The George De Angelis Interview
Following stints as a musician in Stock, Aitken & Waterman's and Trevor Horn’s in-house teams, the Athens-born producer was headhunted by EMI to produce Kim’s first solo album, and bring the songs she wrote with Mel to completion. The result was the strong and magical, award winning album Kim Appleby. An album which not only honored Mel's memory, but also presented Kim to the world as a solo artist in her own right.
Here, George reminisces about the project and explains why he rates producing Kim's album as one of the ‘highlights’ of his career
George, your name is synonymous with the brilliant Kim Appleby album, but, prior to branching out as a producer, you were part of the in-house team of musicians at PWL, weren't you?
Yeah. I started my career as a touring and session musician... and I had just come off touring with Nina Hagen, in 1988, when I was booked by Stock, Aitken & Waterman to play keyboards on a track for Kylie Minogue’s first album - I think it was either Locomotion, or Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi... anyway, I ended up playing on the rest of that album, and then Pete Waterman asked if I would like to join their in-house team of musicians. I said yes, and I played on many of their big hits.
How was it to work with Stock, Aitken & Waterman at, what was, such a successful time for them?
Oh, I enjoyed it a lot and I had a great time. It really was a bit of a ‘hit factory’. In fact, I’d describe it almost like a conveyor belt (laughs). Full on (laughs)! I picked up a lot of the tricks of the trade from working with those guys.
And then you moved on and continued your success with EMI, before branching out on your own...
Yeah. I stayed at PWL for a couple of years, but left in 1990 to join Trevor Horn’s in-house team, at EMI. Me leaving PWL and the guys (Stock, Aitken & Waterman) was a little... badly received, so, unfortunately, I didn’t leave on fantastically good terms and I never kept in contact - although I would very much have liked to do so. Anyway, I joined Trevor, and I was working with artists such as Rod Stewart and Pet Shop Boys, and then I left that team to become a producer of my own and I created my own production company - though I did actually re-join Trevor's team for a second stint, a few years later. My career has been a bit like a ping pong ball (laughs)!
Your career has been as musically varied as it has been successful, and you have produced some amazing work over the years. Looking back, what are your career highlights?
Oh, that's a difficult one, because I really enjoyed everything I did and I did everything as if it was the last thing I was gonna do, do you know what I mean? Over the years, I have produced so many different genres of music: from heavy metal and punk to pop and dance, and it has been a pretty crazy career, but I enjoyed everything and I love music, regardless of its style. Working with Kim was definitely a highlight for me though. I have very fond memories of making that record, and it was one of the first records that I did for myself as a producer.
Wow! What a great start. Do you recall who approached you about working on the Kim Appleby album project, and had you met Kim, or Mel previously?
At that time, I hadn't met either Mel or Kim, and sadly I never met Mel. They had left Supreme Records and had signed to EMI, with Clive Black A&Ring. I had worked with Clive on lots of things in the past, and he wanted me to work on what was gonna be the 'new Mel & Kim album'. I guess Clive’s plan was to continue the PWL sound with the girls, and he thought that I knew the tricks or whatever (laughs). But I believed that Mel and Kim, as artists, would be looking onto new horizons and new sounds, rather than rehashing old stuff, and I didn't want to get caught up in a situation!
So, you originally turned the project down?
Yeah! I believed that, if the girls had left Supreme, it would probably have been because they wanted to do new things. I was still with Trevor's team at the time, but Clive kept mentioning it and asking me to make the record. Then, finally, he offered me the opportunity to produce the album and move my career forward, as a producer, rather than continuing as part of an in-house team. By that time, Mel had, unfortunately, passed away, so the offer was to produce a solo album for Kim. I took the opportunity and left Trevor’s team to start my own career as a producer - and Kim’s record was the first I produced. Hence why doing the record with Kim has lots of fond memories for me. I enjoyed it immensely and loved working with Kim. It was great!
Where did you and Kim first meet?
You know, I’ve got this vision of being in her house... Clive put us together... and Kim and I really hit it off artistically, and as humans, almost immediately. Kim is such a lovely person, and I remember thinking to myself, ‘hey, this sounds like it is gonna be great fun’! We got together and chatted about our musical inspirations - what we liked and what we didn't like - and we found we had many shared musical tastes. I liked Kim immediately. She was excellent because... how can I put it? First of all, Kim is a very warm person. I mean, you see that in her interviews and stuff like that. As a person, she was very genuine. She was very warm, and she’s said it as it is! I remember thinking she had an amazing aura, she was gorgeous and she had a really nice voice.
