to a man called Frank Woods, they got engaged in May 2002 in Paris and was married in July 2002 in Spain. The couple had been seeing eachother for about five years, and Frank was always a man willing to jump on a plane and go visit Caroline anywhere in the world. It was rumoured that they had broken up in early 2001, but that they then got back together again after six months, but that is not confirmed.

Caroline still hopes to be in the music industry in ten years, although she has confessed that once the time is right, getting married, having babies, and doing all the other normal things a man and woman do together will have to take priority.

Caroline is not just a faceless person who sits behind her drum kit out of sight; she is a beautiful, talented woman, whom the band just could not do without. Those of us who have been lucky enough to speak to Caroline for any length of time would more than likely agree on one thing - it's not just her beauty or her fantastic smile, or even the way she seems to be able to laugh and talk at the same time, but it's something unexplainable that makes you realize that you have spoken to a special person who exudes class, kindness, and is devoted to her profession. Caroline is the ultimate example of what can be achieved through hard work and dedication.

We've always loved you, Caroline...



source : corrsonline.com
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Post time 4-1-2005 07:21 PM | Show all posts
James Steven Ignatius Corr



Date of birth : 31 July 1964.
Star Sign : Leo, The Lion.
Height : 1.720m (5'7 3/4).
Instruments : Keyboards, piano, guitars, accordion & backing vocals.
Bad habits : Killing a once funny joke by telling it too many times.
Worst character : Grumpiness especially when tired.
Like people who : Focus on the positive in other people.
Dislikes people who : Bitch about others because of their own insecurities.
Holds Drivers Licence : Yes.

       
"I really do hope that we can create our own niche. But, when I'm asked to describe our music, I always say that it's modern with an Irish influence, because the Celtic vein runs through everything we do. We're a traditional Irish pop-rock band, whatever that is."

Blue-eyed Jim is the eldest and tallest of the four siblings and was the big brother responsible for starting everything by wanting to form a band with his sisters. He was even dreaming of family rock stardom while Andrea and Caroline were still at school, and Sharon was working in a record store. He plays electric and acoustic guitars, keyboards, the accordion, and last but not least, sings occasional backing vocals. Jim remembers standing on tiptoe as a youngster and hitting the keys of the old piano in his bedroom. His potential quickly realized by his father, Gerry, who then decided to teach him how to play. Jim was a fast learner and quickly mastered the basics before years of practice made him the 'keyboard expert' we see today.

When the opportunity came to learn another instrument, Jim seized it and was taught the guitar at an early age by his next-door neighbor. The guitar is one instrument that Jim just could not do without, and his passion for this instrument embraces Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters, as well as Guild, Lowden, and Taylor acoustic guitars. Not only is Jim a very talented and skilled musician, he can also turn his hand to producing, mixing, and editing; he is there to make sure that the result turns out like he and his sisters want.

Jim went to De La Salle Brothers Catholic School but, due to his continuing love of instruments, his schoolwork suffered and, while his sisters were receiving good grades, Jim's were poor, as his school reports testify. This was not helped by the fact that he had got in with a 'bad crowd' who were causing trouble and thieving on the streets of Dundalk. While Jim was never involved in any of the thefts, he does admit that he got quite a buzz out of hanging out with this crowd. Due to Jim's fascination with electronics, he briefly considered taking up electronics as a career, but after attending music college for a short period of time, he decided his heart belonged to music. By the age of 15, Jim had already started performing with his parents in Dundalk's bars and clubs, and he was literally thrown in at the deep end by playing with the Irish traditional singer Dolores Keane.

Jim comes across as a deep thinker, and is very interested in Philosophy. He has often be perplexed by the 'meaning of life.' His view, like his sisters', is that "if you want something bad enough, then make positive moves to get it." Jim is often asked if he is the leader of the band, and his answer is always the same - a big NO. "We decide everything together, and any fool knows you don't tell Irish girls what to do," he says with a big smile. He sees himself as the background figure in the band, standing in the shadows of his three beautiful sisters, and, according to Jim himself, this is where he wants to be. "You don't seem to understand, I'm here to make the girls look good" Jim jokes, "and I am often literally pushed to one side by fans eager to get to them".

