Elkie Brooks still in love with being a singer

By Sam Wonfor, The Journal

Elkie Brooks has been blazing a tuneful trail for 50 years. SAM WONFOR talks to her ahead of a date with Tyneside.

ELKIE Brooks has a message for those in charge of the thermostat at The Sage Gateshead.

“Can you make sure the air-con is well and truly on please,” says the singer, whose upcoming performance at the venue makes up part of her half-century-in-the-business celebrations.

“It was like performing in a jungle last time,” she adds with a laugh. “Lovely venue mind you.”

Elkie, who is probably still most synonymous with her classic 70s hit Pearl’s A Singer, has been a regular visitor to the region’s venues in recent years.

“And we always have a fantastic time. The audience up there have no inhibitions when it comes to showing their feelings about the music. They let you know.”

Asked whether she can believe that it’s her 50th anniversary doing what she does, the 64-year-old is resolute in her reply. “Oh absolutely, of course I can... because I’ve done it.

“I left home when I was 15, in 1960... and I’ve more or less been on the road ever since.”

It was a talent contest in Manchester, founded by music impresario (and Sharon Osbourne’s dad) Don Arden, which prompted the adolescent Elkie to hit the touring trail.

It was followed by a move to London from her North West roots a few years later, and then her first single release, Something’s Got A Hold Of Me in 1964.

“I’ve had very little time off since,” says the mother-of-two grown up sons, who went on to enjoy spells in rock fusion band, Dada and spin off, Vinegar Joe – both alongside Robert Palmer–- in the late 60s and early seventies before her solo career took her to record-breaking success.

Fast forward to 2010, and she’s poised to release album number 20 on March 3.

Strangely though, for an artist on the promotional trail, Elkie, who is speaking from a  Marriot  Hotel in Leicester, is reluctant to reveal too much about its contents... she’s playing its tracklist very close to her chest.

“I’m not giving too much away,” she says firmly, while letting slip that the album is made up of a mixed bag of cover versions and new material, and is the third album which she has produced with her eldest son, Jay.

“I can honestly say it’s the best album I’ve done... and I have done a lot. Even the songs by other people sound like ours.

“There’s one song we found out had been recorded 43 times before.”

Well, surely there can’t be any harm in telling me that one.

“You’ll have to wait until the album comes out and see if you can tell which one it is,” she says, sticking to her tuneful guns.

Leaving the album to one side, I tell Elkie the first thing that struck me when I saw the ‘celebrating 50 years in the business’ tag on her tour date, was that it must be a mistake... primarily because she simply doesn’t look old enough to have notched up five decades doing anything... especially touring the world.

“Touring has been quite gruelling over the years. But for the past five years, I have been touring the way I want to... spreading the dates throughout the year, instead of doing 70 dates back to back.

“It means I can spend more time at home (in north Devon) with my family, and also keep up with my passion for aikido.”

I ask the obvious question.

“It’s a devastating art of self defence, which I’ve been doing it since 1988,” she answers.

“I have been training ever since, and I’m just getting my head around it. There are so many subtleties in the technique. I do exercises and warm ups every morning and the go to classes twice a week.

“I’ve got a pretty good fitness level for my age.”

By the sounds of it, she also has a pretty good fitness level for my age.

But her penchant for martial arts (as well as further sporty dalliances with jet skiing, rollerskating, hand gliding and paragliding) isn’t the reason she’s still up there and rocking while many of her contemporaries are putting their working lives into a box marked, ‘retired’.

“I’ve never given up, although there have been times when I’ve really hated it,” she admits, citing the many evenings spent in ‘Phoenix Nights-style’ clubs, singing songs she wasn’t keen on with bands who couldn’t play them.

“It’s a hard business and yes, there are moments in my career when I thought about doing something else. I had a thought in my mind about going back to school and training to become a teacher. I was always good at PE and domestic science.”

But Elkie – along with her fans, one can safely assume – is more than happy she made music her lifelong career. And she’s enjoying it now, more than ever.

“I get more of a buzz now, I think,” she says.

“I’m quite happy in my little studio upstairs at home, singing away as I am performing in front of thousands of people. If you can look at it like that, you will always have a good time.”