Prior to you guys meeting, Mel & Kim had already written many of the songs for the album. Who decided which of the songs were selected?
Primarily, the decision was Kim’s as to what songs we used, but we all put our say in there, you know? It was a collaboration. We took our time and worked the process together. Kim played us a bunch of songs, and we all said, 'oh that’s a good one' and 'that’s a good one', and we didn’t go into the Metropolis studio until we had a good lot of the main plot designed in pre-production and it was already sounding like a cohesive album.
So the demos Kim presented to you were pretty complete?
One or two of the songs were completely finished [in demo form], though many were unfinished. They varied from almost there to just the beginnings of ideas... and so we worked together on them. I know that a lot of the songs were co-written with Mel, but I am not quite sure how advanced their demos together were. Craig [Logan] had been involved in some of the song writing with the girls, and he had helped Kim to record some of the demos, so I kind of worked with what was presented to me at the time. Although the final album has ten tracks, I actually remember that we started pre-production on twelve or thirteen of Kim’s demos, or at least touched on them, you know?
Did you ever consider using some of the demo vocal recordings Kim had made with Mel on any of the album tracks?
You mean producing the tracks using Mel’s pre-recorded vocals as well? To be honest, that choice would have been completely with Kim. It was such a sensitive area and I wouldn’t have been involved in a decision like that, I wouldn’t have gone there... but I’m sure if Kim wanted to do something like that, she would have told me. We worked really closely together and, hopefully, she knew that I respected her a lot, and would have bent over backwards to try and bring out what she wanted.
You mentioned that many of the musical plots were created in pre-production, before you went in to the studio. Did you approach the recording of the album track by track?
No. We were actually working on the whole album at the same time, so although we had a plan, we didn’t walk into the studio everyday knowing which song we were gonna pull up. It depended on when we felt inspired and if we had gotten stuck on a particular track. Let’s say we were working on Mama and we were feeling a bit stuck. I would say, 'OK, take ‘Mama’ down, let’s put 'Hey You' up', or whatever, you know? Or Kim would come in and say she would like to try something. Obviously, it’s not as loose a process as it sounds, as we had spent about three months in pre-production, plotting the songs, but that is the great thing of working on a whole album simultaneously. There is a lot to work on, so you are not stuck there, kind of, becoming constipated by the effort to do whatever it takes to finish off just one track. It was a creative process and the album came together very naturally.
During the album production, was there a moment where you realised how successful the album was going to be?
It’s difficult to say. I knew that we were making a good record and I knew we were making the record around Kim, which is always important to me. My pride and joy with all the artists I worked with was that I didn’t try to fit the artist into the record that I wanted to make. I made the record around the artist, if you know what I mean? I love trying to discover what they love and discovering their strengths. In those days, making records was very different. Nowadays, it is almost like people are afraid to have character in music. I guess that is why I am not as active in music at the moment. I have, kind of, taken a retirement, because I stopped enjoying it. To me, music is a very communal thing. It’s best when musicians interact with other musicians, and there is a bunch of people in the studio creating something together. Nowadays, it seems to be a guy and a computer battling it out (laughs). I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with that process, I have done that plenty of times myself, but I don’t enjoy that way of producing. These days I still get involved in record making, but not so full on like I used to be.
Do you recall the last time you listened to the Kim Appleby album?
I actually listened back to the whole album [before this interview], just to refresh my memory, and it brought back so many memories. I really loved working on that album. I remember with Don’t Worry - even quite late into production - we didn’t have an intro [or an idea of] how we were gonna start the song. I mean, how do you start a song like that? Anyway, I remember we were in my studio and I starting playing the keyboard very slow, and I said to Kim, ‘imagine you are Julie Andrews on the hills, singing “the hills are alive” (laughs). 'Try to sing it in that way’ (laughs). We really had great fun with it!
(Laughs) Kim as Julie Andrews? That is an amazing image!
(Laughs) yeah, it was great! We were laughing a lot. I also remember the little piano solo towards the end of Don’t Worry came from just fooling around and jamming together in the studio. Kim’s daughter Sharna was there at the time and I was clowning around and playing the piano on top of the track, and Pete Schweir, who co-produced the album with me, happened to record it, so we kept it in. Don’t forget, that this was a time where we didn’t have auto-tune or any of that crap, you know? The only way to get a fantastic vocal out of your singer, as a producer, is to inspire them and to work with them to bring the song to a place where they rule over it. Where they are the sunshine of the song. Listening to the album after all these years really brought back so many memories.
