Suzanne Vega Interview in the Shropshire Star 19 June 2015

Vega actually prefers other diners to that one!

For a single that barely dented the UK chart on its release in 1987, "Tom’s Diner" is now, thanks to a cover version by DNA three years later, arguably Suzanne Vega’s most successful song.

“I never thought that it would be the success that it’s become. Most people have a diner in their neighbourhood that they go to and drink coffee and hang out so, in that way, it struck a nerve,” said the 55-year-old over the phone from her home in New York City recently.

Inspired by Tom’s Restaurant, a Manhattan diner that Vega frequented whilst studying English Literature at nearby Barnard College, she admits that these days her visits to the place tend to see her accompanied
by a camera crew.

“[I go] if the BBC drags me there, which is once every other year or so,” she said, before making her own culinary Big Apple recommendations. “I have other diners I like better. I like Metro Diner and I like City
Diner.”

In the early days of MP3 technology, "Tom’s Diner" was used as a test piece, inadvertently labelling Vega as the “Mother of the MP3,” a tag that she accepts, but with some reservations.

“[I have] mixed feelings. On the one hand, I’m with downloading, I do it myself [and] I like the mobility of having my whole library on my phone. But, on the other hand, it really has killed the industry and
it’s made it really, really hard for most musicians to earn a living, ‘cause no one sells CDs the way they used to, so it means that we all have to go out and play. I Iove playing, I love touring, I’ve done it my whole
life, but that’s how I make my living these days,” she said.

Released 30 years ago, Vega’s debut single, “Marlene On The Wall,” was a reference to Marlene Dietrich, who was still alive at the time, but did the German diva ever get to hear the song? “I don’t know. I did get a letter once from one of her grandsons, who knew that it was about her and thanked me for writing it. I was so tickled and I always treasure that memory,” she recalled. Vega released her eighth studio album, Tales From The Realms Of The Queen Of Pentacles, last year, with the track "I Never Wear White" slated as the next single.

“I’ve always worn black, pretty much since I was a teenager, and it’s always gotten comment, even here in New York. I would have people commenting to me on the street about the way I dressed, so I thought, ‘Well, it’s time to write a song about it.’” She explained.

Vega’s UK tour stops off Birmingham Town Hall on Monday, so what can the audience expect to see? “For those people who have me down as a folk singer, I do, in fact, play the acoustic guitar and I tell stories in
between the songs, but I also have Gerry Leonard, David Bowie’s musical director, on guitar with me, so we do a lot more than folk music, some of it veers off into other territory. In fact, Mojo magazine said that
this new album is ‘where hip-hop meets rock,’ and I think that’s actually a very good way to sum up the show as well,” she said.

By Stephen Taylor

Natty Interview in Shropshire Star 29-05-2015

Natty tops the line-up at festival

With June approaching, it can only mean one thing—festival time.

Tomorrow, the second Church Stretton Blues ’n’ Roots Festival will feature some of Shropshire’s most promising musicians, as well as artists from all over the UK.

Headlining this year will be roots and reggae artist, Natty, who will be making his first visit to Shropshire as he prepares for the release of his second album, Release The Fear, in August.

“Getting Natty to agree to debut his new album at such an intimate festival as Blues ‘n’ Roots was a huge coup us. It will really help establish us on the national blues and roots festival circuit,” festival organiser John The Tub told the Shropshire Star.

As for Natty, his touring schedule has taken him to far-flung places around the world, such as Brazil, Japan, Sudan and the US, where he opened for Ziggy Marley.

“That was amazing. I had a really good time. I got to know and like America. It’s very hard to like America, with the mainstream media, but everywhere I went, the people were so receptive and nice and warm and loving,” the 30-year-old told the Shropshire Star over the phone from his home in North London.

Natty’s debut album, Man Like I, came out in 2008, occupying the UK album chart for most of August though, ironically, the single from the album was called “July.” So what’s with the seven-year wait for a follow-up LP?

“There’ve been lots of things to delay the album. The start of the label [Vibes and Pressure], the start of the club night, I built a studio, recorded a bunch of other people—before I was a singer I used to be an engineer—lots of song writing and making children—well, not me personally, but helping out making them,” he said with a laugh.

