A brief chat over a cuppa with singer Lucy-Anne Daniels

This was a delightful conversation and I'm glad to be able to share it with you at the very start of 2024 and season 15 of Harmonious World.

Singer Lucy-Anne Daniels is very much one to watch and I can highly recommend you search for a gig where you can hear her sing and watch her own the stage.

Although it's a great honour for me to be able to interview some titans of music, I'm really going to seek out new artists like Lucy-Anne (and composer of my Harmonious World theme tune, Joe English) to promote. You can watch a video of her performing with fellow musicians from the Birmingham Conservatoire.

Watch out for my new blog feature of upcoming gigs - mostly UK but anything that looks interesting and especially those that feature past or future guests.

Thank you for listening to Harmonious World. Please rate, review and share: click on the link and subscribe to support the show.

Don't forget the Quincy Jones quote that sums up why I do this: "Imagine what a harmonious world it would be if every single person, both young and old, shared a little of what he is good at doing."

Transcript

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Hilary 0:01

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Hamilton World. My name is Hilary Fabric. And for this episode, you'll be listening to an interview a few weeks ago with us. So there is some ambient sound, but it was lovely to be able to speak to her in person. She's a fabulous singer. And I hope you enjoyed listening to our conversation. Welcome to Harmonious World, Lucianne Daniels. Hello. Hi, it's really nice to be chatting with you. We've had a little bit of an introductory chat, but we'll I'll I'll so I'll ask you lots of questions so you can tell my listeners the same things you've told me. So I heard you sing at Ladbrook Hall in London with Zenia Strigalef and Soweto Kinch, amazing Soweto Kinch. So tell me a little bit about how that gig came about.

Lucy-Anne 1:00

So Xenia and I had technically never met until two days before that gig. But he had seen me sing with Zosa Cole in Birmingham at Sosa's album launch. Maybe I'm gonna say four years ago. Right. I think it was like the summer of my first year in Birmingham. Yeah. Um so he'd seen me there, liked what he heard, and then asked me many, many years later to do the night at the opening night at Laborick.

Hilary 1:32

Yeah, yeah, and and you'd met um Soweto Kinch before.

Lucy-Anne 1:36

Yes. Met Soweto, like it's funny, I've never been taught by Sweat or anything. But um he was teaching obviously at uni, but then I kinda to be honest, I think I met Soweto through Zosa. Okay. Um then sort of like hung out with him in various settings. Yeah. Um and did music bits, and we're doing like not a gig together, but we're both on like the same build for this um lovely evening in Birmingham called Incubator Sessions.

Hilary 2:04

Oh, that sounds brilliant.

Lucy-Anne 2:05

Um and that'll be like my first solo set, which would be very interesting. Wow, when's that? December 12th. Right.

Hilary 2:11

Wow. So people can look out for that incubator set. They can. Yes. That's brilliant. Is that part of the conservatoire?

Lucy-Anne 2:19

No, no, no, it's just beep. Do you have you heard of Beeb Music?

Hilary 2:22

Yeah, yeah.

Lucy-Anne 2:23

So it's like an like a little project extension from there. Right. Right.

Hilary 2:29

So did you go to Birmingham to the Conservatoire because you knew about the thriving jersey that there was there?

Lucy-Anne 2:35

No, no, not at all. So I like classic, you obviously audition everywhere. Um and I God, we were talking about this with some people the other day, just like the gruelling audition process. Yes. And so I really, really wanted to go to Guildhall. Oh, okay. I had my sights set on Guild Hall. I was like, oh, I love the area that it's in, it's in London, it would be just like we've got the barbecue next to you, it would be great. Um and with Birmingham, like it was kind of it was on the list because I didn't want to study in Leeds because I didn't want to study at home. Okay, yeah. Which I guess is fair enough. So then Birmingham was kind of just in the mix because it was there. And the audition went quite well. I think it was probably one of the better ones. Um, but I didn't necessarily pick it for the thriving music scene.

Hilary 3:27

Okay.

Lucy-Anne 3:28

But then I didn't get into any of the London ones.

Hilary 3:32

Okay.

Lucy-Anne 3:32

So then Birmingham was kind of the the alternative um the alternative arrangement, but I'm so glad. Yeah.

Hilary 3:42

That's really interesting that you didn't get accepted into the uh into the London. No, it is interesting because you're an amazing singer. So so how what what do you think happened? Well did you just not have good auditions? Or did you do you think you've developed over the four years? I mean you obviously have developed.

Lucy-Anne 4:01

Definitely a development thing. I think it was like I would say I've always been quite a performer. Um and so I kind of had almost like the drama about the music that was on its way, like emerging, but then the like technical stuff and like the theoretical side of stuff was like lacking. Okay, and like the London, the London people are obviously quite into that, yes, yeah, and in the same way that we're talking about like Nigel needing to be able to read and stuff like that. My reading was like not horrendous, but it wasn't like tip-top. Right. Um so I think that was the main thing. Yeah, but it's obviously worked out well, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not complaining. No, I think Birmingham was like it's been a very, very nice nurturing environment, I'd say. Yeah, um that's good. Yeah, yeah.

Hilary 4:57

Okay, and tell me about Nigel, how did you get into Niges? Obviously, you're living in Leeds and you're starting to sing. What got you into Nigokes?

Lucy-Anne 5:05

I think I was 16 and at school we'd had this what's it called? We had an arts festival at school biannual, and a bassist in the school, one of the teachers, ran that evening, and so that was like my first entry into jazz basically.