It sounds like the recording of the album was a very organic process?
Yeah, absolutely! We often just sat jamming around whilst listening to music and experimenting, and a lot of it actually came out of just trying things in the studio. I had a lot of shared musical tastes with Kim, and you can hear some of those influences in the rest of the songs - which progressed her sound further than the Stock, Aitken & Waterman sound we used on Don’t Worry. You can definitely hear moments like Tamla Motown and Michael Jackson influences on certain tracks like I’ll Be There, and that’s because it was music we both loved and we had a great time doing all that.
Was there already a specific sound agreed for the album before production began?
Well, we had a vague idea of what we were gonna do sound-wise, but it really developed and grew through the process of recording the album and jamming in the studio together. That said, we were already certain that Don’t Worry was going to be the first single, and we also knew that we needed to try to carry on that excellent Stock, Aitken & Waterman sound, with a little bit of progression, and then slowly, throughout the rest of the album, begin to move Kim’s sound on.
You obviously got on very well with Kim. Was there anything that surprised you about her during production?
The one thing that surprised me when I started working with Kim was that… Kim was an excellent singer, but somehow people had convinced her that she was just an OK singer - and I thought that was really wrong! I thought Kim had some great shades in her voice, but she was very hesitant. You’ve got to understand that at that stage in her life, Kim was in uncharted territory... as a human, let alone as an artist, you know? As a person! So, she was hesitant, at times. I’m not sure if it was just because Mel wasn’t there, and I’m not sure what other people around Kim would say, but I knew that she was a much better singer than she thought she was. I mean she really is a very talented singer!
Absolutely! Kim, herself, has often said that she viewed Mel as ‘the singer’ in ‘Mel & Kim’, and that this belief may have been shared by others at the time. Did you find Kim’s confidence grew during recording?
Well, Mel was a fantastic singer. From the things I was told by Mike [Stock] and Matt [Aitken], Mel was undoubtedly an excellent singer, but what I am trying to say is that I don’t think Kim was the secondary singer. I thought that Kim had an excellent voice. I tried to push her a little bit out of her safety barrier, and to try new things - and you can hear that in the tracks that we did. I was just listening to some of the things we were doing, for instance: towards the end of Downtown Clown, Kim really was exploring new things vocally, which was great. I remember Kim telling me that I had brought out a lot of confidence in her and that, through the recording of the album, she actually believed that she grew a lot as a singer. You can hear how she grows from one song to another.
There are some amazing songs on the Kim Appleby album. Do you have a favorite track?
Well that’s a rather difficult question. I like different ones for different reasons. As I said, listening to the songs now, I think, ‘Wow’! (Laughs). Excuse the big-headedness, but for that time, the album has some fantastic innovations on it. When I saw the song What Did I Do Wrong, I couldn’t even remember working on it. I thought, did we do that song (laughs)? Then, as soon as I listened to it, I remembered it. For me, Don’t Worry is definitely a favorite, and I’ll Be There is definitely a big favorite. I like Mama, as well. There are quite a few of them, you know? I definitely do not have just one favorite but I would say that those three are all up there for me.
Where there any songs that you were unsure of during production?
Dodgy People was a funny one, ‘cause nobody got that song. I mean, Clive didn’t get it, my musical partner Pete didn’t get it, and I didn’t get it! But Kim loved that song. I’m happy to say that I did get it eventually though (laughs), ‘cause to look at it, you have to look at the whole ‘shebang’, you know? Kim is an East End girl, yeah? She is a Cockney. And she was singing from her experiences! When I listen to Dodgy People now, I love all those weird keyboards we used, I really think there are some cool sounds there and I like the weirdness of them!
Were there any later additions to the album tracklisting?
We got to a point pretty quickly where all the tracks were in various stages of production, but I seem to remember that If You Cared came later, though I could be completely wrong. I actually had the brass line for the track first - I was probably watching Hawaii Five-0, at the time, I don’t know (laughs). Anyway, I suggested we build something around it, so Kim added more lyrics inspired by that brass line.
There are certainly some great sounds on that album, and you guys appear to have adopted a pretty innovative approach on the tracks.
