|
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.
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.
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.
|
