After seven decades in the music industry, Petula Clark is returning to her home county for
a show next month.
The Epsom-born singer will be playing G Live on October 9 as part of her first UK tour in
five years, in support of a new album, Cut Copy Me, which was released in February.
Having sold 68 million records worldwide, she said it is on stage, performing to an
audience, that she most enjoys.
"I think most performers would say that," she said. "Except Barbara Streisand - I went to
see her in Vegas and it was the first live show that she had done for a while, and I said
'how does it feel?'
She said: 'I can't stand it. They're all so ugly - I wish I didn't have to see them."
"There was a sense for her of not having control but the great thing about being on stage is
it isn't all about being in control. Things can go wrong and every song doesn't work the way
you thought it would."
Clark went into the studio to record the contemporary-sounding track which would become
the title track off the album as a one-off. It caused such a stir with the people who heard it
and the record label, Sony, that her producer John Williams (not to be confused with the American composer) persuaded her to record some more tracks.
"We recorded it in a very small studio in the bottom of this garden. Prom the outside it
looked like a Wendy house but it's got windows and at the vocal mic I could look out and
see birds and flowers," she said.
"I was working with a young engineer and young writers and it all worked out fine. I have to
say we didn't go in with an agenda to make a contemporary album - I wouldn't know how to
do that."
The album features several covers including John Lennon's Imagine, and Crazy, by Gnarls
Barkley, which she was talked into recording by Williams.
"So I did it and now I have to say it's one of my favourite songs and I'm going to be doing it
in Guildford," she said. "I'll be doing Reflections as well which is a different song altogether
with music by Bach and lyrics I wrote about my childhood in Wales."
Also on the album is a re-imagining of her most iconic song, Downtown, which she again
had to be talked into doing.
"I said I don't want to do that. Everybody has done everything that can be done with it. I've
re-recorded it myself.
"He said okay and I had to go away and do something, in Paris I think, and came back and
went into the studio.
"He pressed the button and I asked what it was, he said it was Downtown. He said just
sing it and see what it feels like. It felt like singing a new song," she said.
"Most people feel its a joyful song about going out and having a good time. I've often
though it's quite a melancholy song about being lonely."
The shows on this tour will be a 'mélange' of songs from the new album (the first time she
has played many of them), lots of the hits, some Gershwin and a song from Finian's Rainbow, her 1968 film with Fred Astaire.
She said: "It's called An Evening With Petula Clark so that's what it will be.
"I'll be doing most of the old stuff back to the sixties, although I won't be taking it much
further than that, and new songs too. That's what's exciting for me - to mix it together."