Jim is the guy that always has a joke or two in his back pocket. He leaves most of the talking to his sisters, waiting for the right moment to put in a funny comment and give everybody a good laugh. Jim does, however, take control of the situation as soon as the provided questions become business-related. Being forever in the shadow of his sisters means he gets to have more fun and he is the resident party animal. While the girls go to bed for the night Jim goes out and checks on the local nightlife.

When playing live, Jim is as laid back as his personality. Dressed normally in black or dark colors, he switches between keyboard and guitar with ease, and is often seen playing the keyboard with his guitar still slung around his neck. A good example of this is in the unplugged sessions where on various songs, Jim is sitting there playing piano one moment, and then, without getting up, he starts strumming out power chords on his guitar. Like all good musicians, Jim has the knack of making complicated pieces on the guitar and keyboards look deceptively easy and his guitar playing has been praised for its innovation, phrasing, and dexterity. Jim loves the camera and will always give a wide broad grin when he sees the camera on him, showing just how much he really enjoys playing. Jim firmly believes that looking good onstage is all part of the Corrs' image and he will never appear in shoddy cloths or outfits.

Jim currently does not have anyone special in his life, none we know of anyway. In the past he has dated a former Miss Ireland named Andrea Roche, who bears a striking resemblance to his sister, Andrea. The relationship ended soon after the death of Jean Corr. If he ever has children, he would like them to do jobs that utilize their talents. He believes that having a job that is your hobby is the ultimate thing a person can do.

Jim is a pure winner, a guy who, even from a very early age, was destined to be a professional musician of the highest caliber. He dreamt about forming a group with his sisters and has lived that dream to a far greater potential then even he could have imagined.

Thanks, Jim, for making your dream come true...



source : corrsonline.com
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Post time 4-1-2005 07:23 PM | Show all posts
banyak nya info fly :bgrin:

aku pon suka jugak the corrs ni... diorang memang talented..muzik diorang ni kenkadang bole buat aku terharu plak, maybe pasal ada violins tu kot..

dulu2 aku minat lagu runaway.. album yg aku paling suka Talk on Corners:cak:
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Post time 4-1-2005 07:23 PM | Show all posts
Sharon Helga Corr



Date of birth : 24 March 1970.
Star Sign : Aries, The Ram.
Height : 1.664m (5'5 1/4).
Instruments : Violin and backing vocals.
Bad habits : Not telling! na na ni na na. (smoking).
Worst character : Dogmatism.
Like people who : Are honest.
Dislikes people who : Are insecure and who talk just for the sake of it.
Holds Drivers Licence : No.


"I think the music reflects something about the Irish people as a whole. The Irish have a lot of hope, despite all the troubles they've gone through over the years. They've always known how to laugh and have fun. That's where the tradition of up-tempo Irish music and dancing comes from. But there's that mystical, haunting sound as well, which I think reflects the environment. I mean, when you get up first thing in the morning, there is literally a mist surrounding everything. Our music is influenced by our environment, and we play what we feel."

Green-eyed Sharon is the second eldest and second tallest member of The Corrs, and plays the violin in the band. She also contributes most of the backing vocals and has this wonderful ability of being able to do both at the same time.

Sharon started to learn the violin at the age of six when she took lessons from a priest named Father McNally. It was this same priest who wasted no time in drawing out her potential and instilling in her the love of classical music she has today. Between the ages of 7 and 14, she was a member of the Redeemer Youth Orchestra and this orchestra become renowned in Country Loath for its fine musicianship. Sharon is proud of the fact that she only ever missed one violin lesson in her whole life and today, she is qualified to teach the instrument professionally.

Sharon went to school at the Dun Lughaidh Convent, where she was far from the perfect student. She was suspended from school on two separate occasions for skipping lessons. She was caught both times, and realized that "bunking off" was not for her, so she decided to concentrate on her schooling instead. She was told by a nun in her school that she would be a failure all her life. "I didn't take it seriously at the time, and I'm not the kind of person to go 'hey, you said I was a failure and look at me now.' I could be internationally famous, but totally devoid of personality and just an absolute ass to everyone. I don't think there's any such thing as failure - if you're trying, you're not a failure. But I think I annoyed the nun, so I wouldn't like to be vindictive about her because I don't think she meant it badly.''

