Last week I had a call from the Beeb asking me if I'd like to write a short story for their week of singer songwriters writing short stories series. As, unless I have a serious kick in the backside or a deadline the size of Paris, I'll do almost anything to avoid writing - including cleaning the fridge or doing the car tyre pressures, I said "yes", because I thought, well, that'll be one chapter nearer my biography ever starting. So I got cracking and managed to do a bunch even on the train yesterday en route to Stockport to see my mum and "do things", as she mysteriously puts it. The "doing" means looking through old family photos and deciding if anything can be thrown away. As my hoarding genes come pretty much pure straight from my mum, most of what was in the cupboard has, having been examined and oo and aaghed over, gone back into it. How do you spell "aagh"? I'll stick with what I had though the red line's gone under it.
Mum is watching "Call the Midwife" or something similarly titled.You'd have to pay me to watch that. That's why I'm writing this. Every so often I glance up and think, no, there's not enough money in the world to make me watch this. It'd be like Clockwork Orange where they had to pin his eyes open to keep him from looking away.
Had nice news here and there about the album, and various interviews and so on. Its coming out in the USA at the end of May, and I'm writing a short story.
Today we drove past Jodrell Bank, spring blossom and daffodils, snowdrops and lambkins. Spring has sprung even in the Northwest.
Corby songwriting group and Head of Snakes rehearsals continue apace as we hurtle towards our wonderful workshops at the end of March.
Now the midwife is sat chatting to a nun. Who writes this stuff? We had nuns at my school, and they were quite good value, unlike the cheerless lot on this show.
Last week brought 2 extraordinarily fab nights working with Julian Clary, Sarah Travis and Philip Herbert, aka Hugh Jelly. St James Studio was packed to the rafters with old JC fans and friends and generally lovely people. We did some of the old songs, too, including Mincing Machine and Uncanny and Unnatural.
Here we are back in ye olden days…..
Rehearsals took place at Julian's earlier in the week, with quite a lot of laughing and some good food and a little wine. I love St James, as I can walk back from it to Pimlico in the moonlight along my quiet streets. Here's a backstage madness photo…..
The gang reunion and music brought back so many glorious memories for us all. It was a total joy. David McGillivray factoted us - I know thats not a word but its what he did, and great fun was had by all.
Next weekend on friday March 14th I'm in Norwich -
A rare Sunday evening at home after the first week of Hard Rain which has been - for the first time - out in the world. We started, Simon Wallace and I, in Tunbridge Wells at Trinity Theatre, which was so welcoming, and as the songs were sung live all together for the first time, I thought "yes"to myself - this is going to work. The dressing room, I have to say, was possibly the coldest you can be outside Siberia at this time of year, in fact at any time of year, but the management were so lovely and brought out, through the course of the evening, a selection of heaters. By the time we left it was toasty. There was also an amazing array of lovely teas and nice clean cups and a pristine sink. But no kettle. I stood in the centre of the room and called "kettle" several times, but none appeared. When another heater came in with the management I mentioned that the kettle couldn't hear me and had remained hidden and the lovely man kindly found it for me. It was in another room. But finally we had tea. Herb tea is very good for singing political songs by Dylan and Cohen. Its somehow very connecting. Lemon and ginger. Tunbridge Wells also had a wonderful Thai restaurant. My general feeling about Tunbridge Wells is very positive on all counts. I didn't die from the cold, the tea was finally made, I had Som Yum soup and a lot of garlic and chillies, and the audience and staff of the theatre couldn't have been lovelier. In fact there was a couple in the audience that night whose wedding I had sung at some years ago, and they were still married - which is unusual, as I've sung at a lot of weddings were people subsequently divorced. I don't think its me. Nonetheless it was nice that these two were still together and had had a lovely little boy.
