Welcome to my blog : Archive
Here is an archive of all my past blogs, just incase you missed any! To view my latest blog please click here
Clams on the half shell and Roller skates Roller skates
Posted Thursday, May 21, 2009
Poor White Trash and the little Big Horns were in the house last night. Damn, that shit was funky! We had two guest singers :Paloma Faith is this incredibly vibey creature out of Dalston ,she has a fairly lively Myspace page , check her out. There's a wonderful ease to her singing in a 21st century Billie Holidayesque way and for someone so young (she's 24) to be referencing Al Green, Etta James ,Fats Waller and et al ,says a lot for her musical vocabulary - she may well be the real thing. She certainly sang her ass off last night -giving her all to Take Me To the River, and Etta James' Something's got a hold on me...the crowd really appreciated her chops. HMMMMM she be tasty ...unusual lookin' too - with that red hair and a kind of thrift shop /retro chic vibe ..v. nice.
Our second guest was Louise Claire Marshall. I saw her at my promoter's wedding. Phil Mcintyre got married to CJ his main squeeze and threw down a party with 10 piece band and singers from rock and roll, west end musicals and the like. Louise (a close friend of CJ's) came on and blew down the house with renditions of Proud Mary, Respect, Think and on and on -she had so much funk we had to call the fire brigade to put her out ! Damn,she was good. Anyhoo- I made a mental note of her name and her accent , she's from Oldham (great to hear a Jamaican accent interweaved with the odd 'ey oop cock, ya'alright?' ) and she's cooler than cold. The rehearsal was a hoot. We'd had the usual Poor White trash thing of -two days rehearsal , Len doing lots of singing lessons , no drummer for a while , drum machine then , no trumpet for a while , Len loses his voice half way through rehearsals , more singing lessons with Kate teaching Len how to relax, lots of drinking of water, lots of peeing ,and then -BAM! Louise Claire Marshall arrives ( a bit late , but it's hard to park where we rehearse...) and leaves her mum and kid in the car . She walks up to the mic and says 'alright lads ,what we doin' then?' and we say 'You said "Think"
and "Respect"' and she nods. Now we've been listening to Aretha's originals and also her Blues Brothers versions. We've worked on both arrangements cos ..you never know..so we begin and Louise opens up with Think and -O.MY.GOD she's good. She's got that alacrity of voice that has that ease in the upper register ;we've rehearsed the backing vocals up to a point and she's nodding her approval mid wail - it's great.
And then she's done rehearsing and we've corrected any little problems and she's gone. in and out in 30 minutes...and last night POW!
The reason we were throwing down in the London Posse's area last night is because Comic Relief has a do to celebrate all the staff ,sponsors and contributors who worked on this years campaign. Last night we thanked everyone , the film makers, celebrities, producers , directors -Richard Curtis made a funny , scandalous and frankly profane speech about our commitment to saving lives, Kevin Cahill went into detail about all the work that gets done and then asked me to come on to tell the people that this year we've raised OVER 78 MILLION POUNDS!!!!!! Yeah,that's right skippy, over 78 mill.
The crowd went nuts and then, THEN before we hit the stage one of my favourite performers in the world - SEASICK STEVE played a 2o minute set that the crowd groovin to the blues. Massive respect.
Anyhoo- I'm on Paul O Grady today to announce the London Transfer of Othello -We open at the Trafalgar studios on Whitehall September 11th and play right through til December 12 2009.Tickets available now.
I'm also doing Rock With Laughter again , we're playing the NEC in Birmingham on 18th and 19th of December.
with : Alan Carr, Lee Mack ,Dara O Brianne ,Shapphi Khorsandi , The Sugababes, The Village People (Yikes ) and special Guests...it promises to be a killer night - I hope I get to see you there.
Take care of yourself.
Lenny Henry.
Funny bits:LAUGHS
About:ME
Contact:ME
