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Imelda May

The Guardian described her as having “a whipcracker of a voice”. At nine years of age, she fell in love with rockabilly and the blues. She is a pure Dub and dropped out of Art College to sing for a living. Her professional career started at age 14 when she sang in a Findus Fish Fingers ad. She was barred from her own shows for being underage and swallowed a spark when she was singing in a burlesque show (more about that later). She plays the bodhrán, guitar and tambourine. She won the Best Female Artist of the Year award at the 2009 Meteor Awards. Jools Holland described her as having ‘it’ in spades.

Imelda May Imelda May I’m talking about the Irish singing sensation – Imelda May.

She was born Imelda Mary Clabby on 10th June 1974 in the Liberties in Dublin, the youngest of five children. She was brought up in a two bedroom house along with her older sisters and brothers. She soaked up the music of her siblings, which included folk, chart pop and Elvis. She said “My brother was a mad Elvis fan, and I found a tape in his room with Elvis, Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent. I thought the music was fantastic.”

When she was four she discovered that she was able to harmonise with her sister’s folk band and when she discovered rock’n’roll, it was natural that she would sing along. When she was nine, she discovered rockabilly and blues. She was hooked! She sang along with the records and as she said “I heard Billie Holiday, and that blew my mind.” She dropped out of college after only one year and through a friend got a gig singing on a Findus advertisement. She was paid £40. That was big money for a 14 year old girl from the Liberties. Her tastes were developing, along with her fashion sense (a unique and quirky 1950’s style), s*xy look and pure raw energy.


She was determined to become a professional singer and she at age 16 she started to get jobs singing in clubs like Bruxelles in Dublin. She started to mix with other musicians and singers and learned from them. She was told she had a great blues voice but she had to ‘roughen’ it. She didn’t know how to do that. One day when her Dad was driving her to a gig, she was upset and crying because of a breakup with her boyfriend. Her Dad asked her “Is your heart broken? Excellent. Now you can sing the blues”. This was her tipping point. She knew how to develop her voice into the sultry, rich and unique tone we all love today.

At age 16 when she was singing in a burlesque club in Dublin, she sang while the girls were getting changed and performing. One of them used to take an angle grinder to her crotch and would produce a shower of sparks. One day a spark flew down her throat when she was singing. At 16, that doesn’t bother you.


When she was 24, 1998, she moved to the UK and began singing with Blue Harlem and Mike Sanchez.

In 2003, Imelda decided she was tired singing for others and setup her own band with Steve Rushton on Drums, Al Gare on Bass, Darrel Higham on guitar,and Dave Priseman on trumpet. She released her first album, ‘No Turning Back’ under her maiden name, Imelda Clabby, and re-released it in 2005 under her married name with Foot Tapping Records.

Imelda married Darrel Higham in 2002 (her lead guitarist) and was unsure about this in the beginning. “History doesn’t bode well for married couples in bands – look at Ike and Tina Turner, Sonny and Cher, but we tried it and it worked out great. Life and the band is all one mish mash, but we do get time together as husband and wife and time apart – it just works.”