While Release The Fear marks Natty’s first album as an independent artist, Man Like I was on Atlantic Records, an experience that Natty sees as valuable yet, at times, frustrating.

“I was not up for being the pop urban artist that they were pushing me into being. I don’t mind trying a couple of things, but I’d rather just do what you feel as an artist, and go with where your gut tells you, and so I ended up being on the shelf,” he explained, adding that, while he has “no regrets being with the major,” his popularity proved to be something of an obstacle.

“They liked me, which was one of the problems. If they didn’t like me, they would have dropped me straight away and everything would have been fine, but the album kept selling and, because people were into what I was doing, I guess they just wanted to hang on to it, and so we were in a stalemate for about two or three years,” he said.

With a name like Natty, one might assume that his music would be based on solid Jamaican beats, but, while his sound has a reggae feel to it, there are elements of pop, soul and folk, creating a folky roots groove that reflects his upbringing in North London. In what some might say is a brave move, Release The Fear is a concept album, the thought of which might strike dread into some people. Natty is more than comfortable with the description.

“The fear that has been [the UK and American] government’s most potent weapon in keeping society in check is being shaken up quite a lot. So that, in conjunction with my own personal journey, means that we’re living in a time right now where if you don’t release your own personal fears, you can be really intense.

“The album starts off with a song about giving thanks for life, and it goes on a journey within the album. That first song is called ‘I’m Alive;’ and it goes on to a journey, culminating in the last song, which is ‘Release The Fear.’ George The Poet does a little poem in the middle of that song as well, but it’s a 10-minute song,” he said.

Release The Fear was recorded in Tottenham where, incidentally, Natty’s footballing allegiances also lie (“I look for their results and I might occasionally catch them on Match Of The Day, but I wouldn’t say I was following them any more”), in a home-made studio.

“[We] literally [built it], drill in hand, hammer in hand, with a large chunk of my community. A few friends chipped in, but we knew we were in that building for only two years, and [then] the studio got broken down,” he said.

Like last year, the Blues ‘n’ Roots Festival will be supporting Macmillan Cancer Support, so it’s appropriate that Natty should have his own charitable causes, one of which is the ERASE Foundation.

“We support one orphanage and four schools in The Gambia, and we’ve got a clothing, mattress and food programme in Lesotho as well, which is where my mum’s from. So that’s what we’re doing in Africa at the moment,” he said.

Apart from Natty, Northern Ireland’s Kaz Hawkins and her Band O’ Men will head the rest of the line-up. Gary Hall, who played at the festival last year, makes a return to Church Stretton, as does Shropshire singer-songwriter Beth Prior, while the blues duo Washington Reed, from Chester, will be making their debut at the festival.

Church Stretton Blues‘n’Roots Festival at Rectory Field, Church Stretton (30 May). See www.bluesnroots.co.uk

Paul Merton Preview Shropshire Star 08 May 2015

Paul Merton bringing improv         fun to theatre

For many people, the first sighting of Paul Merton on British TV would have been on Who’s Line Is It Anyway?, the vehicle for improvisational comedy that debuted on Channel 4 in 1988.

It may come as a surprise to some folk to hear that, 25 years on, Merton is still busy improvising, not only with London’s Comedy Store Players, but also on tour as part of the Paul Merton’s Impro Chums show, with Shrewsbury’s Theatre Severn playing host tomorrow evening.

So what can you expect to see tomorrow night? When Paul Merton’s Impro Chums performed at the Ludlow Festival two years ago, it was described by Wayne Beese in a review for this newspaper as “a surreal, but brilliant night of comedy.”

Quite simply, the audience plays its part by making suggestions on a range of subjects, which the five comedians use for a variety of games. Merton’s introduction to improvisational comedy came in 1985, when he joined the Comedy Store Players in London, along with a young Canadian comic by the name of Mike Myers, later to find fame in the guise of Austin Powers. Three years later, Merton made his TV debut on Who’s Line Is It Anyway?, regularly appearing with two of his current Impro Chums, the big American figure known as Mike McShane and fellow Comedy Store Player Richard Vranch.