Yes. I mean, on the last track on the album, Teach Me, the bass drum is actually me, (laughs). I remember talking to Pete, the engineer, and I was saying that I wanted a bass drum that sounded soft, and I was making the sound to show what I meant. Pete turned around and said to me, 'Go on. Do it on the microphone and we will just sample YOU'. So the bass on that song is actually me (laughs). That shows the fun and the innovation, or whatever you wanna call it.
We heard that there had been some consideration given to calling the album G.L.A.D. Is that true, and what are your memories of recording that track?
Oh, I don’t actually remember G.L.A.D. ever being a contender for the title of the album, but it is obvious that it touches on the F.L.M. vibe! I remember, we had great fun making G.L.A.D.. Kim is very innovative herself, and she had a lot of innovative ideas - like adding a rap to that track. That was Kim’s idea. When we were working in the studio at Metropolis, we all used to get together in the evening and have our dinner, and then watch something on the television... And, so we were watching Top Of The Pops, or whatever, and Kim said, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be great if we have a rapper in’. I can’t remember how she thought of Brinsley [Forde from Aswad] but she suggested it, we tried it and it was fantastic.
You obviously have many fond memories of that time.
Yes, I have the fondest memories. We had great fun throughout the whole production. I remember, we were recording on my daughter’s birthday (June 20th), and so we celebrated together in the cafe at Metropolis with Kim and her daughter Sharna. The entire thing was fantastic. It was great, as we were doing it in my own studio, so we were jamming around and having fun. It was a great time and the whole thing was a treat for me. I was finally making a record for myself as a producer, rather than being a part of somebody’s team. I was working with an artist that I had a lot of respect for and I really enjoyed working with, and I was working on music that I liked, so everything was great.
Was there any pressure from EMI to complete work on the album quickly?
No. I remember them as being quite easy-going. EMI’s message was simple - you’ve got this much money to give us a successful record'… Message received (laughs)! We didn’t feel we were ever going beyond budget or beyond time, so whatever we had agreed at the start, we stuck to. The thing was that, with both Kim and myself having worked with Stock, Aitken & Waterman, we had learned a lot. The great thing you watched and learned, coming out of that stable, was that you learned to avoid the bullshit, you know? The PWL vibe was that you don’t get lost up your own backside’s art, if you know what I mean (laughs). You know you are making good pop music and you get on with it rather than thinking you are redesigning the Louvre or whatever (laughs).
You already mentioned that you guys knew that Don’t Worry was going to be the first single to herald the forthcoming album. How soon into production was Don’t Worry chosen as the lead?
When I first met Kim, it had already been decided that Don’t Worry’ was gonna be the first single. The record company had heard Kim’s original demos and felt it was the right choice, and EMI wanted it to have that Stock, Aitken & Waterman sound. But, from speaking with Kim, I understood that she wanted to move on from that. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with that sound - Stock, Aitken & Waterman made some fantastic records, and I’m extremely proud of the time I spent with them, and of my little contribution to their work - but, as an artist, you always want to develop and move on. I talked with Kim, and we thought we would do a kind of quasi-PWL treatment for Don’t Worry and then see how we move on from there. Kim obviously liked that sound anyway, and I assumed that’s what she liked in me, and why she had wanted to collaborate with me on the album.
Did you share EMI’s belief in Don’t Worry becoming the project’s lead single?
I don't want to sound too sort of calculated in what I am going to say, but with the title Don’t Worry, and the opening lyrics and the content... it kind of said it all about how Kim’s career was gonna be launched - because Kim had gone through a very big trauma and a very difficult time of her life. Life had dealt her a really bad card… really bad - and yet the great thing was that, if you met Kim, she is a very genuine person, there are no pretensions, you know? A lot of artists kind of put the uniform on to go on stage, Kim is not like that at all. She is a very genuine person, so all that [in the lyrics] was actually her, and how she had come through the other side of that ordeal. I mean, I’m speaking with a little bit of difficulty about it, ‘cause I remember it made a big impact on me. I was very close with my brother as well. We lived together and toured together as musicians and we were extremely close, as I believe Kim was with Mel... and being so close with my brother, I always thought, my God, how do you get through something like that? Unfortunately, I found out in 2006, ‘cause my brother died from cancer, so, yeah... so that’s why I am a little bit... when I speak about it.
Clive Black (EMI's A&R Director) told us, “Don’t Worry would not have worked without George’s brilliant work”, and the song has certainly stood the test of time. Can you tell us about your input on that song?
