‘Are we happy
THEY ARE pop’s perfect couple, happily married for 31years. But when I ask Martin and Shirlie Kemp the secret of their wedded bliss, he grins and tells me to buy their new album.
“The answer is in the songs,” agrees Shirlie. “Every one of them has a meaning for us,” adds Martin. “Listen to the words oftheway You Looktonight.these are things I’ve said to Shirlie! And the line about that laugh that wrinkles her nose... she does wrinkle her nose when she laughs.”
In The Swing Of It is full of numbers from the golden age of swing. “Modern love songs are quite often about heartbreak,” says Martin. “In the 50s, love songs were happy and upbeat.they celebrate love and they’re more in tune with us.”
You must wind each other up sometimes, surely?
“He has to be early everywhere,” says
Shirlie of her heart-throb husband. “It drives me up the wall. He’d rather be 45 minutes early than a minute late.
“And he throws everything away. If I’ve lost something, it’ll be in the bin. He’s thrown bags of clothes away because he doesn’t like clutter.”
And his best quality? “He is the kindest, most considerate man in the world,” she says, without hesitation. “He’s emotionally intelligent, we’re best friends... and he’s quite nice to look at.”
The Spandau Ballet star says simply:
“She makes me laugh every single day and I appreciate it.”
The album, out on Friday, came about by accident.
“Martin was in the studio doing a couple of demos and he asked if I’d help out and sing on them,” says Shirlie – herself an 80s pop star as half of Pepsi & Shirlie. “I was quite nervous about it. I hadn’t recorded for years.
“The producer, Brian Rawling, said, ‘Let’s hear you sing’, and we sungyou Make Me Feel
Soyoung. Immediately the beam on his face brightened the room. ‘Why haven’t you done this before?’, he said.”
“Shirlie sounded so much like Doris Day, it was a perfect fit with the era,” says Martin.
“We get real excitement out of it. And it’s helped us cope with empty nest syndrome. Making a record together filled the hole.”
Blue-eyed bass-player Martin was riding high in the charts with Spandau Ballet when he first clapped eyes on beautiful, blonde, apple-cheeked Shirlie Holliman 37 years ago. She and Dee C Lee were backing singers for Wham! George Michael played Cupid.
Martin says: “She caught my eye ontop Of The Pops, in a white dress with a big split up the side.when I saw her again a couple of weeks later at an aftershow party I gave her my number.”
She didn’t call. “I was really nervous,” recalls Shirlie. “Then I was at George’s house and he asked if I’d called.when I admitted I hadn’t, he took the number, went into his sister’s room and dialled it and put me on.
“His mum answered and I asked, ‘Is Martin there?’then he came on and said, ‘I’ve been waiting for you to call. I’m happy now’.”
Their first date was at the Camden Palace venue in north London.
“Shirlie came but she brought George as well,” laughs Martin. “I spent all night trying to get rid of him!” (George for his part moaned to Shirlie: “I didn’t know you’d be snogging all night!”).
On tour, pre-mobile phones, Martin would send her postcards. Shirlie kept them all.
They married in 1988. Martin claims that Shirlie became pregnant with their daughter
Harley Moon, now 30, on their wedding night.
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