Maggie Reilly

Scotland is a small country which for its size has produced more than a share of varied and innovative musical talent, eg: Bay City Rollers, Big Country, Deacon Blue, Donovan, Annie Lennox, Cocteau Twins, John Martyn and Simple Minds - to name but a few. Well, Great Britain's musical melting-pot is actually called London; it is no wonder that the Scottish singer Maggie Reilly moved to this music metropolis a long time ago. Red-haired indeed she is, the "vocal fairy with the voice of bells (Suddeutsche Zeitung), whose "metaphorical beautiful singing reminds of the greek sirens" (FAZ). The sympathetic, dynamic Scotswoman with the quick cat-like eyes got known through her prolific longtime companionship with world famous multi-instrumentalist, hyper-perfectionist and soundmaster Mike Oldfield, for whom she sang lead vocals on his 1983 and 1984 smash hits "Moonlight Shadow" and "To France". Now lets go back about 30 years in time. Back then, little Maggie roamed together with her Dad, a dance-band singer, through many pub and concert hall venues all over Scotland. The national folk-music tradition excited her only to some extent, but she preferred listening to the records of her heroes: Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Ella Fitzgerald. Very shy, as she is still , but with a determined Scottish resolve she subsequently followed her dream of a musical career of her own and in the famous Marble Arch studios of Pye records in 1970 she recorded her first single. "Imagine Me" turned out to be a musical nightmare which Maggie, showing an unheard of (for that time) musical independence, refused to promote. Back home in Glasgow, she met keyboard player Stuart MacKillop who asked her to join his band "Joe Cool". "Joe Cool" swiftly transformed from an insider act into a Scottish pop phenomenon. In the mid-seventies they united with the not lesser-known more jazz-orientated formation "Up", therewith forming the funk-rock-band Cado Belle Signed by Pink Floyd's publisher Pete Barnes, Cado Belle expanded their range, in spite of the just exploding punkwave, far off the isles' border and earned more than only initial success for their records. After bass-player Gavin left the band, heading for Ireland, and Stuart went off to work with Abba, Maggie started to experiment with her voice in numerous studio jobs. She worked with Kokomo, Hamish Stewart and the well respected jazz duo Jimmy Mullen (guitar) and Dick Morrisey (saxophone), toured throughout Europe with Poco and eventually ran into the then relatively unknown U2 during a six-month stay in Ireland. Afterwards Bono and the boys, already hot in smoky pubs, rose to megastardom very rapidly. In 1980 Maggie visited her old friend Stuart MacKillop, who was no longer working with Abba but with Mike Oldfield who upon hearing Maggie engaged her for his six month European tour which started on the following day. "In the beginning, I didn't think Mike's music would be my musical cup of tea, but it worked out to be very interesting. I could sing in a different way as this music wasn't stylised as the funky jazz things I had done before. We had a sometimes difficult but very productive musical union. Even though our relationship could be stormy at times, together we created something unique." After the European tour in 1980 Maggie Reilly recorded with Oldfield his album "QE2" and assisted the master of spheric synthesizer sounds and energetic guitar tunes by word and deed on his follow-up long player "Five Miles Out" (1982), "Crisis" (1983) and "Discovery" (1984). Besides the above mentioned chartbreakers, plus "Moonlight Shadow" and "To France", Maggie Reilly's art of singing impressed foremost in the ballad "Trick Of The Light", wherein she sang a duet with Barry Palmer. Between the years 1980 and 1984 they regularly toured around the world. Now her voice had become one of international class and importance, documented by countless offers from well-known stars of the music scene. However, after having finished the Oldfield world tour in 1984, Maggie decided to take a break from the nerve-racking tour stress and ever-changing hotel shortstops. The musical nomad settled down, but only for a short period of time, during which she recorded the single "As Tears Go By" together with Gus Dungeon. The main reason for her settling down was the birth of her little son Fionnbharr, meanwhile six years old and a heavy Playmobil fan, who is Maggie Reilly's most important vital task besides music. Maggie, with her active Scottish nature, hit the English music scene again very soon, and lent her perfect vocal talent to many different projects, among legends like Jack Bruce, Dave Gilmour and Nick Mason (of Pink Floyd fame), Mike Batt, George Harrison, Andrew Eldridge's Sisters Of Mercy and a couple of Soundtracks.