Sharon Corr and America

Two extremely well known and respected acts join forces this week to entertain Sydney’s discerning music community. Forty-five years after their arrival onto the music scene America return to Australia, and they are being joined by a woman of many talents in singer/songwriter and violinist Sharon Corr.

Sharon is most recognisable for her time as one-quarter of Irish group The Corrs. She has since embarked on a solo journey to great success. This was never anything Sharon and envisioned during her time with the group, however as she explains: “I’ve been writing songs, playing piano and violin since I was six years old”. It was only logical that she would continue making music in some form or fashion as a creative outlet. Sharon offered some interesting insights into the transition to a solo act: “The Corrs was such a huge thing which I’m immensely proud of, but you become conditioned to writing songs for a group, so I had to learn to write songs for me. Obviously that took a little bit of time, with the first solo album I look back and it’s a beautiful album but it feels like it’s sort of half Corrs [and] half me. On Same Sun I feel like I really found my voice and opened up, the lyrics are very vulnerable and I just let myself go.”

Having recently become an ambassador and face of OXFAM Ireland Sharon traveled to Tanzania with OXFAM to start up the Ending Poverty Starts With Women campaign which she said was “a very moving experience” which greatly influenced her writing on the second album, particularly in the title track Same Sun. “[While] travelling on a rickety bus down a dirt road I saw a little shepherd boy, about six years old, the same age as my son at the time, standing on his own beneath an acacia tree with his own herd working, and he smiled at me, so those are the little images you see in the song,” she said fondly, remembering the trip.

For the show Sharon will be taking the stage in support of America, a band which holds a coincidental significance for her: “The first song I ever sang on stage was A Horse With No Name Name when I was 16, so when the opportunity to perform with them came up I immediately said yes. It was full circle and just felt right. I’m dying to hear them on stage and be a part of the tour.”

May 14, State Theatre, 49 Market St, Sydney, $125-105+b.f, statetheatre.com.au