When Kim played me the demo of Don’t Worry, it wasn’t completely finished, and we needed to work a few things out. Hence that’s the reason why I am also in the writing team for that one. To be absolutely fair, my role was only some additional writing on that particular song, so, kind of, tidying up loose ends, if you know what I mean? I respected Kim as an artist and I knew we would make it sound great, and Clive trusted that Kim and myself would do it fantastic justice. As I said, it wasn’t finished, but what was there was enough to decide, you know? Big neon lights saying, ‘Hey, I’m the first single and I’m gonna be successful’!
Don't Worry is brilliant, and it succeeded in taking the sound Kim was already known for, from the ‘Mel & Kim’ days, and layering it with a timelessly sophisticated quality.
Well that’s really kind of you, I’m really happy that you are describing it in that way. For me the biggest compliment paid to that particular single was actually from Pete Waterman, who said that Don’t Worry was ‘the best PWL record PWL never made.
Don’t Worry was a huge hit in many territories and only narrowly missed out on the UK #1 spot. Was there any disappointment that it didn’t reach the top spot in Britain?
You know something… I remember we were stuck at number two for God knows how long. I don’t remember what was number one, but it was something that stayed there forever, and ever, and we just couldn’t get there. I’m trying to remember what was the number one song. It was one of those singles that broke the record for the weeks at number one - It stayed there for a long time and kept us off being number one. That’s how I remember it! But we still really enjoyed it. Don’t Worry was a great way of kicking off Kim’s solo career.
[Don’t Worry was held off the UK #1 spot by Unchained Melody - The Righteous Brothers, which spent 14 weeks in the UK charts and 4 weeks at #1]
Did the success of Don't Worry create any pressure to finish the album, ready for release?
No. We had finished the whole album before Don’t Worry was released. It wasn’t like we finished the single and released it, then waited to see how it did, then went to finish the rest of the album. It was all done in one go. I think it was roughly around six months from the very first time where we sat down and played some music, to the point where I think we had the final album mix done.
As well as writing and producing the album with Kim, we hear that you also accompanied her on some of the album promotion?
Yes, we did a few things together to promote the album - which shows how much I enjoyed working with Kim, because - and I am saying this humbly - at the end of the day, I was a record producer... and it was a very successful time of my life as well. Not a lot of producers would be trekking it around to radio stations, and things like that, you know? But I used to love it. I’d say to Kim, 'yeah. I’ll be your piano player. Great', (laughs)! I remember, we did some radio interviews together, and some performances where Kim decided that she wanted to perform the tracks live. Now that shows how Kim’s confidence was growing, ‘cause we were in a time when everybody went out there and mimed, but we worked so well together, and Kim insisted on doing these things live. We did acoustic versions, with just me on the piano and Kim singing, for a couple of radio stations - and we also performed at a big EMI thing, where all the big record company guys come together. Kim asked me if I would accompany her on the piano and do a live acoustic performance of I'll Be There, and she was amazing! She was just amazing. She mesmerized everybody there.
Wow! That sounds incredible! As well as demonstrating an evolution of Kim’s sound, the album also signalled a few changes of image for her. Were you aware of this?
Just as Kim’s confidence grew, her image developed also, and you can see the image change throughout the project. I mean, look at the album cover image [shot by Cindy Palmano] with the spiky, punky hair. She looks amazing, and it's such a strong image... but then, by the time we were doing I'll Be There, I remember she had this long flowing hair. I remember there was one time in particular where she was singing at the piano with me. We were in the countryside somewhere, but I can’t remember where... anyway, I remember looking at her and thinking, 'Wow'! She was absolutely, totally gorgeous (laughs). I was in awe. She just looked amazing!
After what sounds like such a joyful and obviously successful experience working on the Kim Appleby album, why didn’t you work together again on Kim’s Second Album Breakaway?
