Russell Watson

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What a charmer Classical crossover artist Russell Watson wins us over The Woman in Black / Paul Weller / Science Festival / Pioneer

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The best selling classical crossover artist ever is finally visiting Cambridge Corn Exchange. ELLA WALKER finds him rather surprising – and massively likeable

Russell Watson “When you’ve nearly died twice and you see some s*** written about you in the newspaper, it’s like, so what?!?”

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THE HEADLINER: MUSIC

“I remember doing an interview with Michael Parkinson who said: ‘You’re very lucky because you’re not like a rock band or a boy band or a pop artist where you’ve got a lot of competition. At the moment you’re in a queue of one’, well, now I’m in a queue of hundreds”

I

N no way was I looking forward to interviewing Russell Watson.

A 48-year-old former bolt-cutter turned People’s Tenor who’s performed for the Pope and has a blonde fiancée practically the same age as his daughters.

His biography reads all too much like a Daily Mail editor’s dream article.

Mostly though it was the fact he’s responsible for creating the ‘classical crossover’ genre, inadvertently subjecting us to a decade (and counting) of insipid talent show copycats. The man has a lot to answer for.

However, in a snatched 20 minutes while on the road to Manchester United for an interview with MUTV (“I have to talk about how great Man United are, when they’re not.

I’m trying to think of nice things to say and struggling,”), the motorway roaring in the background, Russell Watson completely won me over, and that never happens.

He’s bringing his latest tour, Up Close & Personal, to Cambridge Corn Exchange, celebrating 25 years in show business and 15 as a professional recording artist. A scaled down version of his usual shows (don’t expect a symphony orchestra, you’ll be disappointed), he’ll be performing his trademark mix of show tunes, arias and big, belting numbers.

“The stuff that I sing in my show is material that I’m really fond of and I really like so if I got to a point where I’m singing a song and I thought, ‘that’s crap’, I probably wouldn’t sing it anymore,” he laughs. “’Tonight ladies and gentlemen I’m going to sing a song from West Side Story that I really don’t like!’ It’s not going to work out is it? I think you have to have the connection with the songs; you have to like what you’re doing.

“The fans know when you’re getting a bit flippant with the song, or getting a bit bored. That’s why I like to change my repertoire around quite a lot; no two shows are the same.”

To chat to he’s rather a joy: frank, jokey and completely devoid of any diva-ish traits, although it’s frequently necessary to point out that he’s going off on tangents and getting gleefully carried away (“I am! Sorry!”). You have to reign him back in or he’d warble on, tumbling into silly voice after silly voice like a big kid who’s had too many Smarties.

It being an up close and personal affair, you’ll be getting even more of that chat and charm from Russell than normal on tour. “You may have noticed that I’ve not got much to say for myself and I don’t like talking too much, so I probably won’t say a word!” he jokes, with a wheezy ‘heeheehee’. “I do like talking. When I was a kid my father always used to say to me ‘You like the sound of your own bloody voice’ I’d say, ‘Yes,

actually I do, is that a bad thing?!”

If the stats are anything to go by, it certainly isn’t. Having produced nine albums to date, Russell is the UK’s best selling classical artist ever – Katherine Jenkins can barely compete – and has four Classical BRIT Awards at home.

Born in Salford, Lancashire, he left school without any qualifications and began performing as Elvis in working men’s clubs to support his then wife and baby daughter. One night he sang Nessun Dorma from Puccini’s Turandot and swiftly found himself propelled to stardom, becoming the “godfather” of classical crossover, “which I quite liked,” he muses.

“It’s better than ‘great uncle’ which somebody called me once.”

With the release of his first record, The Voice, he explains, he “ignited a new breed of classical artists that pondered between classical and semi-classical with a little bit of pop music”.

“I remember doing an interview with Michael Parkinson who said: ‘You’re very lucky because you’re not like a rock band or a boy band or a pop artist where you’ve got a lot of competition. At the moment you’re in a queue of one’, well, now I’m in a queue of hundreds.”

He’s still on top though and, since those early days, has performed with – and for – almost every major name in the worlds of music and politics, from The Queen, Bill Clinton and Pope John Paul II, to Lionel Richie, Cliff Richard, Lulu and Meatloaf. “I don’t feel intimidated by anybody in the industry, I do what I do and other people do what they do and if I get the opportunity to perform with them . . . that’s quite something.”

Russell cites his all-time musical heroes as Pavarotti, Frank Sinatra, Whitney Huston (“A total tragedy, I’d have loved to have done a duet with her.

Fabulous, fabulous, natural, beautiful voice and again, often emulated but seldom surpassed”), Nat King Cole (“He was completely distinctive”), and Michael Jackson (“He did

more for the pop industry than any other artist has ever done”).

“You look at artists like that and wonder where the next ones are coming from,” the singer sighs. “At the moment it doesn’t look like they’ll ever be replaced.”

He’s not all that impressed by the current crop of musicians in the charts, apart from the Black Eyed Peas (“I like working out to that kind of music when I get in the gym, I get a bit of Boom Boom Pow on and rock the punch bag to that,”) and Pharrell, (“The production on Happy was just immense,”). He can just about appreciate Sam Smith and Ed Sheeran but feels it’s getting all too commercial.

I wonder how different his own music and career might have panned out had he

28 | March 12, 2015 | cambridge-news.co.uk | Cambridge News

THE HEADLINER: MUSIC

not been diagnosed with a benign but debilitating brain tumour in 2006.

“It’s difficult to say really,” he says.

“In many respects my becoming ill has added layers to who I am as a human being. In retrospect I look back at who I am and my career and if certain things hadn’t have happened, if I hadn’t had the incredible highs – like singing for the Pope and at the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games and singing for the President of the United States – and all the rest of it, if I hadn’t had those career highlights combined with the terrible things, the bad things that have happened to me, then I wouldn’t be who I am today.

“What’s happened to me, the highs and lows, it’s the fabric of who I am as an artist and a human being.”

He adds: “You tend to find as well, and I’m not necessarily relating this to myself, but if you look at the music industry, generally the ones that are the best are ones that have had the most mess going on in their lives. The tortured souls are often the biggest stars.

“If it’s all good then it becomes easy, you can’t generate passion and inspiration into music.”

Pausing and then laughing, Russell the joker re-emerges: “That was quite profound wasn’t it?!”

Fighting off illness twice has meant the seamier sides of fame – like the press making sport out of his less than amicable divorce – are something he just shrugs off though.

“When you’ve nearly died twice and you see some s*** written about you in the newspaper it’s like, so what?” he says baldly. “It doesn’t bother me. Even in the early days I used to get a lot of criticism from the classical fraternity about the fact I wasn’t trained properly and I didn’t go to the right schools and all the rest of it. Did it bother me? Nah, not really, when I’ve got a triple platinum album, and won four BRITs in a row, it’s like cheers!”

Russell’s advice for budding singers: “When you get really fantastic things written about you, don’t take them too seriously, never believe your own bulls***.

But when you get really bad reviews written about you, don’t take them too seriously either. You are who you are. I’m no different to anyone else, apart from when I walk on a stage.”