Alfie Read online

  We moved into a rented two-bedroom farmhouse cottage in Woodstock in Oxfordshire, stayed there for a couple of years, and it was a lovely little place apart from the squirrels living in the walls. You could hear them scratching in the night, which was a tad disconcerting. I bought a car, which racked up the miles because I spent those two years driving myself all over the country doing little gigs everywhere. And straight after every one I’d drive back to Oxford so I could wake up in the morning with Sarah.

  The Classic FM album went to Number 2 in the classical charts, but Neil wanted us to sign with someone else for the next one and made some more phone calls, flung out the line for people to bite. We went with EMI; I think they were looking for another Russell Watson or Katherine Jenkins, which wasn’t where I wanted to go, but it was exciting. They were really enthusiastic and promised us the Earth, so we signed a five-album deal. The first one they wanted, Onward, was a collection of sacred arias, because Andrea Bocelli had done one which had sold 5 million copies, and that was the sort of material that pretty much guaranteed a spot on Songs of Praise. It was a bit of a curveball for me. I was concerned about being pigeon-holed with the religious set, and I’d been banging on about the Neapolitan album I wanted to do, but they said I could do that next. So I came up with a list of great oratorio choices, less religious suggestions, from Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation, Verdi’s Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Mozart’s Requiem, fantastic tenor arias. All in Latin, it would have been quite credible for that classical market. They screwed up that list and threw it in the bin. They said, ‘This is what we want you to do.’ ‘Be Still My Soul’. ‘Amazing Grace’. ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd’, which at the time was the theme tune to The Vicar of Dibley. Opera for motorway service stations. Just next to the Jim Davidson comedy tapes.

  We did open the album with ‘A Living Prayer’ though, the Alison Krauss song, beautiful song, and credit to EMI for that. I really like Union Station, her bluegrass band. I’d like to pull that song out of the bag again and re-record it because, again, we did the whole thing in something like 12 hours, even less time than the Classic FM album. We recorded it in the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, and on the way there got caught in traffic on the M42 for hours, which was particularly unfortunate for Sarah as she desperately needed to relieve herself. We pulled over on the hard shoulder and she jumped out, climbed over a fence, legged it through some farmer’s field and down the bank to some bushes, way away. All these cars were honking their horns, it was brilliant. She’s a hero. And we recorded some extra bits, including the choir, in Abbey Road a few days later, which made my day. I was actually recording one of my own albums there, and I thought this was a great new start, an amazing opportunity to build my career, on a classic label who were promising us so much. I was really excited that this was all happening for me in Abbey Road. I kissed the stairs. Neil just looked around and said, ‘It could do with a lick of paint.’

  The album got me some attention but it hardly took off. And it was an odd, shaky promo period. We were told I’d get on Songs of Praise if I sang in the BBC Manchester canteen, which I duly did. So humiliating, singing my heart out in there while all these TV people just sat around eating their lunch. Singing these spiritual songs while they scoffed down their pie and mash. Pathetic really. And then EMI sent me on tour as support for the Fron Male Voice Choir, because they’d sold 300,000 copies of their last album, but their manager was unbelievable. He wanted me to go on stage every night and perform at 7:10pm, before the doors opened. Before the doors opened. I’ll say it again. Before the doors opened. I don’t know if he felt threatened, I don’t know what he was thinking. We managed to reach a compromise, I went on at 7:30, but just for 15 minutes. All just utterly bizarre. I vowed there and then that anybody who ever came to support me would be looked after and treated the same as I would want to be. On my last tour, Laura Wright had two spots throughout my show and she joined me at the end, finished the show with me every night. We all deserve a chance, there’s room for us all.

  It was just me and a pianist on that Fron tour, but it was nice to do that, to strip it back. Some of the music, like ‘A Living Prayer’, really made sense like that. On the last few gigs of the Bring Him Home tour I did one song, ‘Rank Strangers’, a cappella and I did John Prine’s ‘Angel from Montgomery’ with just three cellists. Things like that will always be a part of my shows I hope, just to have a moment without all the glitz and glamour, without the lights, without the band. Get to the heart of things.

