Tanita Tikaram & Cohen

[jarkko]

This link is from Vlad Arghir:
http://home.enter.vg/tanita/art01t.htm

Whatever a "gamut" is, her musical taste has certainly "run" one - from Snow White to Tom Waits, from Racey to Leonard Cohen. And whatever a "shuffy" is, Adrian Deevoy is having one at ...

Tanita Tikaram's Record Collection

"Daddy, Daddy Cool/ Cool, Daddy Cool/ Daddy Daddy Cool/ Cool Daddy Cool," sings Basingstoke's premier strumstress in as near an approximation of the Darts classic as her low murmur will allow. "Remember that one? And what about this one," she croons, one eyebrow seductively raised. "Some girls will/ Some girls won't /Some girls need a lotta lovin'/And-a /Some girls don't. Racey! That was a good one. Ooops Upside Your Head was big. Showaddywaddy were very popular. Under The Moon Of Love, Three Steps To Heaven. And ... Johnny Eruption! I think that was his name. Sounds absolutely is gusting, doesn't it?"

Tanita Tikaram, giggling fit to bust, has transported herself back to the youth club disco. It was here, among the mini Mars Bars and mushroom clouds of Hi Karate, that she first dipped a tentative toe into the turbulent waters of rock'n'roll. But even at this tender age she was by no means a vinyl virgin. Her induction into the world of things round and plastic had already been successfully negotiated courtesy of Messrs Grumpy, Dopey, Sleepy, Happy, Sneezy, Bashful.and Doc. Which wasn't, one hastens to add, a supergroup featuring Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, John Martyn, Marti Pellow, David Crosby, Morrissey and Timothy Leary.

"When I was seven, we were living in Germany,', she recalls of her military childhood, "and my brother and I were given record tokens. So we raced down to the NMFI and I bought the Snow White And The Seven Dwarves record. Hi ho/ hi ho/ it's off to work we go. My brother was older than me and bought Gl Blues which was an altogether cooler choice. Thinking about it, Snow White wasn't a great album. There were only two good songs on it. Two stand-out tracks! No obvious singles!"

So the young Tanita abandoned the bearded Persons Of Restricted Growth and took up with Leonard Bernstein and his lushly- orchestrated tale of New York gang warfare.

"Between the ages of about 12 and 14, West Side Story was just an absolute obsession," she laughs. ''I thought it was just the most wonderful thing ever written and I still think it is by far the best musical ever written because there's no waffle at all. It's all lean. Every note is necessary. Musicals these days just seem to be one song stretched out. West Side Story really is a beautiful piece of work. The story is incredibly cool and the music just suits the mood of it so well. When I eventually saw the film I was disappointed that I didn't cry like I did when I heard the record. I found the record much more intense. I used to be in floods every time I listened to it. I mean, There's A Place For Us, what a lovely song. Maria is just wonderful, amazing. Then you have a really cheeky thing like America. It just had everything. I also loved the idea of Leonard Bernstein as a person. He was a great figure and he had such a cool attitude and he looked incredible."

A relative latecomer to pop, she didn't trouble the singles racks of Basingstoke's Our Price until 1981. ,

"I didn't really get into pop music until the third or fourth year of secondary school," she confesses. "The first I single I bought was Can You Feel It? by The Jacksons 5. Can you feel it/ Can you feel it/ Can you feee-he-eel it. The next thing I bought was Tainted Love by Soft Cell the same year. I was very keen on the melody of that. It had a kind of insistent quality that made it hard to ignore. A nagging feel. but nice nagging ...

"But it wasn't until I went to college that I started to buy albums and really start to take music seriously. I guess it was a financial thing because until I went to college I really didn't have the money to spend on albums. But when I began at college, music became more of a priority and I could buy things out of curiosity. So I got albums by Van Morrison and Nancy Griffith and Joni Mitchell. People who you heard were interesting and essential listening. I kind of liked those but the first one that really got to me was Suzanne Vega's first album. She was very hip at the time. And that, really, became my college album.

Remember when she did Marlene On The Wall on The Tube? That's what did it. That's when she became really popular.

"I think bands like The Smiths and more independent bands were popular as well. But I wasn't very interested in that side of things. The whole idea of Morrissey just didn't mean anything to me. I was in the Suzanne Vega camp. Hundreds of tortured versions of Marlene On The Wall. The next album was Jennifer Warnes' Famous Blue Raincoat. That, for me, was very important. I first heard it on Radio 2. They were playing First We Take Manhattan and I was struck by this extraordinary voice. I'd heard her an that single with Joe Cocker (Up Where We Belong) as well and regardless of the actual record I thought it was a tremendous performance vocally. I became pretty obsessed with that album as well. I played it all the time I was waiting for my 'A' Level results. You know when you have a record and the first thing you think of when you wake up is playing it? It was like that. Then I began to get curious, curious in a different way, about songwriting and other artists. I don't think I'd written I'd songs myself by then but I started shortly after that time. I'm not sure that it inspired me to start writing but it certainly influenced the way I recorded when I went into the studio. It gave me a focus and the idea to explore music."