The next night was our launch at The Purcell Room on the South Bank. Of course the weather was absolutely rubbish with high mad raging and hair destroying Heathcliff winds and a tide so high ships could have come to the show, yet most people managed to arrive on time and we premiered the work in London to a near packed and wonderful house with the super smart Davide Mantovani on double bass and the uber talented Simon Wallace on piano. The queue for CDs was massive afterwards. I had a new pen from my Nigerian stationers which was marginally worse than the one I bought the week before, so all my signatures looked as though they were in Chinese characters. In a way that was rather gratifying. No one's names were legible - thats a great leveller, isn't it? The night went in such a flash - it flew by - so many wonderful friends were there - I salute them all - and the final Brel encore went down like hot chocolate at an after ski chalet party. Ryan and Iain took my sister in law Akiko and I to Delauney's for supper afterwards - and though its insane to eat that late at night I did and be damed and so on, because you live once and you might as well have had a nice supper if you were lucky enough to be offered one.
The Sunday show was in Warwick Arts Centre, which is cunningly concealed inside the University grounds. I know that because in order to find it I drove around the entire campus more than once. At the singing queue afterwards was a young man and his girlfriend and he had seen me sing when he was aged 8 in someone's house in east Anglia and had grown up listening to my CDs and yet had turned into a perfectly nice human being. Go figure. I managed to make the entire motorway journey with only one bag of chocolates. This is a huge step forward for womankind.
A week later and I found myself giving a masterclass in Leeds, at the College of Music there, with 4 lovely singers who gave so much of themselves and were just a joy to work with. The trip up and down on the train was pretty effortless, and then before I knew it we were driving to Devon to play at Otterton Mill. This was the view from my bedroom window at the B and B at Quentence Farm the next morning which was sunny and clear and wondrous in that way that sea views in fab weather in Devon, are and make you think you should relocate. Then you remember that the train line's been destroyed by the recent gales and reconsider.
We were off like the wind - which scrambled eggs on home made bread can do for you - and up the motorway to Altrincham to one of the best music venues in the country (apart form Otterton Mill where we just were). To the Cinnamon Club at Bowden Firs. The journey went by easily largely because during it we discussed music, life, politics, film and art and then we were there. Checked in to the Mercure and then headed, after a feet up type rest scenario to soundcheck with Nat and a lovely dinner before playing to a jam packed house. My mum came with her friends as did the fabulous Dylan Lancaster and Roger Perrin, and Simon's sister and my school friend from Stockport Convent for Girls days, Catherine Fitzwilliam Pipe, with her husband Tony and sister Geraldine. I love the Cinnamon because its my old manor, being very close to Stockport, and the audience are absolutely on the ball. You could have heard a pin drop, and people were very kind afterwards.
A great Steven Seagal film on the TV back at the hotel put me right to sleep and bang to rights and I was back in London to do a bunch of admin Saturday and still have time for a long walk by the Thames.
This coming week we're in Stowe at the Cricket Club. Cricket is a total mystery to me but as I'm singing and not playing I think we'll be fine.
And here's the fabulous Matt Lynch film of the making of the CD, which is perilously close to being released, hence my increased blogging.
Feel free please to share it with everyone who might like it and want to share it o further and pre order the CD and all that jazz.
So exciting to be at stage 1 of the new Hard Rain release, but I'm writing as rain pelts down on the Water Tower in Brigstocke because tonight its the Deep Roots Tall trees show in Corby, the first of three which winds up saturday night at Gretton Village Hall, so its a brilliant opportunity for the Choir and Head of Snakes to do 3 nights of shows in a row. There's a fab flier for the shows, here -
Then this week the gloriously talented Matt Lynch finished editing the short film he's been making about the album, Hard Rain - the Making of, and that went online all over the place, and with any luck people will share it and come to the Purcell Rooms and our dates and order the album. The film is here
Meanwhile storms continue to batter our friends on the south coast - I find it desperately sad to watch the train lines at Dawlish hanging over the sea - how many times have I taken that train journey to and from Devon? The sea - so serene on those journeys - last summer the people on the beaches with sand castles and spades - now there's a raging Shakespearean torrent. And as we read the articles and watch the videos of the waves smashing against our frail buildings and sea defences, surprise surprise we see more fracking licences granted - no dots connected. Gaia is on the trail of us mere mortals, demanding vengeance. We move forwards with all this at our peril.