  Onward was nominated for Best Album at the Classical Brits in May, that was when I bumped into Sting and his lute. After the award show that evening, Universal gave Neil and me tickets to their after-show party, which we would have loved to have gone to. That’s kind of unheard of, for an artist on one label to be invited to another label’s party. We didn’t go, because EMI’s A&R girl said, ‘Please don’t go to the party. I’ll be heartbroken if you go.’ The EMI party, in a hotel in Kensington, consisted of a glass of wine and a leaky ceiling because somebody above had left a bathtub running, so there were towels and buckets all over the place. Universal probably had buckets of champagne at their bash; we had buckets of bath water. Drip drip drip.

  We followed up Onward just a few months later with the Neapolitan album I wanted to do, La Passione, although it turned out to be very different to the album I’d had in my head. Because it means a lot to me, that music. We were encouraged to listen to it at college – it’s really good training for the voice. It’s easier to sing than the arias, but also it develops the softer side of the voice, the passaggio that tenors and singers try to develop, you really have to work on it. The Neapolitan stuff really brings it on, brings it forward. It’s just like, if you’re a guitarist, sitting and doing your scales. It’s bloody good training because it’s a workout, it’s not going to damage your voice, it’s healthy and fresh, it’s muscle-building and stamina-building. And it’s fun to do. The ice cream van in Fleetwood used to play ‘O Sole Mio’ when I was a kid, there’s a magical quality to those songs.

  Through travelling in Europe, I used to always see street musicians playing them. Strasbourg, Paris, Venice, all the buskers played that music so naturally. The summer after Dad died, before I went off to the National Opera Studio, we went on holiday to Venice, me, Mum, my brother Michael, one of his friends, and their girlfriend, it was the first holiday we’d had in a long time. We were walking through Piazza San Marco one afternoon and I lost them. They’d wandered off, or I had, we’d split somehow, and I was left with Michael’s friend, nice girl. Round the side of the square they have buskers, and each individual band takes turns playing a set: pianist, drummer, clarinettist, flautist, violinist, accordion player, typical Neapolitan bands. And I thought an effective way to find my family would be to get up and sing with one of these bands. So I asked one of them if I could, and they were very welcoming. I reeled off a list of Neapolitan songs I knew, which of course they also knew, and we did ‘O Sole Mio’. And the whole crowd in Piazza San Marco came and stood in front of this tiny stage, I was blown away. I couldn’t believe I was standing in Piazza San Marco singing my heart out, and I was looking around for Mum and Michael. I got really into it, sang a couple of songs with them, and the crowd went nuts. But Mum and Michael didn’t show up – we found them later. My plan to find my family with my singing had failed, but it was an amazing moment, singing those songs with that band, taking in the smell of the food from the cafés, the birds flying around, the gondolas tied to the poles, it was all so iconic.

  The point is, this music’s in their blood, these street performers. It’s what they grew up listening to. It just comes naturally to them. It’s ‘per la gente’, by the people, for the people, it’s been passed through the generations – they’re like old folk songs. So I wanted to pay homage to that, to respect their heritage and traditions and their sound, and use street musicians on the album. And I thought it would also have been a great selling point, a good press hook, t
o say that we used buskers. I didn’t want to use a conductor or arranger. I wanted to get authentic artists and performers, musicians who were born with that music in them. And I wanted to mix it up a little as well, have a real broad spectrum on the album, Neapolitan songs, French songs, some Django Reinhardt maybe. But again, EMI said no to a lot of the things I wanted to do. They said no to street musicians, they said we needed big strings, that I was a classical artist, and they brought in a 60-piece orchestra. Which is great if that’s what you’re going for, but it wasn’t the point of that album. I wanted an accordion on there, I thought that would be something at least. ‘You don’t have an accordion in Italian folk music,’ they said. They weren’t having it. They just seemed so narrow-minded. We ended up with an arranger who was useless, a conductor who was more useless. It was absolutely embarrassing – I was appalled. That arranger couldn’t arrange a table-setting. He got himself so worked up that I didn’t like the first run-through – he’d added timps and cymbals and percussion on snare drum from a keyboard, and he was playing it with his fingers. There was a cymbal every five seconds. I stripped it down and wrote paragraph after paragraph for them about every single song. And to be fair they did what I said, but it was far from perfect.

