COYLE — Celtic singer and songwriter Sarah McQuaid, an artist whose voice listeners have compared to malt whiskey, is adding rural Jefferson County’s Laurel B. Johnson Community Center to her national tour.
In light of her new album “Walking into White,” McQuaid will take the stage at 7:30 p.m. Friday for another in the Concerts in the Woods series of folk, bluegrass, blues and Americana shows.
Admission is by donation to the center at 923 Hazel Point Road, all ages are welcome and, since this is also a community gathering, host Norm Johnson will serve coffee and cookies at intermission.
McQuaid travels to this country from the United Kingdom, Johnson noted, adding that the visit is unusual for a couple of reasons: Her concert is on a Friday instead of Saturday, and she’ll give a guitar workshop at the community center Saturday morning before departing for her next gig that night in Olympia.
Born in Madrid to a Spanish father and an American mother and raised in Chicago, McQuaid began touring North America — at age 12 — with the Chicago Children’s Choir.
By 18 she was in France studying philosophy at the University of Strasbourg.
She lived in Ireland for 13 years; now rural England is home.
McQuaid’s music, these days, ranges from her emotive originals to 1930s Cuban jazz to 16th century lute pieces.
For good measure, she does the occasional cover of a contemporary song.
Her albums include “When Two Lovers Meet” (2007), a collection of Irish traditionals; “I Won’t Go Home ’til Morning,” a celebration of Applalachian folk; and “Crow Coyote Buffalo,” released in 2009 under the band name Mama.
Recorded with Zoe
She recorded that CD with the musician known as Zoe, and the Spiral Earth music magazine described the duo as “two pagan goddesses channeling the ghost of Jim Morrison.”
In 2012 McQuaid released “The Plum Tree and the Rose,” an album of originals plus medieval and Elizabethan numbers and a cover of John Martyn’s “Solid Air.”
McQuaid’s Saturday workshop from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. will explore what’s called DADGAD guitar tuning, also called Celtic tuning. In it, instead of the standard EADGBE tuning, the six guitar strings are tuned from low to high as DADGAD.
Tuition is $25, and more information about the workshop and the concert can be found at www.CoyleConcerts.com, while more about the artist awaits at www.sarahmcquaid.com.
For directions to and more details about the Laurel B. Johnson Community Center, phone Norm Johnson at 360-765-3449.
