Music is Clare's therapy

12:05pm Saturday 10th June 2006

nstead of spending this morning shopping in the sunshine in Newcastle, Clare Teal was driving down to Scarborough in time for England's opening World Cup match against Paraguay.

No choice really: one of her backing singers has it written into his contract that her current concert tour she comes to St George's Hall for the first time next Thursday won't cut across England's exploits in Germany.

So why didn't Clare, who likes watching World Cup football too, just take the month off? "I can't remember the last time I had a month off. Apart from three days recently when I went to Venice, it's work, day in, day out," she said.

But, it seems, work is Clare's antidote to the common cold, something plaguing many at this time of year. How does she avoid the singer's nightmare?

"Stay away from dairy products and orange juice to stop getting bunged up. Milk and orange juice aren't great for the voice and the acid in orange juice dries out the sinuses. Water is the best thing to take.

"As a performer you have to rely on people being considerate. One of my band has gone down with a cold and he said, Don't come anywhere near me.' You don't want people giving you big hugs and kisses and then saying, Oh, I've got the most terrible cold!' "Colds don't bother me, touch wood. When I had an office job I used to sell advertising I was always ill. I got really depressed about it. Maybe I just didn't enjoy that kind of work.

"People say, You look younger when you walk off stage.' A two-hour show is good exercise. Singing is good exercise. I'm making an album five days a week, I'm gigging at weekends and there's radio and other shows. I'm very busy, too busy to be ill. I literally can't afford to be ill.

"Robbie Williams was so ill with flu one day that he thought he was going to have to cancel a concert. The lawyers got together and he was told it would cost him £1m. He went on," she said.

The jazz singer-songwriter who grew up in Skipton, whose first album for Sony, Don't Talk, won many plaudits, has been performing for six years, since the age of 27. But never before has she been asked to play her mother's home town, Bradford; amazing really, considering the number of festivals between June and September.

"You have a good run of festivals but you can't do them all. I did Ilkley not so long ago. I am looking forward to coming to Bradford."

She won't be bringing Peter Grant with her. Her 19-year-old protg from Guiseley, whom she met while recording a show for BBC Radio 2, has joined forces with Clare at a Leeds concert and she has reciprocated.

"He's not doing Bradford, but he will be coming to York (the Grand Opera House, June 18). I said, Come and stay with your auntie Clare.' He's got an entirely different voice from, say Jamie Cullum, more velvet-edged, very honest and down to earth. He doesn't try to sound like anybody other than Peter."

Since March she has been spending a lot of time in the recording studio taping material for her next Sony album. The working title, Waiting for Barbara Dickson, is very provisional and tongue-in-cheek.

"We were waiting for a producer to finish working with Barbara Dickson her album is very beautiful. I had hoped that mine would be out by September but Sony decided that it would be next year.

"It's a move of sorts from Don't Talk. I didn't want to be another girl singing standards. I do write a lot of stuff and the radio is a big influence. Think of Dusty Springfield, Andy Williams, The Mamas and the Papas, that happy jingle-jangle feel-good vibe with a lighter 1950s, 1960s texture. The area covered by Burt Bacharach," she said, trying to describe the sound she was after.

"One of my great joys with putting records together is doing the vocals and backing vocals, creating walls of harmony, The Carpenters, experimenting with things like that. But the songs have a solid format.

"I'd say the album is 70 per cent finished; but in varying states. It took most time to get an angle on what we were going to do.

"After we had recorded half-a-dozen songs a theme started emerging. You want the album to be thematic so it feels that it all belongs on the same album. Now, there is pressure to put just a bunch of singles on an album; but it's not rewarding for people to buy it. You don't want to make a compilation CD."

I asked her if she had yet ventured across the Atlantic to America.

"I am not in a mad rush. I am happy. I have a very good life. I don't have to travel all over the world. For this album I might have to. I would love to go to Europe because I love gigging and my worry is that I don't want to get too much in people's faces.

"We have been touring the country for the last six years. I feel as if I know every major road, every service station. It's brilliant, but I think it would be lovely to go to another country. There is real appreciation of live gigs in Europe."

Next month she'll learn whether she's won the BBC's jazz vocalist award an award she has won before.

Of course, none of the foregoing takes account of how her concert plans will be affected should England get through to the final rounds of the World Cup.

If the hoped-for victory in the final happens, Clare's backing vocalist may not be seen for several days.

l Clare Teal sings at St George's Hall next Thursday, starting at 7.30pm. The box office number is (01274) 432000.

Editor's choice