- A feature from the February 2016 issue of Suffolk Norfolk Life magazine
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Stephanie Mackentyre meets singer, actress and television personality Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, OBE
With the sad passing of David Bowie I began by asking Lulu of her first impressions of the man and the artiste she worked with and had a brief affair with too. “Well I had the album Hunky Dory and I thought he was the coolest dude on the block. I just thought he was a kind of a genius. When we met, he was very, very friendly. Sometimes he speaks with a common voice and sometimes with quite a clipped one, but he was always very warm. When you were around him he didn’t seem like a reclusive weirdo, that’s for sure.”
Lulu comes to the Apex in Bury, with two nights, one of which at the time of writing had already sold out. The 31-date tour is to promote her first self-penned album Making Life Rhyme.
“Last year I did an album self-penned with my brother Lee and also some other talented writers. My band tried to talk me into doing some blues as an album, as we’d played at BB King’s Blues Club in New York. So we did a blues album and then Lee and I threw in a couple of our own songs. When the record company heard the new album, they said they preferred our stuff. That also combined with getting the best reviews of my whole life. So we were asked to produce a whole album of songs by Lee and me. We did it quickly and with a very small budget. Once the album was finished it meant going out on tour. That was last year, and it was so successful that we were asked to do it all again but with even more dates for this year. I love it, and people ask me why at my age I do it. Well I do it because I can. The musicians are great, and the show is all about the music and the songs and the musicianship and the vocals. Let me tell you, it’s a great place to be at right now.”
I asked Lulu if after the unprecedented success of this, her first foray into song-writing, there’d be another follow-up album.
“Maybe, anything is possible. My brother and I are writing still but we’ll see – it’s just a great time. You know, I’m ancient, but my voice still works and you can sell tickets so it’s an amazing time really. I think about David and Alan (Rickman) passing on, and it makes me think even more about the way I live my life. I have a very spiritual programme. Each day I get down on my knees and say please God let me do your will because if it’s up to me I’ll make a mess of it. Then at night I get back onto my knees and thank God for another day.”