I've spent days and days learning the words to the amazingly long and complex songs that make up the Hard Rain album, which is now available on Amazon - I know I know, Amazon, but as the Sweet Honey and The Rock song says, Are My Hands Clean? And they're not. I know. But here it is for pre orders
Mari, Johann, Charles and I after St James' Christmas Woman to Woman shows.
The end of 2013 was fabulous - I finished the St James' run with my mate Mari Wilson that week before Christmas and we had a superb weekend of shows, and then a final show in Greenham, and the next day I was off on my plane to faraway New York City and 59E59 Theater. Dropped off my bags in Harlem and headed straight out to a rehearsal with the lovely pianist and woman, Tracy Stark. Managed to keep my eyes open for dinner with Tanya Holt and Tracy and then headed back to Harlem where I bedded down in the warm hospitality of Maamoun and Andy and Lucy the dog's home. My happy moment of this was Maamoun explaining to me that Lucy and I would share a bathroom, as she doesn't like going out very much. I have to say she was one of the best bathroom sharers ever - she never wanted the shower when I wanted it - well to be honest she never wanted to shower, and she didn't use the loo, she did all her business on or near a little mat in the corner of the bathroom. So as long as I didn't stand in that I was quids in. On Sunday morning Maamoun and I walked around the neighbourhood and I stood outside the Apollo and we wondered around the churches - St John the Divine Cathedral was a discovery for me - http://www.stjohndivine.org
and a gospel church where lovely harmonies drew us in from the pavement. We swayed and sang. New York was alive with music in Harlem that morning.
59E59 Theater is just a dream of a gig - they look after you and care about the work and my sound and lights team JP and Ted did a grand job so I turned up for a soundcheck to find everything in very fine order, which was good as my family arrived in New York pretty much simultaneously and came to the opening night show. The theatre had done lovely fliers and a big banner hanging down from the staircase, using Steve Ullathorne's lovely shots which feature on the new CD (more of which later), and opening night was a wham bam slide of joy. Had some lovely reviews and lots of friends came.
if you've never been - go. We followed up with Katz's deli which if course is famous for THAT scene in 'When Harry Met Sally' or the other way around. You can eat your bodyweight in pickles there. Its my idea of excellent.
Central Park in the winter sunshine Boxing Day.
Then back to the run, with some walks in Central Park and Christmas Eve came and went, and Christmas Day in NYC. The town was so quiet. We walked to lunch, the sun shone, I wore my hat, everyone was in joyous frame of mind, there were trees and baubles everywhere and somehow it was perfect and I never once thought - oh, if only there was Christmas pudding. Not once.
Mum, Mirek and I by another Christmas tree wondering through NYC.
Tim, Mum and Mirek in NYC by the tree.
Another 7 shows in 4 days, and it was all over. Sad, but happy, I waved goodbye to New York on a freezy, breezy Monday morning and caught the Amtrak to DC. There was a lovely view of Philadelphia from the train….
Downtown Philadelphia form the DC Amtrak.
Arlington Virginia, was where I spent my New Year, and we managed to stay awake to watch the ball drop in NYC and toast with champagne before dropping into bed and deep sleep. The triumph here was that we had a fabulous meal we all made - Mirek and I the starter, Mum the main course, and Tim a dessert which could bring peace to the world, its that delicious. Everything was hunky dory…….
Then the snows came…...
Mirek proving that a new broom sweeps steps!
The temperatures feel through the void into places temperatures really shouldn't go yet with coffee and struggle I managed to get to a yoga session and pretend that I was keeping a semblance of fit - Mark's classes at The Edge in Arlington free muscles that frankly have remained hidden for years. Ot at least since I last went to one of his classes. This morning I got the Boot Camp video out (hilarious - its what youtube is for) and managed not to break the floor, or any bones, and tomorrow I intend to get to a 9 am yoga class. If the weather holds I fly back imminently, which is good as all the tracks for the new album are mastered and the launch show at Purcell Room on Valentine's Day is now on sale, here
So when I next write, it'll all be album album album and not Happy New Year, which I wish to all, everywhere, and better times, lives and hope. Hope we make it through another year with all the love and light we can manage. Namaste!
