She’s been mentioned in a quiz question on BBC Radio 4’s Counterpoint, featured on the O2 Music Map, supported by the Arts Council, presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award for her guitar work, and earned critical raves for her albums (all seven of them) and live performances — but Sarah McQuaid remains largely unknown to the general public.
The Cornwall-based singer-songwriter aims to go a small distance towards changing that with a 55-show autumn UK and USA tour that brings her total number of gigs this year to 98 — not quite as many as the 118 concerts she played in 2023, her first full year of touring since the pandemic, but still an ambitious undertaking.
“I’m basically trying to build a fanbase one gig at a time,” Sarah laughs. “It’s why I do a lot of village hall and library concerts, because those shows draw an audience that hasn’t necessarily ever heard of me, but goes along anyway because it’s in their local area and it’s not a big investment for them — the library concerts are almost always free to the public and the village halls tend to be subsidised.
“And then if they come up afterwards and buy merch and sign up to the mailing list, I know I’ve got another fan or two, and hopefully they’ll tell their friends to check out my music.”
Sarah’s autumn concert dates are as follows (see https://sarahmcquaid.com/tour for full details including times, booking links etc.):
AUG-SEP 2024 – UK
Aug 30 Falmouth: The Poly
Aug 31 Hay on Wye: the globe at hay
Sep 1 Launceston Folk Club
Sep 3 Tewkesbury: The Roses Theatre
Sep 5 Petersfield Museum and Art Gallery
Sep 6 Ipswich: St Peter’s by the Waterfront
Sep 8 Tolpuddle Village Hall
Sep 13 Much Wenlock: The Edge Arts Centre
Sep 14 Silsden Town Hall
Sep 15 Sheffield: Live At Sam’s
Sep 18 Royal Tunbridge Wells: The Green Duck Event Space
Sep 19 Norwich: Anteros Arts Foundation
Sep 20 Lincoln: Southside
Sep 21 Newbury: ACE Space
Sep 22 Upton Cross (Liskeard): Sterts Studio
Sep 26 Llanelli: Ffwrnes – Stiwdio Stepni
Sep 27 Rhayader: The Lost ARC
Sep 28 Buxton: The Green Man Gallery
Sep 29 Burnham Deepdale: Deepdale Festival
Sep 30 Bath: Ustinov Studio – Theatre Royal Bath
OCT-NOV 2024 – USA
Oct 10 Waterford, NY: Waterford Public Library
Oct 11 Ocean City, NJ: Ocean City Free Public Library
Oct 12 Luray, VA: Performing Arts Luray
Oct 13 Richmond, VA: The Tin Pan
Oct 15 Warsaw, IN: Warsaw Community Public Library
Oct 17 Williamsville, IL: Paris-Belle House Concerts
Oct 18 DeKalb, IL: DeKalb Public Library
Oct 19 Des Moines, IA: Progressive Voices
Oct 20 Unionville, MO: The Bixler 108
Oct 22 Kansas City, KS: West Wyandotte Library
Oct 23 Valley Center, KS: Valley Center Public Library
Oct 24 Tulsa, OK: House Concerts Unlimited
Oct 26 Johnson City, TX: 290 Texas House Concerts
Oct 27 Missouri City, TX: Nancy Brand’s House Concerts
Oct 28 Aransas Pass, TX: The Rialto Theater
Oct 29 Beaumont, TX: 7 Oaks Event Garden
Nov 1 Chicago, IL: First Unitarian Church of Chicago
Nov 2 Chicago, IL: Guitar Workshops at Old Town School of Folk Music
Nov 3 Orland Park, IL: Orland Park Public Library
Nov 7 Grass Lake, MI: Green Wood Coffee House Series
Nov 8 Livonia, MI: Trinity House Theatre
Nov 9 Marietta, OH: First Settlement House Concerts
Nov 10 Greensboro, NC: Fiddle & Bow @ First Moravian
Nov 11 Dataw Island, SC: Folk at the Cannery
Nov 14 High Point, NC: High Point Museum
Nov 15 Hardy, VA: (1pm) Westlake Library
Nov 15 Rocky Mount, VA: (6pm) Franklin County Public Library
Nov 16 Lansdowne, VA: Lansdowne Woods of Virginia
Nov 17 Washington, DC: The Lucky Penny Living Room Concert Series
Nov 18 Phoenixville, PA: Phoenixville Public Library
Nov 20 Wayland, MA: Wayland Free Public Library
Nov 21 Millbury, MA: Asa Waters Mansion
Nov 22 Simsbury, CT: Simsbury Public Library
Nov 23 Freeport, ME: Cadenza
Nov 24 Middleborough, MA: Middleborough Public Library
Born in Spain to a Spanish father and American mother, Sarah grew up in Chicago, touring the US and Canada as a member of The Chicago Children’s Choir. In the mid-1990s she made her way to Ireland, where her authorship of The Irish DADGAD Guitar Book led to invitations to write regular music columns and reviews for Hot Press magazine and Dublin’s Evening Herald.
Following her move in 2007 (with her Irish husband and their two children) to Cornwall, she swiftly struck up a friendship with a fellow mum outside the gates of their children’s school. That fellow mum turned out to be Zoë Pollock, writer and performer of 1991 UK Top 5 single “Sunshine On A Rainy Day.”
The pair soon found themselves co-writing songs for an album released in 2008 under the band name Mama, lauded by MOJO’s Colin Irwin as “a pleasingly maverick mix” and by The Irish Times as “Janis Joplin’s freewheeling spirit crossed with Joni Mitchell's lyrical density.”
“I owe Zoë a massive debt of gratitude for getting me into songwriting in a serious way,” says Sarah. “Prior to that I’d thought of myself basically as a folksinger who happened to write an occasional song, but through working with Zoë I not only learned a hell of a lot about the craft of songwriting, but also just the fact of someone of her calibre wanting to co-write with me was what finally gave me the confidence to start focusing on my own original material.
“And of course, if it weren’t for Zoë I’d never have met Martin” – Martin Stansbury, a longtime collaborator and former bandmate of Zoë’s who produced and engineered the Mama album, then became Sarah’s manager and sound engineer, accompanying her on all her tours worldwide since 2009.
Most recently, Martin produced and engineered Sarah’s sixth solo album, The St Buryan Sessions, recorded live in lockdown in the beautiful medieval church of St Buryan, just over a mile from Sarah’s home.
Released in October 2021 on CD and limited-edition double LP, the album made it onto “Best of 2021” lists on three continents and features stunning solo performances by Sarah on acoustic and electric guitars, piano and floor tom drum, her lush, distinctive vocals echoing through the soaring space.
“McQuaid’s voice, a fragile, starkly resonant alto, has always been a thing of folk-trad beauty,” wrote reviewer Kenny Berkowitz in Acoustic Guitar magazine, “but here, with ambient mics placed around the church’s interior, it takes on a new joyfulness and a deeper darkness.” Ink 19’s Bob Pomeroy called it “a starkly minimalist recording of exceptional beauty”, and Folk Radio UK described it as “a wonderful, expressive and intimate live album from a consummate performer.”
“There is an audience,” wrote Adrian Jones in Folk London, “– it’s you, and you’ve kept shtum in the back pew. It’s an intimate and changing 70 minutes, ending with the silence of this hallowed setting. Sneak out quietly. And then listen to it again!”
The entire album was filmed as it was being recorded, and videos of all 15 tracks can be viewed on Sarah’s website – https://sarahmcquaid.com – together with details of the forthcoming tour and more information including a 10-minute video intro to Sarah and her music.
