Chloë Agnew, who is known around the world as one of the stars and lead singers of the long-running, award-winning Irish traditional ensemble Celtic Woman, has taken Slaughter’s song, ‘On My Own’, and literally, made it her own. It’s a pivotal track on ‘Kari Wahlgren Presents SlaughtHER Volume One’. The track takes its place as the sleek, and shining cornerstone of a set of covers of Slaughter material by female artists.
Instead of raw rhythm guitar, Chloë’s voice rings out over precisely articulated piano, and instead of a soaring six-string lead guitar, it’s radiant cello. In place of Mark Slaughter’s swaggering, menacing vocal, Chloë presents something gentler, more careful, and more feminine. The cover is not so much a transformation as an awakening: Agnew and her collaborators have roused a winsome spirit that was always sleeping in the roughneck Slaughter original.
The album is the brainchild of accomplished voice-over actress (and Slaughter fanatic) Kari Wahlgren, who produced the album. Additionally she’s developed a revelatory stage show to accompany it of which she is the producer, and director.
Chloë Agnew brings her own style to the project. As a member of Celtic Woman, she has toured the world and shared in the winning of several Grammy and Billboard Music Awards for world music. She’s appeared on twelve albums with the group and cut many more as a solo artist. In the ‘On My Own’ clip, she’s every bit the international star: performing on glamorous stages, signing autographs, taking bows in front of enraptured audiences. As an interpreter of the Slaughter song, she fronts a small chamber-music combo in an austere, beautiful stone-walled room. If it wasn’t for the infamous name on the credits, you might just mistake it for a light classical aria or the theme song for a romantic drama.
Chloë Agnew can be found online on her official website.
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