The oddest, most important lady in the British music business.
Once her music is mentioned, she begins to tense up. She’s defensive, she admits that she’s playing for time and is frightened of giving anything away.
Curious the way she stops seeming domestic and friendly the minute she starts playing guitar or piano and singing her dark songs crammed with bleak imagery.
Her strong, flexible voice, ideally suited to amplification.
Her curiously solemn voice.
Her own slow, brooding ballads – highly personal songs.
She isn’t prepared to discuss what they are about: “They are biographical. About 10 people can understand them. I just take a story and whittle it down to essentials… I wouldn’t write songs if they didn’t mean something to me, but I’m not prepared to tell everyone about my private life like Joni Mitchell does. I like to be a bit more elusive than that”.
On J Lennon: “He really blew his cool when he explained exactly how he wrote Lucy in the Sky”.
It ovbiously wasn’t worth pursuing her lyrics further.
‘Let’s Jump the Broomstick’ shows her power to belt out a rock number even if she does somehow makes this once-cheerful song sound sinister and evil.
America has produced a suitable number of rock stars for a matriarchal society… but for an internationally acclaimed female rock star there’s only serious contender: a chubby, cheerful girl of 23 who lives with a massive dog, an Australian and 3 cats in Fulham, and looks as if she would be most at home making cups of tea.
At Lincoln a few weeks back she played and sang better than I’ve ever heard her before.
“Ambitious? No. Yes. Well, I just plod. It just happens”.