Ken Wallis Chats With Irish Blues/Rock Artist Gráinne Duffy

By Ken Wallis.

Gráinne Duffy is the proverbial powerhouse singer and guitarist who hails from Ireland, where the blues seems to be in good hands. At an early age she joined a local choir, and her love of music was born. She’s shared the stage with such notables as ZZ Top, Shemekia Copeland, and Eric Gales. She has toured extensively, showcasing her guitar playing and vocals. But she’s more than just that. Her songwriting and superb lyrics highlight a musician that is exploding on the international stages.

Ken Wallis interviewed Grainne Duffy for the radio show BluesSource Canada. The following are excerpts from that interview amended and edited for clarity and brevity.

Ken Wallis

Gráinne Duffy's got a brand-new album out. It’s called Dirt Woman Blues and we're so happy to have her join us. Great seeing you again.

Gráinne Duffy

Lovely to be here. Thank you Ken for having me.

Ken Wallis

Well, I guess I gotta ask you what got you interested in music in the first place?

Gráinne Duffy

I think that has to be my father. He had a country music collection, and he was listening to a very eclectic country collection that actually wasn't really what I would consider to be very country. It was Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris and Reba McIntyre and Kris Kristofferson. A lot of kind of crossover country If you like. People who were kind of singing more alternate songs in a country style. And that really was my first early education. We had no TV growing up, it really was just music in our house, so that was brilliant. But we listened to everything from Madonna to Fleetwood Mac and The Pretenders and Led Zeppelin. All that kind of stuff.

Ken Wallis

And Peter Green with Fleetwood Mac was one of your early idols.

Gráinne Duffy

Absolutely. He still is a hero of mine. Yeah, it was. Really was Peter Green who got me infatuated with the Blues because it was his guitar style. It was really his inflection in his voice. It was a painful thing when you were listening to it. It was really heartfelt and that really was the moment that I got in love with the guitar and the blues style.

Ken Wallis

You’ve performed with numerous artists. Is there one artist that you have shared a stage with that you were the most taken with and admired the most?

Gráinne Duffy

I was really lucky. I got to do Mahindra with Billy Gibbons and Shemekia Copeland on stage. Myself, Billy Gibbons and Eric Gales. And a great drummer, Kenny Aronoff. It was a real stage full of delight up there, but that was just like really one of those moments where, am I actually doing this? Sometimes you can be pleasantly surprised.

Ken Wallis

Amazing stuff. So, let's get to your brand-new album, why the title Dirt Woman Blues? What's the significance of that?

Gráinne Duffy

I think that song came from as I've been doing actual PhD study of Blues music, and it was on women in the blues. And I've been reading so much about them and reading, but mainly Bessie Smith and people like Victoria Spivey and Rosetta Tharp, and all those original blues women. And very often, they just live down dirt tracks in the country. And I feel it's hard lives and I think that just seeped into my playing and seeped into my thoughts. And that's where Dirt Woman Blues must have come from, that well spring, of being inspired through my godmothers if you like.

Ken Wallis

You're well known in the Blues world for your Blues music, but I would almost suggest that your music crosses over more than one genre. A lot of different things are highlighted.

Gráinne Duffy

Yeah, I actually love crossover music. You picked up well on that. For me, I love cross pollination. I'm not a fan of genres and everybody being categorized. I actually love being able to play around with things. Bonnie, the way she can have an accordion on one track, slide guitar on another, an acoustic on another. I love that cross pollination. I think Irish music, we have been very much aware and influenced by how many various instruments there are in our side. Like there is the kazoo, there's mandolins. There's like, lots of different rhythms and time signatures. And then that's something, I suppose, seeps in as well whenever I'm writing my own music. Whenever things are mixed, I like the sound of Blues being mixed with other influences.

Ken Wallis

And how do you go about writing your music? Do the lyrics come first or the music itself?

Gráinne Duffy

To be honest, there's no strict way because sometimes I will sit down with the guitar and then write a riff and I'm like, oh, I want to write something around this. Sometimes with my husband. Paul writes a lot with me and if he is strumming something or if he's playing a chord pattern that I love. I say we have to use that. Or other times I have a definite lyric or a definite chorus in my head and a lot of times it could be just me. Like just out for a walk or I'm sitting in a car, and something goes into my mind. And I just press record on the voice recorders and the voice memo on my phone, and it's whatever I need from that.

Ken Wallis

If there was one song that you would tell the audience to listen to first on your album?

Gráinne Duffy

Ooh that's a good question and I think maybe Dirt Woman Blues because it does have grace in it, but it also is dark and it's also at times more crossover sounding in places. So, I think it's got a good mix of everything that I'm about.

Ken Wallis

And you have done extensive tours through Europe, but you actually did get over to Canada I know at least once.

Gráinne Duffy

I was. I played the Mont Tremblant Festival and I also played Kincardine and we played Toronto, and we moved around. We played a few places.

Ken Wallis

Got any plans to come back to North America?

Gráinne Duffy

Yeah, we've had lovely offers. Actually, we've been invited back to do the latest festival in Kincardine and those guys were so nice to us. And I really do think it's going to be soon because we are really focusing this release on America and Canada, and we're hoping that it'll pick up some steam over there. We can, we've got an agent now in America. So that would be a good way for us to break over there.

Ken Wallis

What are your plans for the future? You got a lot coming up.

Gráinne Duffy

Yes, we have gigs in the pipeline for the summer and we also have a summer tour in July in America. And then we're basically gonna be trying as much as possible. We got a one-year touring visa for America, so I think we're going to put a lot of effort into coming over at that side of the world. We also have tour dates in Ireland. There's lots of things coming up over the summer and hopefully we'll go back in the studio and do some more recordings soon as well.

Ken Wallis

And I assume your tour dates would be on your website?

Gráinne Duffy

Absolutely grainneduffy.com. It's all in there.

Ken Wallis

And how can folks get hold of your album?

Gráinne Duffy

It's on all the general digital platforms like Spotify, Apple, Amazon. But then it's also available through my website in physical form. So any of those places you can pick it up and I certainly hope they will.

Ken Wallis

And I certainly encourage people to go and buy the album rather than streaming it. Much better for everyone. Gráinne, I thank you so much. It's been great chatting with you again and I wish you all the best. It's a great album.

Gráinne Duffy

Thank you for your support and delighted you're enjoying it.

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