Song sisters
Beverley Craven, Judie Tzuke and Julia Fordham reckon three is the magic number...
Woman To Woman
Beverley Craven, Judie Tzuke and Julia Fordham will take to the road together this autumn under the banner Woman To Woman. Promise Me, Stay With Me Till Dawn and Where Does The Time Go? are just three songs of theirs that have become standards, selling millions, but they don’t see themselves as a supergroup.
‘I prefer the term Song Sisters,’ Beverley Craven says, to the others’ amusement.
I met them in a hotel near RTÉ a few hours before they performed Beverley’s 1991 hit, Promise Me, on The Late Late Show. They are so comfortable in each other’s company that you might imagine that they’d known each other for decades. ‘No actually,’ says Julia Fordham, ‘we hadn’t really met before this project.’
‘I knew that we all had the same agent,’ says Beverley. ‘I’d been such a fan of Judie and Julia for years that I said to Lee [Noble, the agent all three share]: “Instead of us slogging away individually, why don’t you book the three of us together? Then we can play bigger shows.”’
He was initially reluctant, she says, but then after she persisted, he said: “Go on then, let’s do it.”
‘I went back stage after one of Julia’s shows to tell her I how much I loved it and I also met her for literally four seconds after a song-writing retreat.’
The retreat was one regularly organised by Squeeze’s Chris Difford. Julia says: ‘I thought: “I’m going to be in the same room as Judie Tzuke.” I never thought for one moment: “I’m going to be in a band with Judie Tzuke.’’’
The three were quickly booked on to Graham Norton’s BBC Radio 2 show and interest snowballed.
Judie takes up the story: ‘We only met properly just before we did that show and we sat in the room together and just…’ ‘Gelled,’ says Beverley. ‘We all bring something that really adds to what we do individually,’ Judie says.
‘We had recorded a song called Safe, that Julia had written with Beth Nielsen Chapman,’ Beverley continues. ‘Graham [Norton] played that and talked to us. It was that old cliché of the phone lines lighting up. We had planned just one show in the Union Chapel in London and that sold out almost immediately. That’s when the idea for this tour came about.’
Tickets for all the dates are either sold out or are selling fast. The idea for an album soon followed. ‘When I came up with the idea…’ Beverley says with mock haughtiness, as the others laugh loudly. ‘I thought it would be the three of us individually singing our own songs, with a little bit of help from the others. I didn’t imagine we would make an album and be quite so involved with each other.’
‘I have to confess I’ve became quite obsessed with the whole thing,’ Julia says. ‘We found this blend that’s magical.’
Beverley adds: ‘Julia would ring me up and say: “I am literally sobbing listening to our voices together.” I thought, blimey, she really likes it.’
On the album, also called Woman To Woman, they revisit several of their best-known tracks and add what they have come to term as ‘The Blend’ to those and songs that will be new to their fans. ‘On the album Beverley has done a cracking version of Judie’s song Bring The Rain and a killer reggae version of my song Where Does The Time Go?’ Julia says.
‘When I heard you were doing that, I thought: “How is that going to work?” But I actually love it.’ Judie says. ‘Julia’s song, Cowboy, is just brilliant and was a blast to record. There’s another song, a Christmas song, that will just make people cry.’
Between Julia taking fondly of her Irish ‘nan’ and Judie revealing the time she briefly recorded with Phil Lynott and that she wants to move here, Beverley notes that this leg of the tour finishes in Dublin. ‘Oh, what a night that will be!’ she says. ‘We might be in the mood for a bit of a celebration.’
Woman To Woman will be released on October 26. The trio play Vicar Street on December 2.