As well as McShane and Vranch, Merton will be joined on stage in Shrewsbury by ‘Mrs Merton,’ otherwise known as Suki Webster, and Lee Simpson, a Comedy Store Player since 1989.

By Stephen Taylor

Jimmy Webb Interview in the Shropshire Star on 10 April 2015

Man behind the hits is taking to the stage

At the age of 68, Jimmy Webb is looking forward to a relaxed evening at Shrewsbury’s Theatre Severn on Sunday, as he told us over the phone from New York.

As the writer of some of the music’s most enduring songs of the past 50 years, Webb will be immortalised in tunes such as Wichita Lineman, Galveston and By The Time I get To Phoenix, all of which were hits for Glen Campbell.

So, by the time Webb gets to Shrewsbury, what can the audience expect?

“I don’t do stand up, but I do a lot of sit down.

“I’ve found my experience of making my living as a songwriter, as opposed to being a Sherpa or an astronaut, to be an uplifting, sometimes hysterically funny experience, and I try to get that across to the audience.

“It has its moments of pure nostalgia, because there are people there who fell in love to some of these songs, and you can see them hugging and kissing each other. It’s a tender moment for a lot of people, quite anecdotal and it goes on a journey,” he said.

Webb also penned the sprawling epic that is MacArthur Park, a Top 10 hit for Donna Summer in 1978, but originally written for the actor and producer Richard Harris.

It might not come as any surprise that Webb got to know the Irishman over a drink or two when the pair worked on a stage production in Hollywood.

“The first encounters I had with him were in bars. We would go out after rehearsal and start drinking
black velvets, with Jameson [whiskey] chasers, and that’s the first really heavy drinking I ever did in my
life,” Webb admitted, adding that their booze-fuelled evenings often ended in traditional Irish fashion.

"We would invariably end up singing a bunch of old Irish songs. I learned a ton of them, and somewhere one night, I said. ‘You know, Richard, we ought to make a record.’

“About two weeks later, I got a telegram from London that said, ‘Dear Jimmy Webb, come to London with record, love Richard,’ and I found myself up to my neck in this project. I had to come up with some songs for him, I was young and open to suggestion, and Richard, he was my leader there for a while, my big brother,” Webb recalls.

“MacArthur Park” reached No. 4 in the British charts in 1968 and is one of those songs that divides opinion, as Webb explained.

“Some people have, I’ll be frank with you, taken an enormous dislike to it and have issued threats against my body, I’ve had to argue with people for years about it.

“They come up to me after my shows and say, ‘What does the line, ‘Someone left the cake out in the rain’ mean?’ and I say, ‘I’m not going to tell you – If I told you I’d have to kill you,’” he explained with a
laugh, before revealing a literary source.

“W. H. Auden said, ‘When I look in the mirror, my face looks like a cake out in the rain.’

“I read that in college and thought that it was quite a metaphor, given that it appears in a completely different context, and it’s an obvious image, a cake left out in the rain is a pretty pathetic sight.

“The carelessness or the abandonment of leaving a cake out in the rain almost doesn’t need to be explained, so the song is, to a great extent, an epic protest against a love affair that’s melting,” he said.

Jimmy Webb is at Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury on Sunday. See www.theatresevern.co.uk for details.

Rick Wakeman Interview in the Shropshire Star 27-03-2015

Yes man Rick back for more

As befits a former Grumpy Old Man, it didn’t take long for Rick Wakeman to get into Victor Meldrew mode about his drive home the previous evening.

“I was in Buxton last night, and they very kindly decided to do three and a half ton of roadworks on the A14, so I came via Glasgow, I think,” the otherwise very affable 65-year-old said over the phone from his office in Norfolk.

Wakeman’s qualification for a senior citizen’s bus pass last May is reflected in the title of his latest show, featuring his unique combination of music and humour, which rolls up at Shrewsbury’s Theatre Severn this evening. So what can the audience expect to see?

“Over the years, people have said ‘I hope you play that, you should play that,’ and so I decided it would be a really good idea to stick them all together.