Snow on the hills…..I travelled by train last weekend from wintery Sheffield through the Pennines to Liverpool. It was a glorious journey. If you are a lover of bleak moors and snow covered hillsides where sheep shiver in a blisteringly cold wind then the north is for you. I grew up on the edge of the Pennines, and have never lost my sense of wonder at their quiet and Heathcliffian majesty. Here's a pic from the train…..no sheep, but trust me, there were many, huddled together for warmth…..
Arriving in Liverpool I checked in to the glorious Hope Street hotel which is slick and modern and wonderful and the rooms are warm and comforting and the bathrooms glamorous and simple, simultaneously. Is it only me, but when I stay in a hotel - I get to do that a fair bit - I always look at the room and think - if I lived in this room, what would I do with it, or, if this were my flat, how would I accommodate everything in it. As most hotel rooms are the size of my entire floorspace this is an amusing pastime. I am all for amusing pastimes. I almost wrote pasties, there, as in, and I am all for amusing pasties, and as it happens, I am. On the motorway they sell all manner of pasties hitherto unimagined down a Cornish mine. For example, cheese and vegetable. Stilton and beef. And more. I am awaiting chorizo pasties. Its a matter of time.
So, I wondered down through the Liverpool Christmas town centre, with stalls and trees and lights and music, and thought how beautiful it is, this city. There's been a real explosion of architecture with all manner of new buildings beside the grandeur of the Victorian Merchant's richesse. Its a pleasure to walk down through the town to the waterside. Because there had been violent storms the estuary was much choppier than usual, and the fierceness of the dark winter sea was frightening. I thought of all those people sailing out of this harbour, thinking of their new lives in America, and not so very long ago - waving goodbye to the Liver Birds and wondering how they would feel if and when they might be lucky enough to see the Statue of Liberty.
We did our first show to a packed Rodewald Suite and George Seaton and his lovely staff with Ewen on the sound and lights gave us their all. We, in return, gave ours, and after a small red wine I slipped back and slept. Saturday morning was sunny and I headed back to the docks and marina to catch the most glorious Turner-esque sky to the west. Lunch in a fine Italian in the little lanes up by the burned out church and then another show. Another great audience, another small red wine and it was Sunday and time to head back to London on Virgin trains. I won't hear a word against Virgin trains. They're always good to me, and for the most part, on time.
Back home it was swiftly into gear for Ian Shaw's Christmas Cracker show at the Purcell Room with Sarah Jane Morris and myself guesting. There was much hilarity in the dressing room, as none of us seemed to have a clue what we were to do, though Ian issued instructions between gales of laughter. But we found that we harmonised without effort and the audience were up for everything, and the night passed too quickly and in a haze of joy. I walked home along the river to Pimlico in the growing fog, buildings slipping silently from view as I passed.
And next…..well, lets see….Mari and I this coming weekend at St James Theatre.
Roy Bailey, Robb Johnson and Barb at The Tabernacle in Notting Hill Gate launching Robb's celebrated 5 star reviewed CD 'Gentle Men'
Barb on stage with mad hair in Corby, Deep Roots Tall Trees.
November started with a bang, two major projects went out into the world. The first was Robb Johnson's Gentle Men, the release of the CD we recorded in Ghent in spring, which feels like a million years ago already. So rehearsals were attended and plans were schemed and we found ourselves a couple of weeks ago on stage at the Tabernacle in Notting Hill, telling the story of the two World Wars through the prism of Robb's family history in his song cycle in which I sing all the women's parts. Jenny Carr was on piano, Roy Bailey sang the Grandfathers and more, and Robb sang wonderfully, as always. John Forrester was on double bass and also brought me some fine fine artisan bread he'd made himself, Linze his partner played clarinet, Arvin, Robb's son, played drums on a couple of tracks and the fab Jude Abbott played trumpet and more. The place was packed to the gills and there was a superb feeling of appreciation for Robb's work, which was wonderful. I've been singing Robb's songs since I made the Bare album in 1999. I'm a huge fan.
