Curtis Stigers and Phill Jupitus talk music and fun ahead of their appearances at this month’s Henley Festival
Curtis Stigers is an American jazz singer, songwriter and saxophonist. He’ll be performing the 1966 live album Sinatra at the Sands with Ronnie Scott’s Big Band.
- Q) Do you enjoy performing live?
I love it. Making records is great, but I love playing live. That’s what I consider to be my art, my job. It’s heaven.
- Q) Why Frank Sinatra?
He was really a great, great jazz musician as well as a great pop singer. He never wrote a song, but we think of those songs as Sinatra songs. He’d take something by Cole Porter, immerse himself in that story and make it about him and his life.
- Q) Do your songs tell a story?
Yes, but the meaning changes! Over the years, I Wonder Why has changed for me two or three times. I’ve been through several difficult relationships and each time, as I sing that song, I think: ‘Oh God! This old song is working again. How did that happen?’ I also love how, if you change the way you sing one line of a song, it can mean something totally different. Songs are great that way – little movies, short stories.
- Q) You clearly have an eclectic musical taste. What three pieces couldn’t you live without?
That’s hard! I’m going to cheat and give you albums. First, an Elvis Costello album, My Aim is True. It was produced by my friend Nick Lowe and has so many amazing songs. Next I’ll opt for Joni Mitchell’s Hejira – I always go back to that, I don’t know why. And then Ray Charles, his album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. Ray had just finished inventing soul music, combining gospel with the blues and jazz, and then he decided to do a whole album of just modern country songs. The combination of all those types of music is amazing. So there, I cheated.
- Q) Are English audiences different from those in the US?
English crowds vary wildly from Hastings to Newcastle. Generally I have found that, the further north you go, the madder the audience gets. Then again, I have played some pretty crazy gigs in Brighton!
Curtis will perform on July 14 at 8.45pm – henley-festival.co.uk
Phill Jupitus is the TV comedian, performance poet and stand-up best known for his appearances on Never Mind the Buzzcocks. He’ll be performing his one-man show, ‘Juplicity’, at Henley.
- Q) There’s a stereotype of comedians as rather serious and introspective. Do you think that’s true?
I’ll tell you why people think that. There’s a certain amount of social energy you have to give, and if you’re giving it to an audience at an amplified level, that’s tiring. So when people come up to comedians and they aren’t all chirpy, they think: ‘Well, he’s miserable.’ But they’re comparing him to what he’s like when he’s in a fake emotional state! If I tried to stay in the headspace that I’m in on stage, I’d have died 20 years ago. I’m actually a fairly quiet bloke and always have been.
- Q) Do you ever feel hesitant before making jokes about your personal life?
I love stuff that comes from real experience. It’s only taken me 30 years to work out that perhaps I’m not really a stand-up, but a storyteller. When I did that thing on Live at the Apollo [Phill performed a sketch about his 16-year-old daughter having a sleepover with her boyfriend], I had people come up to say that I shouldn’t have done it. But by the same token, I’ve had parents thank me for that routine because it broke the ice.
Jokes are very powerful; humour is powerful. It can help to dissipate tension.
- Q) Do you ever feel limited by our social preoccupation with offence avoidance?
No, not really. I’m talking about stuff that’s personal to me and it’s my business how I talk about it.
- Q) Who makes you laugh the most in your private life?
It’s actually my brother-in-law. He’s a builder and quite often he just starts telling the stories. I have no connection with the world he lives in, but he just has that gift.
- Q) So, apart from simply being funny, what makes a good comedian?
I’ve always maintained that there’s a level of social dysfunction in comedians. After all, for many people the biggest fear is speaking in public. Factor in having to make strangers laugh and you’ve ramped it up even more. If you thought too hard about it, you’d never go on!
For me, there’s nothing to prove any more; I know that I can do it. Actually, it got to the stage about 15 years ago when I started perversely enjoying bad gigs. I knew I was good, so I’d try to work out why the audience weren’t into it. By making a joke of it, I’d often turn the gig round.
Phill will perform on July 12 at 7.15pm – henley-festival.co.uk
Henley Festival (July 11-15) celebrates the best of UK and international music and arts. Full info and booking: henley-festival.co.uk
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