Only recently converted to myspace and all it's infinite possibilities, so to all those who have contacted me, please be patient as I am not one to sit for hours in front of the screen and consequently I fall behind in all things clerical…..
Next week I go back into the recording studio for the first time in too many years. This has been a long but deliberate pause, during which time I have returned to drawing and painting, and have been writing a new play. Naturally, I've been adding to my song catalogue as well, and look forward to giving my new material an airing at a series of gigs planned for the new year.
A musical play that I had produced in 1991, Flowers from Detroit, has been summoned for a possible performance: it deals with the angst of the working mother and the subject matter is seemingly timeless. So we will see what a new generation may make of it.
And I have just had a successful exhibition of my artwork; it was a delight and pleasure. Not only were they hung in the studio, but also on the trees & outdoor boards, in a sunlit garden, heaven! My paintings are quite different from my songs, my songs being the more introspective side of my nature, my artwork extrovert and colourful, but I treat them both with equal love and affection, not to mention a nervous respect and a sense that at any given moment, on any given day, the muse may grow tired. Not so far.
And with all this new homemade produce comes a promise to myself and others that next year will be the year of gigs, long, long overdue. And just to marry these two muses that pervade my life, the visual and the audio, I am starting to work on drawings based on some of my songs……it's an idea I have entertained for a considerable time and now, with some trepidation, I am starting on this mysterious quest.
Watch this space, literally.
I will keep you updated.
(We're working on a link to i-tunes from this site - for individual tracks - but in the meantime, my 3 CD's can be ordered through www.themusicindex.com, part of hotdigitsnewmediagroup, Tel. +44 (0) 151 336 6199, sales@themusicindex.com).
I was born and educated in London. From early on, I wanted to be an artist; music was of secondary enjoyment and even though I learned the piano at school, I was pedestrian to say the least. I never practised and had difficulty in telling my left hand from my right. The result was that I failed the Grade 2 exam and gave up, until I was about 20 and about to fulfil my ambition to be a set designer.
Distracted from my main focus, as was customary for me, I joined a rock band, on a whim. I had always enjoyed singing and occasionally a relative would comment, "You do have a lovely voice". And so I discovered Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins; on my 12-string guitar - exotic but impossible to play - I started the long strum to song-writing.
"exotic but impossible to play"
The set-design course suffered; I walked into the Royal Court theatre in London and asked if they needed any scene painters. I got a job for £5 per week making tea, cleaning rehearsal studio lavatories and generally being agog with wonder at the talent that walked in and out of the stage door.
It was a wonderful year, but the song writing was becoming my main priority. I remember the insomnia and high octane creativity. The songs flowed from me effortlessly and somewhat eccentrically. So what do you do with them? You call a record company; you haven't got a clue really, but guess what? They say come and play your stuff. The first ever recording session was at Regent Sound in Denmark Street - £5 per hour with 20 songs recorded in a day.
The record company (I think it was the only one I'd ever heard of at the time – how innocent we all were then) liked my tracks and wanted to hear more. The next day, I received a call from the head of the company, who was a successful producer, and he wanted to meet me. The journey had begun but ended one year later, just as we were about to sign something important; the deal was over. I was signed by Sovereign Records and Boo was born.
The cover of Boo Juliet or Marc Bolan?
Boo was a success. I read the reviews with astonishment, convinced they were writing about somebody else. Who was that frightening woman who looked like Marc Bolan? She certainly wasn't the rather shy and chaotic 20-year-old that I knew.
I toured for a few months and loathed every minute of it. I was nervous on stage, disorganised and probably off-key most of the time. I used to stand on stage, strumming away and longing for it to be over. I knew that I was a much better songwriter than singer and wondered why I was putting myself through the torture, but the momentum was sufficient for us to start recording a new album.
This was in 1974. It wasn't a happy experience and the album was never released – someone lost the two inch tapes and the whole operation collapsed. Two years ago, I recovered a quarter-inch copy – it was like finding treasure. I had it lovingly baked and it is now on CD. The songs sound quite mysteriously beautiful – I should love to revive and maybe re-record One for the evergreen and They don't foxtrot anymore one day. I feel a bit like an archaeologist.
I got married, had a couple of wonderful children and to all extents and purposes gave up the music game. It was 1980 before I re-emerged and, collaborating with Peter Hope, wrote the music for Channel 4's Chips Comic. All this came about because I met Peter's wife whilst collecting children from a crèche.
We wrote 12 songs for two episodes, which taught me an awful lot about structure, discipline and deadlines. No more the wafting and whimsical girl, I was honing the art of songwriting.
Peter and I wrote many songs together, including some with a dramatic storyline, in 1990, for which I then wrote a script. We had a show – Flowers from Detroit. This little show, about a working mother trying to juggle her various commitments, still resonates 15 years later. It was a wonderful experience – we had a three-week run and I then wrote a kind of sequel. Flowers had been only a one act play and I could visualise how my two central characters could develop and create a different scenario one year later. As ever, though, something else happened that took me down another road. I met Bim and Bud.
Bim and Bud were record producers Mark and Barry Sinclair. We started planning a new album in 1992 and a year later we completed The one that got away. I call it 'the pink' album and I look demure and sugar sweet on the cover. It was never released on the open market – I sold it by mail order and slowly but surely it picked up a modest following, mostly by word of mouth.
The "pink" album
Throughout this time I was writing. In 1998, I put on a one-woman show called Throw it on the water. It was the story of my life, in song – my songs. We performed it for three weeks at the Rosemary Branch theatre in Islington and picked up some decent reviews. The show was revamped and performed again two years later at the Jermyn Street theatre and the following year at the Wimbledon Studio theatre.
There were certain songs that were really beginning to have a life of their own but I resolutely stayed away from the music industry. I knew that ageism stood in the way of my getting any sort of record deal, but no matter, I could do it myself. So in 2001, I began recording Where I'm coming from, produced by John Hamilton. Some of my favourite songs are on this CD.
I have written over 150 songs, and I know the ones that are special. Many of them remain unfinished, mere sketches on old cassettes. I do a few gigs each year, because I love it, but the songs are my legacy. I have started to paint and draw again and there are a couple of plays to be written so maybe I'm going full circle. I am certainly happy the way it is ….
vital