“It works pretty well. You try very much to put a set together that you think flows and makes sense and sends people home with a smile on their face, and that’s what I try to do,” he said.

Whether it’s Grumpy Old Men, Watchdog or a BBC4 documentary, Wakeman is an engaging presence on TV and his latest show draws on those skills to supplement his musical pieces.

The former keyboard player for 1970s prog-rock band Yes is aware of the need to maintain a feeling of spontaneity for every show.

“I want every night to be like an opening night, where I’m not quite sure myself what’s going to happen, ‘cause the great advantage of being on your own is that if I want to change a few pieces around, I can do,” he explained.

As the author of two books recounting life on and off the road, Wakeman is not short of a story or three, though it took a little coaxing from his publisher to convince him of this.

“Random House said, ‘Will you write a couple of books,’ and I said, ‘I can’t have enough stories to write a book.’ The editor took me out for lunch and said, ‘Look, I’ve got a pad here, every time you think of a story, I’m going to write it down.’ By the time we had had coffee, he said ‘I’ve got nearly 80 stories here.’ and that’s how the books started,” he said.

Wakeman will be back on TV this year with a couple of very different music documentaries.

“I’m doing the history of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. We’ve already done 10 days filming out in Venice. That’s great fun, I’m really enjoying that, for a series called Perspectives, which comes out on ITV in April. The BBC one is The History of the Tour Bus, which will be great fun. I’m not sure when that’s coming out, we start filming that in about two weeks’ time. It should be hilarious. It’s not so much about my tales, more tales from other people and roadies who rode on the original tour buses. I’m looking forward to doing that very much, it should be a lot of fun,” he said.

As for other projects, Wakeman is certainly in no mood to hang up his trademark flowing cape just yet.

“I’m going to be working on a project with Alfie Boe, who’s a dear friend of mine, and next year the
plan is to take some Journey [To The Centre Of The Earth] shows abroad and, hopefully, put the [Myths
and Legends of] King Arthur [and the Knights of the Round Table] show back on ice again.

“I thought when I became a pensioner, things would slow down, but they’ve got absolutely worse. I’ve got my diary in front of me and my next day off is August 11th, which doesn’t please the missus very much, but there you go,” he said.

Yet Another Evening With Rick Wakeman: The Music and Anecdotal Wit of an Old Age Pensioner features at Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury, tonight. See www.theatresevern.co.uk for details.

By Stephen Taylor

Julian Cope Interview in Shropshire Star 23-01-2015

Sauce of inspiration - Cope falls off wagon

After more than two decades without alcohol, most folk would be mortified if they fell off the wagon. But for Julian Cope, it tapped into a fresh source of inspiration.

“I was teetotal for 21 years, but I did research in Armenia and the villagers put on this big spread for me. They insisted that I drink mulberry vodka [oghi], because it was their way of saying thank you, so I got absolutely sloshed and, since then I’ve become a drinker again, so I’m writing a series of drinking songs.”

The former frontman of The Teardrop Explodes is in good form ahead of his forthcoming solo tour of the UK, which reaches Birmingham’s Glee Club on Sunday.

And among these songs for boozers is one that harks back to the days when Cope made up one third (along with Echo and the Bunnymen’s Ian McCullough and Pete Wylie) of possibly the most legendary Liverpool band never to record anything or even appear in public – The Crucial Three.

“My old mate Pete Wylie wrote a song called ‘Heart As Big As Liverpool,’ [so] I’ve written an answer song called ‘Liver Big As Hartlepool,’ and it’s a namecheck of Northern towns,” Cope explained with a laugh.

When Cope moved from Tamworth to Liverpool in the late 1970s, it marked the beginning of a career that has seen the 57-year-old go from Top Of The Pops in the early 1980s to a solo career over the past 30 years that has seen him gain a reputation as one of rock’s more eccentric characters, while at the same time producing epic tunes that are often as catchy as they are esoteric.

Cope’s new album, Trip Advizer, released earlier this month, is a compilation of tunes from the past decade and a half. Described, with typical Cope modesty, as “an anthology of 16 visionary songs,” it is a collection taken from his last seven albums, with a couple of non-album tracks thrown in for good measure, Cope explained how he made the final cut.