Hilary 5:24

Okay.

Lucy-Anne 5:24

At around 15, doing a jazz night at school. And then I was like, Oh, okay, this is quite fun. Like, are there opportunities to like do this elsewhere? And then I don't I'm God knows what I typed in, but obviously Nigel came up.

Hilary 5:38

Okay.

Lucy-Anne 5:38

And I remember seeing like 16 to like 23, 26, 24, I don't even know what the age bracket was, but um a big range, and I remember seeing that it was like, oh yeah, you get paid gigs. I was like, Me? Paid for a gig? Dig dog, I'll do that. Um, and then I remember thinking, okay, like I'll apply next year because at the time I was 15. And I remember the deadline coming up, and I'd almost forgotten about it, and so it was like an absolute scurry to get information and videos and write a little spiel. And then I so I wrote the spiel, I put all the information together, applied at like midnight on the day of the deadline, right? And then was really shocked to get a call back saying, Oh yeah, come in for an edition. Um I sang Midnight Sun.

Hilary 6:31

Oh, lovely.

Lucy-Anne 6:32

And feeling good, and then they were like, Yeah, you've got it.

Hilary 6:38

Fantastic. Because we were chatting before, and I was explaining that in the old days when I was in Nigel, um, you just literally turned up and there was no audition process, there was no kind of application or anything like that, and you made it or you didn't.

Lucy-Anne 6:52

Yeah, yeah, you survived. Yeah, yes.

Hilary 6:54

You sank or you swam, and uh so it's really interesting that you went through that process. But what it's interesting you as well, you talked about the the drama, yeah, because you are such a performer when you're on stage, you don't look like you're in your early 20s, you don't, you you you own that stage and you own the room, and people listen to you. Where did that come from, do you think?

Lucy-Anne 7:19

Do you know what? I'm gonna say my mum. Okay. It's something I've only really realised in like the last few years, but my mum is such a drama queen, she's child number five of eight. Oh, okay. So her being like smack bang in the middle, I'm not surprised. She had to like fight for her voice in that family. Um, I think that's sort of just been passed on down to me. Um, and I'm the younger sibling, okay. So naturally, there's sort of that element of you know, look at me! Yeah, um and then in school I was very much into my theatre as well. So then that all sort of translated itself into performing music.

Hilary 7:59

Yeah. So you're obviously coming to the end of the Birmingham Conservatoire experience. Oh yes. But you're doing a lot of gigs, you're working, you're you know, you're not just sitting and waiting for that to finish. Yeah. Do you have a plan or do you just want to wait and see, or are there are there people kind of getting you gigs or looking out for you? How is that working?

Lucy-Anne 8:22

I've been in a very privileged position in that I have started, I'd say, my career with the help of other people and people asking me to do gigs and asking me to be involved in their projects.

Hilary 8:40

Yeah.

Lucy-Anne 8:42

And so I will continue saying that. And you talked about going to Paris next weekend for gig. What's that? That is at Duke de Lombards with clarinetus Jacquema Smith. Mmm. So that's like a little two-day two two-day mini residency, I guess. Okay. Um fantastic. So that'll be quite brawling. It's two shows a night. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but that will be really lush. I'm very, very excited. And we're doing the Billy holiday in Lester Young.

Hilary 9:16

Um nice!

Lucy-Anne 9:19

That's really good. Yeah.

Hilary 9:20

Yeah. Fantastic. Oh, that's really good.

Lucy-Anne 9:23

Very excited.

Hilary 9:23

Yeah. Oh, that's that sounds brilliant. Are you planning to do that show in the UK?

Lucy-Anne 9:30

That's a great question.

Hilary 9:34

I don't know. Okay. So um so we'll have to watch this space. Watch this space. Okay. Do you have a website where people can find out about you? She is being built as a speak, actually. Excellent. Okay, so hopefully by the time this goes out, you'll have it all, or we can we I can have it on. Yeah, hopefully. Are you on you're on social media? Are you?

Lucy-Anne 9:57

They're rumbling. I am, yes, with a very complicated Instagram handle.

Hilary 10:03

What I'm gonna do is I will uh I'll put that into the show notes. Okay, where people can just click on it in the show notes and then they can on end. Okay. I think you'll want to watch that. Yeah, which is really exciting.

Lucy-Anne 10:18

I'm excited for myself.

Hilary 10:19

Yeah, and you should be. You should be. I I can't um I can't express enough to my listeners how much you just own that stage of Ladra, and it's a beautiful venue, isn't it? Love for it. Great venue. So you literally did own it, which I thought was amazing, and and the way you interacted, particularly with Soweto, was really nice.

Lucy-Anne 10:42

Thank you.

Hilary 10:43

Yeah, so well done. Thank you. Brilliant. Well, thank you for joining me for my podcast.

Lucy-Anne 10:49

With all the trials and tribulations.

Hilary 10:51

Absolutely, but but life as a musician is never easy. No.

Lucy-Anne 10:56

No, all sorts of things.

Hilary 10:59

Thank you once again for joining me for Harmonious World, and thank you to Lucianne Daniels for putting up with the coffee machine in the background and the people chatting. And thanks to Joe English for my Harmonious World Think Tube. One of the things that I'm really keen to do with Harmonious World is to support the emerging calendar. Lucianne is just finishing her time. And I'm happy to do anything I can to help her with another.