Adelaide alt. country singer-songwriter Tara Carragher will take to the stage for two very special performances at this year's Semaphore Music Festival.
Tara will be presenting a revised version of her own show 'Righteously: The Music Of Lucinda Williams', after premiering it in 2012 at Adelaide Fringe and another Fringe performance earlier this year. “It's a similar band, but with new songs spanning her whole career,” Tara says.
“She's my favourite singer-songwriter of all time so it's a good catalogue to be mining. For the [Fringe] festival this year we did a 90-minute set straight through with a 6-piece band and the works, so we're looking to revisit that for this year's Semaphore Music Festival.”
The music and songcraft of Lucinda Williams has been fundamental to Tara's own pedigree as a singer-songwriter, ever since she was introduced to it by a friend when she started writing her own songs at the age of 18.
“I'd written my first song and a friend of mine who heard it said I sounded like Lucinda Williams and I said 'who?',” Tara laughs.
“He gave me 'Car Wheels On A Gravel Road' [1998 record], which is a pretty amazing album and I thought it was incredible. I love how real she is; she pulls no punches and she's a really poetic songwriter too.”
It's the poetic sensibility of Lucinda's lyricism that Tara is most drawn to as a songwriter. “Her dad was a poet and that filters through to her own work, and I really connect with that as well as her previous stuff well. I'm a bit of a blues fan and I just love good songwriting, and good, strong women too.
“I love the way that she can explore a massive theme with just one sentence. Just the economy of words is amazing; there's no fat and there's a point behind every syllable, which I love.”
Tara will also be participating in the Semaphore Songs project with Nancy Bates and the pair will be part of a panel discussing the themes of reconciliation and collaboration. “I'm not an Aboriginal person myself, but
Nancy's feeling towards reconciliation is that it should be Aboriginal Australians and non-Aboriginal Australians working together, that's the whole point.”
Tara's last release was her 2016 EP 'Wicked World', which was produced around the title track, an ode to her father who was dying of cancer at the time. “I knew he was going, but I wrote that song for him just so I left nothing unsaid,” she says. “Then the rest of the EP formed around that one song, so it's all a bit of a blur now; it's been an interesting ride.
“I feel ready now to get writing again. Music is quite an insular thing and you can be a bit selfish sometimes, so I'm looking to write something that's a bit more inclusive and not just me and my feelings,” she laughs.
