Holly Figueroa O’Reilly knows and loves the stage, where the singer/songwriter has performed for years. And she knows what it’s like to lose what you love in an instant.
“I started singing and it just went,” recalled O’Reilly, whose normally clear, demure voice broke into a craggy whisper mid-gig during Northwest Folklife Festival in May 2009. “I sang half-voice through a couple of songs, then I realized I wasn’t going to be able to finish my set.”
After talking to the audience more than usual, trying to sustain what her vocal chords had left, the two-time Grammy nominee went offstage early.
“I felt bad for not being able to finish the show, but I was also terrified because I knew something was really, really wrong,” she said.
She was right; something was wrong. So when O’Reilly performs at Bainbridge’s Island Music Center this weekend, it will be something of a miracle.
Rheumatoid arthritis caused O’Reilly’s voice to weaken and her hands to swell for hours after she played guitar. At 39, she’d had symptoms for a while, but attributed them to growing older or being off-game. Then she saw a doctor.
“They put the scope down my throat and saw that the joint in my throat — which I didn’t know that I had — was inflamed over my vocal chords,” she said. “That’s not good.”
O’Reilly has released five CDs in the last decade, and performed nearly 1,000 gigs across the country. She’s been featured on NPR and the FX show “Damages,” and until recently she called Bainbridge Island home.
Now she’ll record a live album on the island, singing with a voice that once was taken from her — a voice she could one day lose again.
After her diagnosis, O’Reilly struggled to find a medicine that could restore her vocals. She suffered from something uncommon, and doctors didn’t know if she could sing again.
“That wasn’t something I wanted to hear,” she said. “I don’t really do anything else. I’m a singer. That’s what I do.”
By early 2010 she had thrown up a white flag; nothing was working, and her voice was gone. But a bout with asthma soon after restored hope, as the medication she was given brought her vocal chords a new life — be it a temporary one. So O’Reilly will record three new records: A cover album, an album of originals and a live album, which she’ll record at the Island Music Center at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 15.
O’Reilly began singing at the age of 3, when she memorized the words to “Cabaret” and sang them for her grandmother.
“She was terrified, horrified, mortified,” said the Ohio native. “And I never really stopped from there.”
In high school she wrote songs about life’s hardships, about tragedy and death.
“I still sing and write songs about how terrible and horrible life is,” she said, releasing a chuckle. “When tragedy happens I write about it. But a lot of good things happen too.”
She’ll be joined at the music center by Seattle folk rock troubador Jeremy Serwer. Eighteen-year-old Mandolin Hooper, who is making a documentary of the recording, will open.
O’Reilly hopes people will come to the concert in part to see the new facilities at the music center, where she volunteers. Those who attend will receive copies of three of her previous CDs for free (with $10 ticket purchase). Ticket sales will support the making of her two studio albums.
“The fact that I can sing again when I was told that I couldn’t is unbelievable,” she said. “I don’t care if it’s a cover, jazz, rock — I don’t care what songs they are, I just want to sing. I want to sing while I can because it’s not going to last.” WU
