In July 2004, Martina Clarke of Radio Dublin South FM interviewed Barbara at length about her career, the new "Full Circle" album and her plans for the future.
Martina: Barbara, welcome to Dublin. I know it's a flying visit but thank you so much for doing this interview.
Barbara: Thanks very much, Martina. It's very nice to talk to you.
Martina: "Full Circle" is your first major studio album for nine years. Can you tell me a bit about it?
Barbara: Well, it's a big mixture of different sorts of songs. It's actually quite a... somebody said an eclectic mix". There's a lot of folk music on it which obviously you know I have a big connection with from a long time ago, and there are two classical songs and two songs from the 20th century which were sort of written about the 1960s. So it's a great big mixture of stuff. I've got a man called Troy Donockley to produce it and Troy is a musician I would say... to describe him, he's a celtic classical composer. It's slightly in the Michael Sullivan sort of mode. So he does classical music of his own which he composes, but with celtic instruments, with a celtic flavour, so it's really fantastically interesting for me. Really quite a departure.
Martina: How do you choose material for a new album?
Barbara: The material was chosen by me, so what I did was I was making an album that I wanted to make at this point in my life. And I think very often it's not that difficult for an artist to choose songs that he or she feels that now they'd like to record. They're either songs in a box that you feel you'd wanted to do years ago and never got the chance, or they could be songs that you've just heard or somebody's introduced you to. It's not difficult if you're interested in music to put together an album.
If I was to put a Beyonce album together I couldn't possibly do that because I don't know that kind of market, but I know what I like and I know the songs I like and I know what I can sing well. So most of them came from my own collection of songs that I've never recorded before.
Martina: Do you still enjoy singing your hits like "January February", "Caravans", "Another Suitcase..."?
Barbara: Well, I don't sing "January February" anymore because I find that it is impossible to really sit that into what I do these days. "Caravans" and "Another Suitcase" are absolutely fine - they work fine and there are other songs from my past life which I could do from when I was a pop artist. There are songs which would work. But not all of them do work in the context of fitting in with a programme of songs like "September Song", "Buddy Can You Spare A Dime" and stuff like that which I did in "7 Ages of Woman". They are the kind of songs which I tend to sing and so "January February" would just be like a spare part in there. But other things are fine, yes.
Martina: You recorded the album "Don't Think Twice..." which was a collection of Bob Dylan songs. Is there any other artist you'd like to record an entire album of?
Barbara: Well if I was, off the top of my head I'd say Randy Newman because I'm very fond of his songs, because to me they kind of bridge a gap between contemporary folk writers from when I was emerging, and film. I like the seriousness of his topics. I also like Tom Waits very much. There's a lot of writers... I love Paul Simon. That kind of writer would appeal to me because there's huge breadth in their material and lots of different sorts of songs.
Martina: You played Anita Braithwaite in "Band Of Gold" and that's just about to be released on DVD. Which do you prefer now - is it straight acting or musical theatre?
Barbara: I don't tend to do much Musical Theatre now because I find it quite arduous and tiring and committing. So I tend to like to do small bursts of it but not for very long. So I would say that
I wouldn't naturally connect with Musical Theatre, although I have had great success in it. I would say that my favourite pastime is concerts, working live with good material in front of a live audience, that's my favourite thing.
Television acting is something that I really enjoy but I don't do very much of it for the simple reason that the stuff I'm invited to do doesn't really appeal to me. "Band Of Gold" was something that I really did enjoy doing and obviously I'd like to do more television work but the stuff I get offered tends to be more soap opera and I'm really not very interested in that. It's a job but I'm not that desperate to work, you know? I really don't want to do that.
However, having said that there are obviously series on television that I wouldn't mind appearing in. But I'd really rather do a one-off or be in a low-budget film or something than do big stuff on television. Drama - I don't know - some of it's not very good, I don't think.
Martina: Speaking of Musical Theatre, you did return to "Blood Brothers" in Liverpool for two weeks, which was a short run obviously. What was it like playing Mrs. Johnstone again?
Barbara: Well, I'd been there two years ago because I went to do it in 2001 at Christmas and that was for four weeks. The thing was I think Bill Kenwright, who's had the show since the 1980s, I think he said 'Right, what can I do to make this Liverpool run of five weeks or something more of an event, more special than it is?' So he asked me to come and take part in it and I found out from everybody in Liverpool that it's a combination of Willy Russell and me and "Blood Brothers" in Liverpool that makes it very special.
The population of Liverpool came out in absolute thousands to see it. And it's alright to play - I don't know if you're aware of Mrs. Johnstone's character but she ages in the part so it's perfectly alright to play Mrs. Johnstone aged 25 on stage at the beginning of the show and age her so that in fact, obviously, I'm much more more like Mrs. Johnstone in the second act these days. But that's perfectly acceptable. It's not like I could be miscast in the part now because I'm too old to play it.
It's been amazingly moving for me to go back and sing "Easy Terms" and "Tell Me It's Not True" again and work with all these different, very good actors playing the children.