Today she feels her one and only rebellious habit is smoking, and her other somewhat addictive pastime is drinking coffee, and lots of it. It's one thing she says she sure couldn't do without.

As a teenager, Sharon's bedroom was full of posters of pop and rock bands, with her favorite singer Paul Young taking "pride of place" on her bedroom wall. It was a typical schoolgirl crush, and something that she still cringes about even now. Her music tastes today have changed very little and she is equally comfortable listening to diverse music, ranging from classical to heavy rock.

Sharon might seem to look like the type that 'runs the show,' but that's not the case. The Corrs decide everything together, and she considers herself as being well organized rather than bossy. She's the one who makes sure all the band are ready for an interview or have everything packed before going on tour. During interviews, Sharon is very often seen as the chatterbox, the dynamic member of the band answering questions in a long and meaningful way, showing the love and dedication she has, not only for the band, but also for music itself.

Onstage is where Sharon makes her mark. She holds people spellbound, whether dressed in a beautiful long black coat, trouser suit, backless colorful tops, or a dress. Sharon's elegance and angelic beauty is impossible to ignore. Her gracefulness on stage, when playing the violin, is breathtaking. Whether she is playing a fast jig or a haunting melody, Sharon leaves the viewer and listener spellbound. Her strong backing vocals provide the ideal trade-off to Andrea's forceful lead vocals, and she will often be seen silently singing along with Andrea on many a song. Sharon loves interacting with the crowd, and is often seen dancing and jigging around, waving to people or throwing her irresistible, warm, beautiful, and radiant smile. The concentration on her face when playing her instrument is astounding, and there is nothing more wonderful sight than a close-up shot of Sharon's face in full concentration, with her eyes either completely shut or wide open, looking dreamily into space, playing a haunting melody, without hardly even a glance at her violin.

Sharon, like every person that plays live, is not perfect and she does make mistakes, not very often, but when they do happen, and she maybe starts playing a little too early, she ends up giving herself, the rest of the band, and the crowd, a good laugh. The crowd loves Sharon's and Andrea's mistakes - they're like a part of the show, and they're something we, as fans, wouldn't have any other way. After a concert, Sharon is the one who will lead the review of the concert, indicating bad and good points, and making notes on how to improve for the next show, before relaxing with a glass of wine.

What would The Corrs' music sound like without Sharon's violin? It's difficult to say, but one thing that everyone would agree with is it sure would never sound or feel the same. The Corrs play a mix of traditional Irish music, pop and rock, and without the violin, there would be no traditional Irish music. They would sound like just any other normal everyday band. The violin is a very big part of their music; it is very much the backbone of everything they do and it gives them their unique sound, the sound that makes them different from most other bands, the sound that makes it almost impossible to classify their music. The thought of The Corrs' music without Sharon's haunting and dynamic violin is really impossible to comprehend.

Today, Sharon lives together with her husband, a barrister named Gavin Bonner. When not touring, Sharon will often spend time around the house with Gavin, doing jobs like cleaning and washing, jobs that we may class as mundane, but, as Sharon says, "when you are on the road for long periods of time, little things like this bring normality back to your life."

Sharon is not only a very skilled and talented violinist, she is a unique woman who has a presence and "air of grace" found in very few people. She is not only diplomatic, but an optimist who always looks on the bright side of any dilemma or problem.

If Andrea is gorgeous, and Caroline is cute, then Sharon is truly beautiful. What would The Corrs do without you, Sharon?



source : corrsonline.com
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Post time 4-1-2005 07:24 PM | Show all posts
Originally posted by seafoamgreen at 4-1-2005 07:23 PM:
banyak nya info fly :bgrin:

aku pon suka jugak the corrs ni... diorang memang talented..muzik diorang ni kenkadang bole buat aku terharu plak, maybe pasal ada violins tu kot..

dulu2 aku  ...



sama ler
suka lagu Runaway ....
aaa touching .......
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