Catherine Jenkins, Hayley Westenra and more recently legendary pianist and band leader Jools Holland are just a few of the talented musicians that we have been lucky enough to see perform in Jersey. Jools Holland blew the audience away last month with his rhythm and blues orchestra and guests including Marc Almond from 80?s pop group Soft Cell, and next month it will be the turn of KT Tunstall.
The last 3 years has seen KT receive great success with her debut album Eye To The Telescope, which sold four million copies worldwide and she has been awarded numerous accolades including a Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist, the Ivor Novello Best Song award for writing Suddenly I See, a Q award for Track of the Year for Black Horse and the Cherry Tree, a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and she also secured a Mercury Music Prize nomination. Outselling every other female artist in the UK in 2005, KT?s music has led her to becoming a huge festival favourite and now she is headed for us, thanks to Dick Ray and Jersey International.
KT?s modern folk and acoustic style of music has been inspired hugely by her life experiences growing up in Fife, Scotland. After Fife, her musical journey took her to Edinburgh, where she busked and hosted her own acoustic nights, Acoustic Extravaganza, which gave the Skye album its name and is still put on by friends under the name Acoustic Edinburgh. Finally, with the promise of a publishing deal, she begrudgingly moved to London, where her career eventually began to take off. Her most recent album Drastic Fantastic – a title that popped into her head as she was writing her journal on an aeroplane, is full of powerful lyrics, bold, colourful melodies and reflects her increased adventurous side. When talking of Drastic Fantastic, she says ?I wanted to be braver. I also wanted to push the musicality on the album . . . I really enjoyed playing lead guitar for the first time, as well as piano, rhodes, and ukelele. But also I felt my vocals were a little safe at times on the first album. I didn?t mean that to happen but I was so inexperienced singing in a studio that I couldn?t quite get my live voice into the booth. After three years of touring you get so good at just flipping yourself into gig mode; finding whatever underground stream it is inside that provides you with that magical lucidity. I?ve found that now I can tap into that really quickly. And for the first time, being in the studio was another stage.? This time round, she was listening to the radio, mainly the new pop-indie output that has been booming with The White Stripes, Arcade Fire, The Killers, Bloc Party, as well as all those months on the festival.
KT will be supported in her Jersey concert by the winner of Radio 103?s search for a support band, chosen by her management. For more information and tickets on the concert contact Fort Regent on 449827.
8/7/08
Where: Fort Regent