By the time of the second album, Clive had left EMI and gone to Warners, and Nick Gatfield, who was a lovely guy to work with, was now in charge of Kim’s A&R. Nick wanted me and Pete Schweir to work with Kim again, and carry on the success of the first album, but things seemed different, and there were a few problems and a bit of a fall out at some point between managers. On the Kim Appleby album, I shared co-production credits with Pete Schweir, and after the making and release of that album, there had been some questions over ownership. Unfortunately, that cast a bit of a cloud and I decided that I didn’t want to have a co-production relationship with Pete anymore. I split from the partnership and... things were not great. Trevor Horn told me once that, outside of his own record label, he very rarely made a second album with anyone, because he didn’t want to run the risk of being compared to what he had done on the first album. You see, with the second album comes a lot of pressure (laughs). Unfortunately, success also brings expectations, and obviously the first album was very successful. Don’t Worry was perhaps a little bit disproportionately more successful than the rest of the singles, but as far as we were concerned, the album succeeded in introducing Kim to the world as a solo artist, and I thought that it was a fantastic pedestal to progress from.
Although you were not involved with the second album, you did write with Kim on the title track - Breakaway.
Yeah, I had written Breakaway, and I brought it to Kim originally as I wanted to invite her to write on it. It wasn’t a full song yet but it was a good idea for where the song was going. Melodically, it was there and Kim absolutely loved it, and she then went away and wrote the bits that were missing, which was pretty much most of the lyrics. Kim's lyrics where fantastic, I loved them! The song actually came out of our shared love for Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder, and you can actually hear both of those influences in there - or at least you could on my original version, but the final mix is not mine and it’s not one I actually liked. I never approved it, as, in my opinion - which is obviously biased (laughs) since I was the original instigator of the song, and the original producer - it was much better as it was.
Really? What other differences are there from your original version of Breakaway, to the released version?
The original version wasn’t the classic pop, four on the floor sound [a rhythm pattern, in which the bass drum is hit on every beat]. It actually had a swing beat, like Michael Jackson’s The Way You Make Me Feel. I mean, listen to the lyrics, “in a way, in a way, in a way I just know I’m gonna be alright". I could just imagine Michael Jackson singing that, and it was a tribute, as this was music that Kim and I both loved. Also, something I used to like to do on a lot of my records at the time - almost like a sort of trademark - was to introduce another little hook line just as the song is dying out. So, originally - just before Breakaway started to fade - you would hear the “na, na, na, na, na” vocal sub-plot. It was just at the end of the song... but it turned into a bit of a nightmare for me. Suddenly, I was played this remix where the “na, na, na, na, na” had been moved to the beginning of the song, and for me, it didn’t do it! It was that pressure of trying to follow the trend, and it was a pity, because Breakaway was one of my very favorite songs. I actually thought that the original version we made was really good. It was like a completely different record to the one that was released.
And then Kim's second album, also titled Breakaway, followed...
I didn’t hear much of the rest of the second album. I gotta admit I was sulking and very angry (laughs). I don’t want to be critical but when I heard some things after Breakaway, the
one thing, for me that had changed was that I heard records where people tried to fit Kim into the song. Kim wasn’t the special thing in the track anymore - she wasn’t the sunshine on the song. She was part of the record, rather than the record being her springboard, if you know what I mean? That’s my opinion, right or wrong, and that kind of started with Breakaway [the song]. For me, that was the start of producers trying to fit Kim into what other people were doing, rather than working the songs around her. I could be wrong but that’s my opinion. Obviously, Kim was put under a lot of pressure - and that was the problem! As I said, success brings pressure, and a successful first album is not always a blessing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you should have an unsuccessful first album, but the success brings a lot of trouble for the second album.
The Kim Appleby album is truly magical. For us fans, it was great to have Kim come back with such a strong album, after Mel’s passing.
Wow, I'm glad! Thank you, you are very kind. You know, you can’t imagine how fulfilling it is to hear that people feel the album was 'magical'. That’s how I feel about it, and I’m sure that’s how Kim must feel also. Kim was the 'artist', and we all worked together as a team to create the right pedestal for her to shine on. Kim had star quality, as far as I’m concerned, and you can hear it on there. You can hear Kim's cheeky Cockney background in Dodgy People. You can hear her softness and her warmth in I’ll Be There. You can hear her optimism in Don’t Worry. You can her her funkiness in Hey You - and you can also hear those Motown and Stevie Wonder influences through it. I do think there was something special about that album.
The combination of you and Kim was incredibly rich, creatively. Could you see yourself making more music with Kim in the future?
Whether we would make music together again... who knows? But I would love to meet Kim and have a drink. She is such a lovely person, and I’ve got the fondest memories of working with her. Kim is one of the very, very, very few genuine people in this business. There’s a lot of bullshitters in the music business, you know? There’s a lot of Dodgy People, as Kim described them (laughs), but she is one of the few genuine ones.
