Born in Hertfordshire in 1962, Tracey Thorn is one half of Everything But the Girl. She formed the band in Hull with her now husband, Ben Watt, and they released their debut album, Eden, in 1984; they have been on a hiatus since 1999. In 2013, she published her memoir, Bedsit Disco Queen: How I Grew Up and Tried to Be a Pop Star, followed in 2015 by Naked at the Albert Hall. Her fifth solo album, Record, is released on Caroline International on 2 March.
1. Nonfiction
Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-1979, by Tim Lawrence
Ben bought me this for Christmas; it’s a fantastic history of the birth of disco. It tells stories of David Mancuso’s original “Love Saves the Day” Valentine’s party, contrasting the downtown party scene with the huge success of a midtown club like Studio 54. The story is interspersed with setlists – who played what, where and when – so you can dream about which party you’d most like to have been at. Dancing to Soul Makossa and Astral Weeks at the Loft? Or Love Is the Message at Gallery? Or Shame and You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) at Paradise Garage? All sounds good to me.
2. Art
Andreas Gursky, Hayward Gallery, London
This exhibition covers 40 years of Gursky’s photography. Many of them are monumental works, impressive due to their sheer size, in which the human figures seem both limitless in number and tiny in scale – the traders at the Tokyo Stock Exchange; a vast crowd of ravers; an apartment block with every little window giving a glimpse of an individual life. I loved the early works, which showed figures in a natural landscape. You can’t quite work out how he takes these shots, which are digitally manipulated, blurring the distinction between fiction and reality.
3. Theatre
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Apollo theatre, London
This was our Christmas family outing and it was a smash hit with everyone. On the surface, it’s a feelgood, reach-for-your-dreams story, about a schoolboy who wants to become a drag queen. But it doesn’t shy away from the gritty realities, with a macho, homophobic school bully, a feckless husband and rejecting father, and Jamie getting beaten up outside a pub. The songs, by Dan Gillespie Sells of the Feeling, are full of hooks and brilliantly sung, especially by the two leads – John McCrea as Jamie, and Lucie Shorthouse as his schoolfriend and confidante Pritti.
4. Fiction
I read it almost in one gulp, unable to put it down, despite being chilled and horrified by it. It’s a dark tale of a murderous nanny who insinuates herself too deeply into the lives of a family, but is very good on the dynamics of class and race and power and the pressures placed on mothers and those who stand in for them. It’s also a forensic portrait of a disturbed individual. I couldn’t have read it when my kids were smaller.
5. Music
A chance posting from a friend on Facebook about a track he was listening to set me off back to Gladys Knight the other day. I made a playlist for one of my walks and reminded myself of the great records she’s made, listening to Bourgie Bourgie and No One Could Love You More. She was a familiar voice of my early teens, with big hits like Midnight Train to Georgia, often on telly in a sumptuous gown, with the Pips doing their synchronised shuffle behind her.
6. TV
Set in late 50s New York, an Upper East Side perfect housewife turns out to be a natural standup comic, a storyline that had me hooked from the start. The music is Frank Sinatra and Blossom Dearie and the styling is gorgeous, from her fabulous apartment to the clothes – tiny capri pants, form-fitting dresses and Dior swinging coats. The show, on Amazon Prime, effortlessly combines a love of lipstick with a love of Lenny Bruce, bundling you into a cab where you hurtle from the Upper East Side to Greenwich Village and back again. Sheer joy.
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