  I was so pissed off and depressed about the whole project – we drove in to the studio one day and I nearly punched a car park attendant, because he was having a go at Neil. He’d only told him that he couldn’t park in a certain spot, but he was a snotty jobsworth and I was so upset about everything, I was just on the edge all the time. The album wasn’t what I wanted it to be, but I love that music, it’s so strong and the songs win through. I’m going to do those songs properly one day. I’ve got a nice little group of musicians together at the moment, my own little rhythm section, I want to use them. I’d still like to pull in some street musicians as well, certainly get an authentic accordion player for a few tracks, and I want to put a beat to it all. There’s a guy called Raul Malo who was on Terry Wogan’s Radio 2 show with me a couple of years ago. He sang ‘O Sole Mio’ with his band and it had a real Cajun swing feel to it, it was great. I really want to do it. One day.

  One fantastic part of that experience was our trip to Ravello, on the Amalfi coast, where Neil and I went to do some promotional material for the album, a photo shoot and a video. We got a hotel deal through Raymond Blanc, who’s an old friend of Neil’s and has connections with Orient-Express hotels. I sang ‘Caruso’ on the album, so off we went to the Hotel Caruso, stunning marble floors and pillars, heart-stopping view of the coast. There’s a lot of Neapolitan music written about that area, like ‘Torna a Surriento’ – Sorrento’s down the coast from Ravello. And Ravello’s really beautiful. We went to this amazing, amazing place, the best place on Earth as far as I’m concerned, certainly for food. Mamma Agata’s Hidden Treasure. Mamma Agata is a little Italian woman whose love for food matches her love for people. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s a self-sufficient school for teaching Italian cooking, just the best home-cooked Italian food, and I can’t recommend it enough. All the produce is picked from the side of their mountain. Gennaro, Mamma Agata’s son-in-law, farms the land, picks all the produce, gets the tomatoes, rears the chickens, makes his own wine that knocks your socks off. And the limoncello . . . my word, they make the most amazing limoncello.

  In five minutes she taught me how to cook a proper pasta puttanesca. Pasta, capers, olives, tomatoes, garlic, basil, in a pan, throw it in. Stunning food. I was filmed in the kitchen chopping up tomatoes, crushing garlic, talking to her at the same time; she was chatting to me in Italian. Her daughter Chiara was there too – she runs the farmhouse, another diamond, a real sweetheart – they’re truly beautiful people. They asked me to sing while we were all cooking, so I did ‘A Vucchella’, and Mamma Agata joined in with me, it was fantastic. We were cooking pasta, eating lemon chicken, sponge cake, drinking limoncello . . . red wine was swimming around my head and I was getting fat and I was thinking, ‘I love this life.’ I didn’t want to leave. In their classes they cook during the day, then in the evening they have a big banquet on their balcony, overlooking the Mediterranean. It’s just stunning. They send me Christmas baskets every year, Italian nougat, biscuits and cookies. They play my CDs now during their classes, and there’s a photo of me in her cookbook – I’m really chuffed. That place is a piece of Heaven on earth. It really is a hidden treasure.

  We had a great photographer there for the promo stuff, Ray Burmiston – he used to be in a punk rock band called Passion Puppets. There was one shot I really wanted to get, standing on the edge of this infinity pool. He was a little concerned, he said, ‘Well we’ll have to be really careful about that.’ I took my shoes off and stood there on this tiny ledge, looking into the camera. Behind me was a six inch net running along the side, the rest of it was a 1000ft drop. I can’t say I wasn’t nervous as hell. But I wanted it, and it’s on the back of the album. That infinity view was stunning. Incredible hotel. Neil and I had adjoining rooms, with balconies overlooking the sea. One particularly stunning afternoon I was in my room and I heard an accordion. I went out to the balcony and Neil was out on his one too, soaking up the view. Our eyes met. A very romantic moment for us I must say. I looked down and on the street there were a couple of guys with accordions playing one of the songs from my album, just as I’d said in the studio. I said, ‘Neil, Neil, look! See?! A squeezebox!’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  BOY NEEDS A SONG

  Oh, Kismet. The K word. That’s what us poor unfortunate souls, the ones who were involved in that horror show, refer to it as sometimes because we can barely bring ourselves to utter the word. Look up kismet in the dictionary and it says fate, or destiny. Look up Kismet in my mind and you’ll see me crumpled in a heap in a corner, possibly sobbing, or screaming.

