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YORKSHIRE - AYUP
ONLINE MAGAZINE- TURN IT UP
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We've seen the future of that Jazzy stuff
and she comes from...Yorkshire! _____________________ From perhaps unlikely origins "a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, Yorkshire" and some early non-musical career expectations "I thought I¹d be working in a bank" the delightfully self-deprecating Clare "on my business card I wrote Clare Teal Jazz Diva" has become one of the UK's most promising performers. She's a fine singer, writes a lot of her own material and has a terrific personality if you need a 'shorthand' description, think Ella Fitgerald meets Victoria Wood. The path Clare took to get there though involved impersonations, jingles, a song for Crewe Alexandra FC and 'early' retirement. And she's still only in her twenties. "Yes, agrees Clare, chirpily. "It is rather bizarre isn't it?" Obviously Clare must have started young. In fact, she started very young at the age of three. "I think all kids sing from the age of three," explains Clare, "but, without wanting to sound prima donna-ish, I knew I could sing in tune. We went to Bridlington on holiday and it rained so my dad took us to some big concert hall and the bloke on the Wurlitzer came out and started playing 'In The Good Old Summertime' and I sat on my dad's knee singing away and ended up going on stage and getting a prize." She laughs before adding hurriedly, "I wasn't normally that precocious! "I saw Little Voice when it came out and it scared the shit out of me," she laughs, "because I WAS as weird as that!" She pauses. "Well, short of the pigeon fancying. But certainly the impressions and the old records. Iremember my mum dragging me into Woolworths and saying "look, I'll give you the money, just please buy something modern!" I'd be in the Easy Listening section. I got into jazz and fell fast and hard." After a few years of playing the clarinet and the piano, Clare decided she wanted to go to university and study music. She still hadn't really sung in public though but that was about to change. "It was the last concert at school and we thought it'd be really funny to do a couple of songs. We did 'Mad Dogs & Englishmen' and 'I Got You Babe' and we dressed up for both. All these mothers had come along expecting squeaky Mozart, and we sat there as camp as you like, singing away. The music stopped... and nobody clapped! But it was then that I thought I could sing in front of people"
"So I went to University. And I found that I could get a lot of my degree done in practical work so I didn't have to write many essays. Then I decided it was even easier to sing, so I did a few pieces where I'd sing and I started enjoying it." After University, Clare kept gigging and worked as a jingle writer and "soundy-likey" before finally settling in Bath where she came to a major decision. "I decided to retire," admits Clare. "I thought there was no future in jazz... And then I got a call out of the blue from Martin Litton, my pianist, saying that Stacey Kent had pulled out of a weekend festival and could I stand in? I said yes, but I was terrified! I knew Martin but I didn't know any of the players, I didn't have any arrangements I'd just given him a list of songs and keys! Anyway we got there and I discovered I'm headlining the whole festival! They were all expecting Stacey and they got me! "But it went really well. Mandy, my manager, said we've got to get these guys playing again, so we went into the studio and did a demo, with the aim of raising the profile of the band for gigging and we sent ten off to various people, festivals and such, and one to Candid Records. I said to Mandy 'they won't be interested, they've got Stacey!' but we got signed to a three album deal. And we've heard it's going very well in Taiwan." She grins. "So I'm thinking of calling the next album 'Made In...'!" "That's
The Way It Is" is out now on Candid Records. This piece courtesy of the very wonderful people at Footloose Magazine.
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AYUP ONLINE MAGAZINE
- THE BEST OF YORKSHIRE
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Clare Teal
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A
couple of weeks ago, The Observer picked Clare Teal's debut album
'That's The Way It Is' as their jazz CD of the week, and a very
good choice it was too. It was also a rather unusual choice as
the album has been out since June 2001. Still, better late than
never and at least that bizarre element is in-keeping with much
of Clare's musical career.
"Then
I had this horrible shy phase. I found this trunk of 78s in
the attic as clichéd as it sounds! and nobody saw me for about
six years! There was Judy Garland, Doris Day, Glenn Miller, Nat
King Cole, a lot of Fred Astaire... Just the really popular mainstream
stuff and I used to mimic the singers. But it was so private to
me. My dad knew I could sing even though I never did sing in front
of anyone and he wasn't creepy by any means I did once catch
him outside my bedroom window with a tape recorder!" If that
all sounds oddly familiar to you, you're not alone, as Clare happily
acknowledges.
