Art, Chic And Old Lace

By Joe Kavanagh

With all the ridiculous brouhaha over Jay Z's recent headline appearance at this year's Glastonbury festival and its attendant cultural undertones, so much of what was achieved musically at the event became somewhat overlooked because of an issue that should never have been.

The fact is, that Glastonbury and indeed any music festival worth its salt, should stick squarely to what politicians often refer to as "the big tent", meaning that an ambitious and inclusive festival will provide music that appeals to almost everyone across the full range of its vibrant spectrum, in an effort to gather together people who would not usually mix together, exposing them to a whole host of new influences that they would ordinarily not give a second glance.

Festivals are about variety and choice, where punters are free to wander around and peruse the aural smorgasbord of what is on offer across the stages, like butterflies capriciously flitting from one flower to another.

In this manner, festivals are particularly effective arenas in which to expand your musical horizons, as you investigate some acts that you might never have gone out of your way to see, but are willing to give a punt seeing as they playing in a tent that is only fifty yards from the one you are standing in.

Each year, tens of thousands of people leave festivals raving about some new act they have just 'discovered,' and if the artist is sufficiently impressive, this buzz can often create the type of momentum that eventually leads to successful careers.

Glastonbury is hugely important in this process, given the fact it takes place in early summer and, as such, can act as a catalyst that propels acts through the summer, building momentum that can often take them right into the charts.

Aside from the Jay Z nonsense, this year's Glastonbury did include some acts like Ting Tings, Hot Chip and The Black Kids all put on performances worthy of international stars, but one name popped up with remarkable frequency when attendees were asked to name their favorite revelation from the smaller stages at the festival: Camille O'Sullivan.

Over the years, and particularly in recent times, Ireland has produced a great range of musical acts, yet there have been few so unique as this enchanting talent, a fact that becomes more believable as you learn something about the artist.

The seeds of her different disposition were set some years earlier when a young Irish racing car driver was in Monaco for a competition when he met a beautiful French artist, whom he would eventually elope with to the UK, where the couple had a pair of daughters, one of whom they named Camille.

The family moved to Cork while the girls were still only children, instilling in the kids the sense of being different, a notion no doubt reinforced by the fact that some of the local kids actually believed them to be Chinese due to their exotic looking nature.

Some of their childhood was spent expanding their cultural palate as the two girls attended ballet and piano lessons, as well as inheriting their mother's love of all things art.

This love of art eventually saw Camille spending the year after high school pursuing her muse, but the more pragmatic side of her personality saw her worry about how difficult it would be to pursue a career in art and she decided instead to study architecture in University College Dublin, where she also became an avid member of the drama society.

Upon leaving university, she continued to indulge her love of true cabaret music, drawn by the drama, skill and poise of such names as Kurt Weill, Edith Piaf, Agnes Bernelle and the aforementioned Brel, living between Ireland and Berlin, and fully pursuing her career as a highly successful architect, even as her 'safe' life left her feeling slightly unfulfilled on occasion.

It might have stayed this way, like some uneasy truce between an idealist and a realist, but for one momentous event in 1999, when she crashed her car after a row with an ex-boyfriend.

When she regained consciousness, she was being cut from the mangled wreckage of her vehicle and losing blood at a rate alarming enough to make her tell the firemen to pass on her goodbyes to her parents.

Like most people in such moments, she longed to have another shot, which thanks to the doctors and her own willpower, she achieved, spending almost a year in hospital, as she quite literally set out on the long road to recovery.

Throughout her recuperation, she vowed that she would get over her insecurities and pursue the career that she knew would give her true happiness in the life that she thought that she had lost, first signing up to an acting course in Dublin's famed Gaiety Theater and then sinking her savings into making her debut album: A Little Yearning (2002), which scored extremely well with critics enamored with its intent, purity and inherent quirkiness.

Since this rebirth, Camille O'Sullivan has gone on to forge two superb live shows, Dark Angel and La Fille Du Cirque, which see her theatrically interpret the songs of her musical idols, infusing them with the essence of her own spirit.

In her own words: "On my poster I have this very sexy image, that's what sells the show. But when I get them inside I show them all the sides of a woman, the sides they'd be surprised by".

Although lazy critics have sometimes referred to her style as burlesque because of her propensity for performing in corsets and use of props like the large champagne glass, she herself calls it cabaret in the most accurate sense of the term, a celebration of culture and its many facets.

Make no mistake however, she also has the uncanny ability to exude a sexiness so pure that it can turn-on straight women, while also being powerful enough to simultaneously enthrall and intimidate men.

In short, when Camille O'Sullivan takes to the stage, she owns it and every member of the audience standing in front of her.

In each of the past five years, her skill, profile and audience has grown steadily, to the point where she has played sold-out shows to rapturous praise in the US, UK and Australia, picking up a host of awards and plaudits upon the way.

Very, very few artists on this earth can inhabit as song as honestly and seemingly effortlessly as this remarkable performer. Her dedication will no doubt serve her well throughout her career as she continues to grow and add new dimensions to her show, such as her decision to include more contemporary tracks by acts like Radiohead, Pink Floyd and Nick Cave.

A true beacon of culture and renaissance woman, she has also branched out admirably, performing a duet with Shane MacGowan and even turning her hand to acting, starring alongside Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins in the Stephen Frears-directed movie, Mrs Henderson Presents.

She has, in fact, risen to such stature that she can sell out the Sydney Opera House and Edinburgh Fringe Festival seemingly at will, and her show opened to rapturous reviews in London for the first time in March.

Now she has wooed and wowed the crowds at Glastonbury, a harbinger that could see her attract the attention she so richly deserves.

O'Sullivan recently claimed: "I always think that Irish people 'believe in their own' only after they've gone... or when they come back from abroad, never while they're here."

Any way you look at it, Camille O'Sullivan deserves such appreciation the next time she sets foot on Irish soil because she's been getting rounds of applause virtually any time she's stepped off it.