ABOUT SUSAN
'Her forlorn, hyperromantic lyrics are what you'd expect from a girl who reads Shakespeare' Rolling Stone
'Plainsong' 8.4/10 -Paste Magazine
'A most beautiful album' - Bob Harris, BBC Radio 2
'NewYork-based English singer-songwriter Susan Enan is taking a novel approach to touring the world, performing in fans' houses. Such intimate settings will suit the songs of her self-released debut Plainsong, gently plucked from both her guitar and soul.' - Q Magazine
Plainsong is included in Paste Magazine's 'Eight Criminally Underrated Albums From 2009' list and listed as one the top 50 albums from 2009 at www.amiestreet.com.
Susan Enan released her debut album 'Plainsong' in 2009. In 2006, while demoing songs for the record, Enan began receiving worldwide attention after her track "Bring On The Wonder" featuring Sarah McLachlan, appeared on the second season of the Fox show Bones. The song was also featured on the shows soundtrack two years later. It took another 6 months to wrap up the record proper which features Enan's remix of "Bring on the Wonder" along with 9 other tracks. In June 2010 Sarah McLachlan recorded her own version of "Bring On The Wonder" for her seventh studio album Laws of Illusion. Susan is currently embarking on a worldwide house concert tour called "Bring On The Song".
Enan grew up in Cambridgeshire, England. After moving to Liverpool to study music, she began playing the local singer songwriter scene. It was during these years she discovered a love for film scores and the simple, yet intelligent, folk songs of Woody Guthrie.
'What I liked about Woody Guthrie was the reason he wrote and how that informed his writing style. It had to be simple so the political songs could be easily remembered for the sake of the cause, yet the songs where also very smart. I love that combination in art: simplicity that goes right to the soul but doesn't have to bypass the brain on the way.'
After leaving Liverpool she moved to Northern Ireland and continued to write and record a few small EP's released locally, but it was the Moonlight EP (2003) which began to get more attention internationally. It led to an opening slot on a three month US tour with Ohio based band 'Over the Rhine' which in turn led to a signing with Nettwerk Management and a move to New York in 2005. By this time, she had all the songs that would become Plainsong but finishing the record was still a way off.
'Yeah, what with one thing and another it did take time but there were always encouraging signs along the way, like the Bones show picking up 'Bring On The Wonder'. All those things really helped to keep the momentum going.'
The self-produced record was recorded in 5 different countries, much of it in Enan's small home studio in Brooklyn. It was finally released in July 2009 and features co-production from Alan Bezozi, musical appearances from Ashwin Sood (drums), Steve Schiltz (guitars), Graham Maby (bass), and vocal appearances from Declan O'Rouke and Sarah McLachlan. It was mixed in London by Alan Branch and mastered by Jon Astley.
Plainsong is now available both as a digital download and on CD from the online store at www.susanenan.com where Enan and her parents are mailing out the discs from Nashville and her home village in England.
'BRING ON THE SONG" HOUSE CONCERT TOUR.
In January 2010, Susan decided to take a short vacation to Nashville, TN. Hearing that 'house concerts' were becoming more popular she wrote a post up on Facebook asking if anyone would like her to give a concert in their home while she was in town.
After an overwhelming response from all over the US and further a field, and the success of the show in Nashville, she wondered if it would be possible to travel the world stopping off along the way to give concerts in people's houses, video blogging the journey.
With enough of her fans signing up for the experience she bought a video camera to film the journey and began plotting the routes determind by where the fans lived.
The first stops were in Europe and England in May 2010. in the summer, Susan drove 10,000 miles around North America with the camera gaffer taped to the dashboarfd of a car so she could fim as she travelled. She gave concerts in 22 towns and cities along the way including at a Cathedral in Texas, on a porch in Kansas and on a rooftop overlooking Chicago, beginning the concert at dusk and ending with the moon high over the city skyline. She filmed her adventures; from travelling down the Mississippi, to milking her first cow at the Ohio State Fair and driving through New York City along 42nd Street.
The British tour in the Autumn of that same year was a 3,000 mile trip as far North as Rafford near Inverness, down to Mevagissey in Cornwall. She played 13 houses, 1 inn, and on an air force base, after a squadron leader wanted to a concert there. She travelled through England, Scotland and Wales, down Lochness, through thr Glencoe mountain range, along Hadriend's Wall and over the notorious Hardknott Pass in the Lake District, once again with the video camera taped to the car.
In 2011 she travelled to Australia and New Zealand, including performing a house concert for one of the communities in Christchurch, which was heavily affected by the earthquake that happened three weeks prior to the concert, which destroyed much of the city.
Then followed Europe starting in Porto, Portugal, travelling through France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and Norway. The final show was 312kms inside the Arctic Circle in Tromso where she fished for cod in a fford and witnessed a rare midnight sun solar eclipse on a mountain overlooking where the house concert would be two nights later.
The next UK/Irish tour began in Scotland on the 29th June and ended just south of Dublin 5 weeks later.
In August 2011 Susan began the last leg traveling around North America again, with 34 shows around the country, including two house concerts in Folsom Prison. While there Susan had the privilege of participating in song share; the weekly session where inmates share what they have wrriten whether it be songs, poems or prose. That first tour finished in Montclair, New Jersey on the 3rd December 2011. 128 shows, 18 countries and 84,000 miles.
Since then, Susan has been playing house concerts in the US. In 2013 she went back to Folsom Prison, this time playing for inmates in solitary confinment. In 2014, she had her first cave concert, hosted by a previous house concert guest who happened to have a cave on his property! That was show performed entirely by candlelight.
This year, she continues with more shows around America, whilst working on new recordingsin her hometown of Nashville, TN.
The intimacy of these concerts along with the video blogs accompanying the journey make the "Bring On The Song" house concert tour a truly unique experience. Durng the concerts, Susan shares her may stories from this adventure of a lifetime.
Click here to watch the Tour blogs.