Jack O'Rourke looking forward to performing Live At The Marquee in Cork 

It's a glorious late April evening and the media launch for Live At The Marquee is in full swing in the upstairs of Electric. DJ Jenny Greene, singer Gemma Sugrue and Jack O’Rourke are front and centre for the event, promoting Greene’s popular dance collaboration with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.

Unprompted, O’Rourke beckons me to a quiet table for a chat. I presumed he would be happy sharing the limelight, but the singer-songwriter demurs and indicates that this is not his natural environment. When my initial surprise subsides it makes sense that this artist who relishes performing in public and who continues to stretch himself as an artist and performer doesn’t fit the assumptions that these conditions would lead to. There are other factors at play.

I imagine the fact he is only making a cameo appearance with Jenny Greene adds to his reticence to schmooze, but it’s his willingness to do different things that got him on the bill.

“I know Jenny for a while,” he explains. She first got to know him through his appearance on DJ Kormac’s 2018 single ‘New Day’.

While she was performing at the Cork Opera House as part of the Jazz Festival she caught O’Rourke playing jazz standards at the River Lee Hotel

“I think she heard me singing some soul and r&b that night so she said ‘I’ve just had this idea for this track and your voice came into my head.’”

O’Rourke has been sworn to secrecy about the dance anthem he will sing at the Marquee.

“It’s not Maniac 2000’,” he teases, but he does suggest that it is quite funky and soulful, which doesn’t narrow it down.

“I think a lot of my favourite singers are of that ilk,” he continues, “Candi Staton, Donna Summer… get my diva voice on.”

But he does offer an oblique hint when he says, “you can always come home, that’s the thing.”

None the wiser, I am also aware that he also has a pressing appointment to work on an original dance track with his good friend Ruairi Lynch, who makes electronica under the name Bantum. He describes it as a kind of summer anthem.

“This is more of a disco, slightly Roisin Murphy vibes,” he reveals.” Donna Summer, even.”

If this all seems removed from his usual musical guise, crooning at the keys of a piano, perhaps you have missed the many projects he has become involved in since the release of his second album, Wild Place, in November 2021. These include participating in a celebration of the late songsmith John Prine at Vicar Street, a tribute to the music of Phil Lynott and Thin Lizzy with his friends at the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, and earlier this year a turn at the Cork Proms where he sang the music of The Beatles accompanied by the Cork Opera House Concert Orchestra.

The latter took him out of his comfort zone a little and made him reflect on the idea of the artists.

“I was watching Springsteeen recently,” he begins, “and it was an acoustic gig and he was just at the piano playing Streets of Philadelphia, and it was like, ‘wow! Here’s a poet and a writer who can equally perform like James Brown. I think that’s a rare duality to have. I think most of us are one or the other. I think a lot of people in terms of artistry look down on performance or showmanship or showwomanship.

“Whereas recently I did a gig in the Opera House with Wallis Bird, Christiania Underwood, Rowan and Emma Nash. We were interpreting the songs of The Beatles with an orchestra. It was so much fun. And to be away from the piano was such a hurdle for me, to not have that safety net and to actually attempt to dance and to shake my ass. But I had to think about the process of performance and what am I going to do. Am I going to be unconscious about it and just let the music happen? Or am I going to think about certain things? And there is a little bit of choreography in it, and that’s art as well.”

I point out that this was just one of many things that has seen him shift more from the artist to the performer.

“Or as a singer,” he responds firmly. “I mean I value myself as a singer as much as a writer. Or as an interpreter. I think interpreting is an art, to at least to attempt to put your own stamp on something you really respect.

“It’s just wearing a different hat. It’s not really about you. It’s about the song you’re honouring and your heroes that it’s a tribute to and seeing can your voice add something to that to tell a different perspective or shae. But ultimately you’re honouring the song. It’s about the song at the end of the day.”

As for honouring heroes, O’Rourke is particularly proud of a recent recording he released where he put to music a poem by Brandan Behan about Oscar Wilde on the centenary of Behan’s birth. The Cork man enjoyed a month-long residency in the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris, which he spent honing the track. Unexpectedly, it evolved into a collaboration with other Irish artists who were there at the time. It features fiddle by Connor Caldwell and harmonies by filmmaker and singer, Bob Gallagher.

“I didn’t think it would be so collaborative,” he reflects. “While I was writing, Connor would be playing fiddle and Bob would be singing.

Jack O’Rourke is a special guest of Jenny Greene and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra at Live At The Marquee on June 23.