The first port of call on this musical exploration was the much-maligned Leonard Cohen. "I'd only really been aware of Leonard Cohen in a very derogatory sense," she frowns, recalling her first acquaintance with the creased Canuck. "Leonard Cohen was always dismissed as music to slit your wrists to, put it on an stick your head in the oven and all that bullshit. I ha a copy of Leonard Cohen's Greatest Hits for quite long time and it was all (unimaginably poor Laughing Len impersonation), I wrote this song in Montreal . . And I thought it was a bit naff. But after hearing Famous Blue Raincoat and realising that he ha written all the songs on that - Jenny Sings Leone! went back to him and really listened to the song and couldn't believe how good they were."
So Tanita Tikaram began to develop what to scientists have come to call a record collection, an odd assemblage comprising frankly un-ironed singer/songwriters, celebrated soul grunters and nostalgia- inducing late '70s/early-'80 artists. Like Abba ... "l must admit," she laughs, "I was more of a born-again Abba fan than a first time around person. Although they were so big in Germany it was almost compulsory to like them when I was young. But let an I started listening to them again and the songs were so good. Take-a chance, take-a chance, take a chance. That was such a brilliant song. I also really liked The Day Before You Came which, I think, was the last song they ever did. It was beautiful, very underrated. And I loved Knowing Me Knowing You and Name Of The Game. And Chicachita I loved. My Mum used to always say that it was about me, so I'm probably a bit biased. But Abba were so unafraid being European. So many European groups see to want to be American but Abba were proud to be Swedish! They weren't afraid of simplicity either. If it worked, they used it."

"l always thought that Madness were a bit like Abba," she adds by way of an interesting non-sequiteur. "I just got One Step Beyond and Absolutely again and they're brilliant. They did everything so simply and naively. Some of the songs were so absurd they were verging on genius: Baggy Trousers and Driving In My Car. Then there was the more sensitive stuff like Embarrassment and the version of It Must be Love which was beautiful. I couldn't believe it when they got accused of being facists during that 2-Tone tour. They seemed to innocent to get involved in anything like that."

"The first Van Morrison song I heard was Bright Side Of The Road," says Tanita, ferretting out a selection of the Belfast Cowpoke's finest. "My first impression was, He's black. Or at least, He sounds very black. Before that I'd always thought that he was just some weirdo Irish guy that you weren't supposed to be very into. It was the same vibe as Leonard Cohen. There's some people, for some reason, who have this air about them that puts you off. Maybe it's how people talk about them. But when I heard him it was just so soulful. So I bought Moondance and I really loved that. Then I got Astral Weeks which I found a bit strange at first. It's a funny album, though, it's not like Moondance or Band And Street Choir because you really have to take the time to listen to it. It doesn't make very good background music. So while I think it's his best album, it isn't the album I go to when I want to hear Van Morrison. It's normally Too Late To Stop Now or something more immediately recognisable as classic Van Morrison. "It's very difficult, I think, to criticise him because everything he does has something very special about it. I haven't met him but I think I would like to say, Mr Morrison, I think you're a wonderful singer and songwriter. But I'm sure he's aware of that. He might just say, I know."

In keeping with the theme of great songwriters she plucks a copy of Paul Simon's Graceland from the pile.

"It might sound corny," she shrugs. "but I liked the idea of someone exploring and honouring - although a lot of people said he didn't - another culture. And I really like the songs. They are great songs. I'd always liked his songs since we all had to sing El Condo Paso in school but You Can Call Me Al is so groovy and fresh and energetic for someone who's been around for so long, it's remarkable. He's very aware of the impact rhythms can have. He knows that it isn't just words people latch onto. "I've heard The Rhythm Of The Saints but I found it very hard to click into after this. It's quite a difficult gear change to make. It's very easy to jump to conclusions before you've really got to know an album. There's this tendency in the music industry just to listen to albums a couple of times and discard them if they don't immediately grab you. I think if it's by an artist who has impressed you before then you should give it some time. Because that's what people out in the real world do."

Alighting upon a copy of The Beatles' Revolver, she shakes her freshly-coiffeured head in bewildered admiration. "Lennon and McCartney were just the best songwriters. What else can you say? It's a very from-the-gut thing. They appeal in a unique way. Little children pick up on their songs. I didn't really pick on the Sgt. Pepper type stuff but Help! and Revolver I liked because they had those brilliant tunes and there was that wackiness about them then which was infectious. Although, ironically, if I had to choose a favourite Beatles song, though, it would be a George Harrison one. Here comes the sun, do do doo do. I really go in for all that light, jolly kind of stuff."

A reverential air is maintained as the subject of Tom Waits rears its tousled head. "He's always been an important figure," she enthuses. "Rain Dogs is the album I'd choose from all of his. The sound of it is unique. You have all these cranky discordant, weird rockin'roll songs beside all these really tender ballads. Tom Waits was the first concert I went to. It was at the Hammersmith Odeon. It was so exciting. I remember thinking about it all day. Would we have time to stay for the encores? Would we catch the train? What would it be like actually sitting in the same room as him? All those things that, once you start getting on guest lists and all that stuff, goes. You can get excited by going to concerts but you can never fully recapture that feeling again. So Tom Waits is special to me."

