Undoubted Queen of British Soul Beverley Knight continues her triumphs celebrating her fiftieth this year, announcing a headline tour including a date at Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall. Our Addie Kenogbon catches up with her before the show...
With a career that spans across four decades, Wolverhampton-born global superstar Beverley Knight is one of the UK’s most celebrated treasures and the undisputed Queen of British Soul.
Her accolades include not only being awarded an MBE in 2007 for services to British music and charity, but she has also won three MOBO Awards, been nominated for three Brit Awards as well as a Mercury Prize, and has had several Top Ten albums. With over a million albums sold in the UK to date - four of which are gold-certified - and her studio album Soulsville going straight into the UK Top Ten, Beverley Knight’s powerhouse vocals have cemented her place in the UK soul hall of fame.
In recent years, she’s swapped the music charts for an Olivier Award winning life on the stage, where her mesmerising performances on London’s West End have seen her take on the starring role in The Bodyguard, lead the Tony Award winning Memphis The Musical, and upon the request of Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber himself, join the cast of Cats to play the iconic role of Grizabella.
In honour of her fiftieth birthday which took place earlier this year, the Queen of British Soul has released her first studio album in seven years. The new album, The Fifth Chapter came out last month, and brings together all Beverley’s soul influences from disco, R&B, funk, gospel through to northern soul and big ballads. The first single to be released from the album, Last One on My Mind was instantly crowned Radio Two’s ‘Record of the Week’, with follow up Systematic Overload becoming its second most played track on the network.
This autumn, in celebration of the new album and turning firty, Beverley is embarking on her biggest ever UK Headline tour which will see her performing alongside her legendary full live band at a range of shows including at Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall. We caught up with the multi award-winning music legend to find out more about life at fifty and her triumphant return to the music world.
It’s been quite a few years since your last tour, so why did you decide now was the perfect time to come back?
I’ve been wanting to go on tour and release a record for ages, but then the pandemic happened, and wrecked everything for a while for everybody. But I always find the positive in everything - that's just my nature, and I thought this could be really positive because in 2023, I'm going to be fifty, so I can celebrate that. I'm going to celebrate life. I'm going to celebrate coming out of lockdown. I'm going to celebrate all of it one time. And, what better time to celebrate life than a milestone birthday?
Absolutely, and how does it compare, navigating touring and life on the road now, to twenty-to-thirty odd years ago when your career first began?
The touring process for me is pretty much the same. It's the same joy, same fun, same energy. With the success comes more toys to play with and more equipment, so the shows have grown and become more spectacular as the years have rolled on. But that commitment to keeping it live, and having that real experience with an audience, that has never changed for me, and it's just the best. You go home - or in some cases, you go to the tour bus - wherever you are, you're shattered and you're just full of joy because it's good tired.
Obviously, you've done so much work on the West End lately, including winning an Olivier, and taking on the starring role in The Bodyguard. So how does actually being on the stage and performing your own material compare to being on the West End?
It's a whole different ball game. When you're in the West End, you're part of an ensemble. The show is the star. It doesn't matter if my name's above the door, the show is the star of the whole thing. I'm there to support the whole piece. We all are. And that's a wonderful family feeling.
You hit your same mark every night. You sing the same note every night. You do the same line every night - night after night. You need to be disciplined. Focused. You’ve got to be a beast. However, I realised how hard theatre was when I went back to music because it's slightly easier because you can edit your songs as you go. You can extend them, throw the mic out to the audience. They can sing along, but it's all on your back, it's all on you. The pressure is huge. You rise and fall by what you do down that mic and how you present yourself. And people are not just judging the show, they are looking at you. So they're two very different beasts. But frankly, I love them both.
It's really exciting to have you back in Nottingham and you've got a lot of Nottingham fans. You were last in Nottingham back in 2017 for a performance at The Concert Hall. So how does it feel to be coming back?
I love Nottingham. I’ve got mates who live there. One of my best mates is actually born and raised in Notts and her whole family live there. My great friend Rick Parfitt Junior, son of Rick Parfitt from Status Quo, also moved to Nottingham and I've got mates who were formerly of Wolverhampton, who now live in Nottingham. So, it's just a really warm and wonderful place for me to play because I just know so many people.
There's no place like home and home is the stage for me
Oh, I love that. Well, we’re definitely very excited to have you back. So, what can people expect from your show?
Wear your trainers. Don’t bother with heels. Don't even bother with makeup if you don’t want to. Just come and jump up, because that’s the vibe. You'll have moments to rest with the ballads, but mostly we are celebrating, and I want people to dance, dance, dance, dance. I'm just so excited to do this and to be on stage and rock the house in Notts. I can't wait.
It's going to be brill, but musically you'll hear the hits, you'll hear some of the new album, The Fifth Chapter. We're definitely going to go and dip into the crates of my own career as well, and there’ll also be a couple of covers, because why not?
And are there any songs that you're particularly looking forward to performing the most or is it just everything?
All of it. But I am looking forward to hearing some of the old school songs sung back to me. And I have to do that mic moment. People singing Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda is going to be special. There's no two ways about it. But I can't wait to hear how much of the new stuff people know, especially the two singles, because they'll have had a chance to live with the two singles quite a lot. And when I performed at Radio Two recently, just down the road in Leicester, I looked out into the audience of 35,000 people, and when I saw people singing the songs, I was like, “Yes, this tour is going to be great.”
It was such a fun, joyous atmosphere and I absolutely loved it. Just to be on stage in front of all those people in my own right, with great big screens behind me, performing live to the radio in Leicester. There's no place like home and home is the stage for me.
Many of the dates on this tour sold out in record speed, so much so that you had to add more dates, which is amazing. So how does it feel to know that you and your music are still well loved and celebrated by so many?
Music is the joy of my life. And to know that people still care, still want to hear me, still want to get involved in what I'm doing, it's overwhelming to the point of tears sometimes. I'm so grateful for it all. I truly am. It's a wonderful life.
Your new album, The Fifth Chapter is truly brilliant, of course it marks your fiftieth birthday, but are there any other key themes it covers?
I wanted it to be about joy and celebration, but also to be about strength. I wanted women to know that fifty is a time of life to be celebrated and not to be ashamed of, scared of, or to worry about. Yes, it does have its challenges, but life has its challenges. And although this album isn’t just for women, this is something that disproportionately affects us. We as women have already been through one set of madness with puberty. Now we go through another thing, with menopause. But it's all fine. It's all manageable. You can get through this, and there's so much positivity. With having age, you have wisdom, you have discernment. You have authority. You lose your neuroses. I wanted all of those things to be reflected in the record.
You can catch Beverley Knight at The Theatre Royal on 24 October 2023. You can buy tickets here.
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