From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mary Coughlan was born on 5 May 1956 in County Galway, Ireland. This acclaimed Irish singer's troubled upbringing manifested itself in an erratic career path, including stints as a model and a street-sweeper.

After moving to London in the mid-1970s she married and began raising a family, before terminating the union and returning to Galway with her children. She began her singing career in 1984, working with Dutch musician Erik Visser (who became her long-term collaborator).

The following year she made an acclaimed appearance on the Late Late Show and recorded her first album, which showcased her powerful and bluesy jazz stylings and became an unexpected bestseller in her native Ireland. Despite her ongoing personal problems, Coughlan continued to reap praise for her recorded output on WEA Records. On Under The Influence she revived the 1948 Peggy Lee hit Don't Smoke In Bed and the Billie Holiday ballad Good Morning Heartache, as well as Jimmy McCarthy's Ride On.

In 1988, Coughlan made her acting debut in Neil Jordan's High Spirits, and released Ancient Rain. Her fourth album, Uncertain Pleasures, was recorded in England with producer Peter Glenister, former musical director for Terence Trent D'Arby. It included new compositions by Mark Nevin (Fairground Attraction) and Bob Geldof as well as cover versions of the Rolling Stones Mother's Little Helper and the Elvis Presley hit Heartbreak Hotel.

Coughlan began straightening her personal life out in the mid-1990s, and signed a new recording contract with Big Cat Records. The label issued an excellent live set and her United States debut, After The Fall. In June 2000, Coughlan presented a series of multimedia shows in Dublin celebrating Billie Holiday, a singer whose life story has close parallels to Coughlan's own. The best of these shows was collected on the wonderful Sings Billie Holiday. A new studio album was released the following April.

She was a contestant in Celebrity Farm, a charity reality television show. She was third to be evicted.

• Tired and Emotional, WEA 1985
• Under the Influence, WEA 1987
• Ancient Rain, WEA 1988
• Uncertain Pleasures, East West 1990
• Sentimental Killer, East West 1992
• Love for Sale, Demon 1993
• Live in Galway, Big Cat 1996
• After the Fall, Big Cat/V2 1997
• Mary Coughlan Sings Billie Holiday, Evangeline 2000
• Long Honeymoon, Evangeline 2001
• Love Me or Leave Me: The Best of Mary Coughlan, 2001
• Red Blues, Tradition & Moderne, 2002

• "Mary Coughlan: After the Fall", Billboard, August 23, 1997.
• Adam Sweeting. "Holiday blues from Mary Coughlan", The Guardian, January 17, 2001.
• "From tragedy springs a triumph for Coughlan", The Sunday Independent (Ireland), August 21, 2005.

The official Mary Coughlan website