Talk of the Fisherman's Friend-free boho brings us, somehow, to Rickie Lee Jones and the myriad delights of the female singing voice. "I didn't know she existed until I was actually gigging," Tanita grimaces, shame-faced. "Someone told me about her and said I'd really like her so I got hold of that first album. It was spring and very sunny and it was all just right somehow. She seemed like Tom Waits and Van Morrison all rolled into one ... but less of a mess! I really could believe the way she sang. That's why I like Mary Margaret O'Hara because she goes off at a tangent. She plays around with words and puts them in a different order. She's so in tune with every different meaning of each word and while that can be very embarrassing in some people she does it with such conviction and confidence that it works."

"This is kd lang's first album," she says, reaching for her acquired copy of the import LP, A Truly Western Experience. "It was on a Canadian independent label before she was signed up and inevitably it's much more raw than her later stuff. It's also really coy. A very fuzzy felt feel to it, if you know what I mean. There's also a song called Hanky Panky. I've often wondered if Madonna was inspired by that. It's such an odd English phrase. It's a weird thing to sing about. Not that I mind. I'm not that precious about her. I think Shadowland is a great album too. Although it was produced by Owen Bradley and she had all the musicians Patsy Cline used, she managed to make it much more than just a tribute."

"The funny thing about Patsy Cline is that when I first heard her when I was about 16, I didn't know who she was or anything about her, whether she was alive or dead. She's big again now. A richly deserved reappraisal, I'd say. I love the way the songs she sang said things so simply, I walk out and I stop to see a weeping willow crying on it's pillow..."

Although many lazy musical comparisons have been drawn between Tanita Tikaram and just about every other woman who has written a song, she still bears an unsettling resemblance to the young Elvis Presley. "Um," she says. examining the sleeve of her Elvis Sun Collection. "I can't really see it myself. He Iooked weird, In `56 and `57, he looked like nothing else and he sounded like nothing else. He was quit off the wall in a way, the funny things he did with his voice were very strange. I'm sure if he'd had better guidance he would firstly still be around, but, more importantly, he'd be producing relevant work." "In Germany, you really got to like Elvis because all the films were dubbed into German but the songs were sung as they were. So you got to love them. was something you could vaguely understand. Did I fancy him? No, I never thought, Phwor! But I understood that he was a charismatic figure. I loved his voice but it stopped there!"

"But I think my favourite singer is Don Williams." she says, affectionately patting the luxuriantly side-burned country crooner's greatest hits collection. "I know he had huge side-burns but he has a great voice and, anyway, he's trimmed them down recently. My mum was a huge Don Williams fan and I grew up with these songs. Bob McDill writes his songs, he's actually an English lecturer in America and they're just perfect for Don Williams's voice. When I saw him live, I was just overcome by his wholesomeness. But I love that mellow voice. In way, I like Nat King Cole for the same reason. It so comforting and mellow. It wraps itself arourd you."

Sifting through the Tikaram LPs, you can't help but notice an absence of anything challenging experimental or, dare one say it, contemporary. That, she says, contemplating the charge deeply, "is. . . true. I've liked some things that are meant to be uneasy listening or whatever they call I liked Birthday by The Sugarcubes but I think it often difficult to enjoy things beyond how strange they are on the first listen. There has to be more to than that. But Birthday had such a beautiful melody and a really curious feel to it. But there isn't a lot truly recent stuff here, I must admit. Dance music something I find very difficult. I've always real thought of soul - like these soul compilations of my Dad's - as dance music. I feel happier dancing that than current dance music. I just wouldn't choose to go out and buy a dance album, although having said that, I really liked Back To Life by Soul II Soul. But generally I find it hard to tune into something that ultimately I find it aggressive and intimidating. I can't really get along with it. It's alien to me."

And it is with this nakedly honest admission ringing in our ears that we must whisk Tanita Tikaram away to that proverbial desert island inhabited only by Sue Lawley and the ghost of poor old Roy Plumley. Which one album will she take? "Oh, it would have to be We Side Story," she sighs eventual. "Just because everything about it so . . . magical."



"Q" Magazine - April 1991

[tomsakic]

Ah, that's from 1991. I already feared she's back form history. Nightmare.
Anyway, that's much better than the quotation in Leonard Cohen In His Own Words (Chapter Other Artists on Cohen). I think she said there somehting like "I like new Cohen. He used to look like Dustin Hoffman and sing like Bob Dylan; now he looks like Loenard Cohen and sings like Leonard Cohen" Anyway, I don't know why we needed quotation by some long forgotten singer songwriter in book about Leonard. He doesn't need legitimation from Tanita Tikaram I'm sure.

[chappelle]

I saw Tanita Tikaram at the height of her fame (Twist In My Sobriety) when she played Hull University in '89 I think. The high point was a very good rendition of 'Ain't No Cure For Love'. Like many of her critics, I think she tried a little too hard to be moody and intense and the persona always seemed a little contrived. But hey - she'd only left 6th form college a couple of years before. I must have liked something about her at the time because I bought her first album and a couple of singles!