There was barely time to draw breath before I was off to Corby. Head of Snakes and I had written 9 new songs for the Deep Roots Tall Trees second year celebration with the Choir, on the theme of New Town Pioneers. I rehearsed with everyone at the Core, and stayed with my friend Ros in her lovely Water Tower home in among the trees where one morning I saw a kite rise up out of the bushes and soar into the sky, owls hooted during the night, and a rabbit sat on the lawn in the misty morning sunshine.
The Deep Roots Tall Trees choir with Barb and Head of Snakes at the concert in Corby at The Core. Here's the new website…….
Autumn leaves shroud the Water Tower at Brigstocke.
The tech day and night passed and we prepared and got our finery on and performed to a huge house of Corby friends and family, and everything went wonderfully, the songs will be up on sound cloud sometime soon and the website with last year's work is below.
So now its onto the album, finishing that, and the Christmas shows with Mari Wilson in London and on my own, in New York.
The news is that I'm starting my own record label, encouraged my Mari Wilson, and with a superb team of people helping me. Its called Kristalyn Records, at Mari's suggestion, my sisters were Kristina and Carolyn, so I think the label has two massive guardian angels, right there. And as always Ernest is looking over my shoulder to make sure I don;t do anything too feral, and my first release will be Hard Rain, my new album, produced by the talented and delightful Simon Wallace, on March 3rd. I'll be posting pre-booking potentials in early 2014. But for the now, enjoy the rest of autumn, and stay warm! From inside a very thick and woollen sweater, salut! Barb xxx
So here are Todd Gordon and Simon Wallace, beneath the sign to Nowhere, in Largs, where they have an ice cream parlour so splendid, so mouth wateringly wonderful, that you cannot bear to leave it, tub in hand, lips licking. Its Nardinis, of course - http://www.nardinis.co.uk is their website. Gorgeous art deco frontage and full devil cream inside. It was our small Scottish jaunt which took in Le Monde.
The Le Monde poster flew over George Street in Edinburgh for a couple of days. Queen of George Street. Great audience and we had rooms in the hotel. My suite - New York, was huge and modern, with lights you can't work and a TV the size of one of my London flat walls. The audience at Le Monde were wild, and Prof Ben Bowling, my brother in law, turned up at the end. I managed a trot around Arthur's seat and ate excellent Thai food down the side of the Meadows. A fine Edinburgh 24 hours, for sure.
Le Monde
Then we were off to Glasgow, and the City Halls. A lovely time in the huge ceilinged hall, lovely piano and terrific Glasgow audience. We stayed the night beside a bridge somewhere out towards the hills, and headed off to Largs. The ice cream I've written of, but the day was so sunny and clear we could see the Isle of Arran rising over the sea in the distance, and walked along the front for a half mile or so. The McKrays, Todd and Simon, felt that half mile was plenty, so we packed into Todd's superb touring auto and off we went to Beacon Arts Centre, in Greenock, which has to be in one of the best settings possible.
This is the view from the bar window!
Flew back the morning after Greenock and then prepared for the run at Soho Theatre. In Dean Street, Soho's where I did my first ever Dylan collection run in 2002, so it was a joy to return there as part of the London Festival of Cabaret. Some friends came down to the shows, we had couple of nice reviews, and the collection of love songs went down a total treat. I love singing for weeks here and there, doing a whole season. My ideal would be a 3 month run in a small theatre either in the West End (Soho take note) or Manhattan……hint hint. So all you backers out there, thats my gauntlet thrown right down.
The stage at Soho, with the red curtains - is so lush - love it.
And then the storm came - but not until I walked across Hyde Park the day after the Soho run finished. And in the sunshine the leaves looked so lovely. Autumn. I love it.