“By being thematic, making it true to myself as an artist and making it very songlike, so I was quite careful to pick stuff that I believed would bear repeated listening,” he said.

As if Cope’s prolific musical output hasn’t taken up enough his time, his writing career has moved from a two-volume autobiography through studies of 1970s German Krautrock and the post-war Japanese music scene to highly acclaimed studies of ancient Europe in The Modern Antiquarian and The Megalithic European.

Cope’s latest book, One Three One, is his first foray into the world of fiction, though Cope admits it is based on his own experience.

“I’ve reported so many weird situations throughout my life, and weird conversations that I’ve overheard so I thought, ‘I’ve just got to tell this story,’ he said.

These days, Cope’s appearance is striking. Yet his leather gear, motorcycle boots and military headgear are more than an image. “I came out of punk, and the reason that punk took hold of my brain is because it was an opportunity to be the living embodiment of what we’ve been fighting for since we beheaded the king in 1649. And to be the embodiment of freedom, you’ve got to look like a crazy person.”

By Stephen Taylor

Preview of Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott in the Shropshire Star on 28 November 2014

Heaton & Abbott reunite for sold out tour

When the former singer of the Housemartins and the Beautiful South bought the lease on the Kings Arms in Salford three years ago, it was something of a vocation for him, having completed two tours of British pubs by bicycle in the last four years aimed at raising the profile of the traditional boozer.

Heaton’s 800-mile Pedals and Beer Pumps trek took in the Horseshoe pub in Ratlinghope, while the 50/50 tour, his 2,500-mile slog to all corners of the British Isles in 2012 to celebrate turning 50, called in at Welshpool. Heaton’s latest tour—employing more conventional transport this time—sees him musically reunited with one-time Beautiful South singer, Jacqui Abbott.

Heaton and Abbott’s album, What Have We Become, released in May, is a collection of catchy numbers, with thought-provoking lyrics infused with not a little humour, and Abbott’s vocals are as good as they ever were on Beautiful South tunes like “Rotterdam (Or Anywhere),” “Don’t Marry Her” or “Perfect Ten,” especially on the single taken from the album, “D.I.Y.”

Abbott’s singing career with Heaton goes back 20 years, when she replaced the Beautiful South’s first female vocalist, Briana Corrigan, for the album Miaow. Abbott’s spell as vocalist coincided with the group’s most successful period. Blue Is The Colour and Quench both hit top spot in the UK album chart, and stadium shows attracted large crowds to Crystal Palace and Huddersfield in 1997.

Following the release of Painting It Red in 2000, Abbott left the band to care for her son, who had been diagnosed with autism, but more than a decade later, the St. Helens native hooked up with Heaton again on his concept album based on the Deadly Sins, The 8th, as she told Nick Hasted in an interview for The Independent newspaper earlier this year.

“The first time I saw him again was outside the King’s Arms, and it had been 10 and a half years. We were both really nervous. The minute we did The 8th, I really lamented how much I’d missed singing and performing and being around everybody. I didn’t realise until I did it again. I felt sad, really, because I thought, ‘Why did I leave it so long?’ But it was the best thing for my son at the time.

“Then Paul said, ‘What do you think about doing another album together?’ I was doing other things—volunteering—and I’d just started as a teaching assistant, but I thought it’d be great,” she said.

Heaton welcomed the reunion with his former singing partner, as he explained on the new album’s website, www.whathavewebecome.net.

"I always wrote songs with Jacqui in mind. When I first heard her sing, I almost laughed because it was so right for the songs," adding that there was a feeling of inevitability about linking up with Abbott.

"Working with Jacqui again was like going into your garage and discovering a beautiful covered up Rolls Royce that hadn't been started in years. Jacqui is one of the best singers I've worked with and is also part of my past. It was only a matter of time before I asked her,” he said.

And if What Have We Become is a sign of things to come, quite a few music fans will be hoping that the sound of any time bells being rung are confined to the public bar of the Kings Arms.

Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott at the Civic Hall, Wolverhampton (28 November). See www.wolvescivic.co.uk for details