Earning a
living playing music is difficult enough. However, Carmel,
you and the group, always seemed to take the most difficult path available. How
deliberate was that?
RealAudio
Out of all the barriers you knocked down, which is the one that satisfied
you most?
RealAudio
Isn't the music business the last place in the world you would expect
to be segregated?
RealAudio
But music created by black musicians is part of all our childhood backgrounds......
RealAudio
The prejudice
gets tiresome no matter where it comes from. However,
do you think things have changed in a generation, the time that has passed
since you started singing publicly?
RealAudio
Some of the
most successful music over the centuries has occurred when one genre
cross-pollinates with another. Surely
this applies to you?
RealAudio
You were referring
to the Anglo-American music axis, but you drew so much from Africa
and pulled so many people in from there. That
was very inspired at the time....
RealAudio
In Africa,
music is an integral part of the social milieu, not put on an isolated
pedestal as happens with commercial music here. Is
that something you drew on also?
RealAudio
Do you dislike being placed apart as a performer, or do you like the
drama of it?
RealAudio
You're one
of the most comfortable people on stage that I've ever seen. Did
that come naturally, or was it something that you had to learn?
RealAudio
You've always
had an honesty and directness emanating from the stage, so people are
more likely to go with you rather than criticize English culture will
often find fault rather than strength in a public figure. Did
you feel that?
RealAudio
You've been
teaching a lot recently, and so you are coming face to face with amateurs.
You must have had the piano-in-the-front-room culture growing up in
the musical north. The enthusiastic amateur seems
to have faded in the face of the professional on TV. Do you think
that accentuates the journalists' alienation?
RealAudio
This becomes an aural culture, not something to be learned out of books.
What was the turning point when you decided to become a singer?
RealAudio
Well you haven't fulfilled that, since you're still at it......
RealAudio
Your early
recording experiences showed that, at the time, it was certainly not
your favorite environment. The difference in technique between
an opera singer projecting acoustically to the back stalls and a singer
working a microphone is vastly different. When did you click into
that?
RealAudio
At the time,
I presumed that since you had chosen such a difficult
musical route that you had to fight to get every inch of the way. You
didn't seem to pick and choose who to battle, going toe to toe with everyone
you encountered.......
RealAudio
But don't you think there was some truth in what Roger Ames said, about
the process and what had to be done?
RealAudio
It seems to
me that a lot of expertise in record-making is being lost. But
there always has to be a delicate balance between learning from others'
experience and finding out for yourself. But now there doesn't
seem to be that lineage available now, the opportunity for apprenticeship
and learning a craft thoroughly.
RealAudio
Recording a good vocal, putting a singer in a comfortable environment,
is not something everybody gets, is it?
RealAudio
It's sounds as if you think that modern digital recording techniques
are hampering free vocal expression....
RealAudio
It can be a form of insecurity, not for you but for some singers
who have to be absolutely in tune before they think they are delivering,
unable to fully trust their instincts......
RealAudio
As if there is a difference between singing properly and being human......
RealAudio
Where are you going next?
RealAudio
Even in this contemporary electronic fog, it still comes back to people
just hitting things and opening their mouths, doesn't it?
RealAudio
Carmel at
the Stereo Society:
To
Carmel's home at the Stereo Society
To
Carmel McCourt in interview
To
audio excerpts from Carmel's interview
To
the making of Bad Day
To
the making of The Drum Is Everything
To
the making of It's All In The Game
Carmel
collaborators at
the Stereo Society:
To
the Uptown Horns' home at the Stereo Society
To
Johnny Folarin's home at the Stereo Society
Download printable cover art of four Carmel record covers from our Downloads page
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