  I went straight into it from our Ravello paradise. Went to bed in Heaven and woke up in Hell. A horrendous ENO production at The Coliseum, a kooky romance set in Arabian Nights-era Baghdad, and probably the worst gig I’ve ever worked on. The director, Gary Griffin, came from Broadway, he’d done The Color Purple. And the Broadway way of working, similar to the West End’s, is that they have everybody on call at the rehearsal, and when you’re not needed you’ll just sit around and twiddle your thumbs until you’re summoned. Unfortunately that doesn’t go down too well in the opera world – they’re not used to it, I wasn’t used to it. We were turning up to rehearsals at 10am and doing nothing till 4pm. Then getting used for 10 minutes and finishing. Or being used for 10 minutes, then being told that you’ll be needed again later in the afternoon, and you’d wait, and nothing. That’s OK in itself, a big part of rehearsing is the waiting, but not all day every day. It was happening all the time, and as we started getting close to opening night we realised that so much hadn’t been done, hadn’t been plotted, hadn’t been rehearsed – we hadn’t had full run-throughs. There were cast on the stage not knowing where they were supposed to be or what they were supposed to be doing, it was scary.

  Gary Griffin fell out with the choreographer, Javier De Frutos, because he stood at the front of the stage at the men’s chorus and blocked all these dance routines that Javier had set up. The poor dancers were dancing their socks off and were obscured. A lot of petty, childish nonsense kicked off between those two, it was pretty odd to watch unfold. And Javier walked out, just before we were about to open, we had to cancel a dress rehearsal. A press release went out citing good old “creative differences”. You always know that means two people were about to kill each other. And someone was brought in at the last minute to finish off the work with the dance sequences. It was getting absolutely ridiculous. Even at the dress rehearsal we eventually had, major things were being changed. One of them for the better. I was supposed to walk on stage – I did at the dress rehearsal – wielding a Kalashnikov rifle, surrounded by loads of corpses on the floor. It was so misjudged, because it’s a pretty whimsical period romance, but this was 2008 – Baghdad was practically
being destroyed, and I think having me come out with an AK-47, surrounded by death, was Gary Griffin’s nod to what was going on. I felt absolutely ridiculous – it was an awful political statement, if you can call it that, in a stupid show. That scene was dropped, mercifully. But other things were also being changed all over the place, and I finally said to him, ‘Back off. You’re not changing anything. I’m doing exactly what I’m doing now; you’re not doing anything else with this.’ I lost my rag with him. We were all so frustrated.

  The design was bonkers, it was the worst thing ENO have ever done, and everybody knew it. We attempted to salvage it but it was a lost cause. The newspapers slated it, justifiably. A few of them noted that it was abominable timing, us putting on a magical Baghdad musical while the city was in turmoil, and that was after my Kalashnikov scene was dropped. It didn’t help that Tony Blair left Downing Street the day of our first show. The Guardian wrote, ‘Given Blair’s partial responsibility for the Iraq débâcle, the incongruity between artistic statement and contemporary fact was inescapable. When we were told that ‘Baghdad is the symbol of happiness on earth’, it was impossible not to wince.’ Well, yes. The Evening Standard said audience members were legging it during the interval, calling it ‘torture’, which may or may not have happened but I wouldn’t have blamed them. Michael Ball, who played the lead, ripped into the show in the Standard actually, practically as soon as the run was over – he could barely contain himself. He told them it was shockingly awful, ‘a cross between “Springtime for Hitler” and Carry On Camel,’ which is an accurate assessment. He’s a good guy, Michael, a real showman. We’re a bit chalk and cheese, but he has a great heart and we’re good mates. I sang with him on his BBC Proms show a few weeks after Kismet. He got a bit of flak from opera people for coming into that, what with him being a musical theatre person invading their world. As if Kismet’s the holy of holies. He got some of the best reviews for that show though, people liked him. And I have to say I never got any grief going into musical theatre, when I did Les Misérables, they welcomed me, they were excited about someone bringing something new to it. I just got grief from the opera lot for doing it. In fact it was Michael who recommended me to Cameron Mackintosh for Valjean, and I’m so grateful for that.