By Paul French

Majella, who originally recorded under the name Majella Brady was born in 1946 in Derry, N Ireland.

She has accomplished many things in what has been a very successful career to date, and one which started early at the age of 14 when she was asked to be the vocalist in a local band “The Kingston All Stars”.

Still in her teens aged 17, and showing her versatility in other areas of music she also won the contralto solo at the Derry Feis.
Majella was becoming increasingly noticed on the Irish music scene with a large and devoted following, and her talent was spotted by Decca Records with whom she signed a record deal in1964 making 2 singles that reached the Irish top 10.

This was a very exciting time for her and she was very much in demand with television and radio also eager to snap up her services.

She made 2 guest appearances on the top rated Gay Byrne’s “Late Late Show” on RTE, (a dream for a young singer),
”Tea Time with Tommy” on Ulster TV,“ Tom’s Inn” featuring Tom Raymond (and a young Phil Coulter),“Hoedown”, “The Showband Show”, and many others.

She also appeared throughout the country guesting with Ireland’s top showbands.

A highlight of Majella’s career at that time was when she was asked to sing for Princess Grace and Prince Rainier of Monaco at Powerscourt ,Co Wicklow. This was a real honour for a young singer like her and certainly an occasion to remember.

She also did 3 tours of America during that period including shows in New York and Boston.

However, still eager to progress her career further, she moved to London in 1969 and made her first LP “The Spinning Wheel” which was very successful selling over 300,000 in the first 6 months of release and knocking Jim Reeves the Country and Western legend off the number one spot.

She went on to make another 4 LP’s for Hallmark.

Versatile as always Majella then sang for a while with “The Travellers Folk Group” with whom she made one album “Blowing in The Wind”, and also appeared on the series “One More Time” on BBC2.

Over the years, she has appeared with many of the biggest names in show business including, Dusty Springfield, The Seekers, The Bay City Rollers, Stylistics, Kiki Dee, Wayne Fontana and Lena Martell to name but a few.

Majella has always been a fan of Big Band music and went on to sing for many years with some of the biggest bands in the country in venues in London, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Whilst in Scotland where she eventually married and settled down, she became one of the country’s most popular cabaret artistes and signed a recording deal with Klub records in Glasgow where she made 7 albums, the last one being in 2007.

During this period she also recorded a number of jingles for radio and television.

Majella has recorded some beautiful songs in what has been a wide and varied career and her albums are still selling well not only in the UK and Ireland, but all over the world.

You can contact Majella at: majellabradysinger@yahoo.co.uk