MARION SAUVEBOIS meets a singer who has survived hard times

IF Elkie Brooks had ‘jacked it all in’ as she planned to in the 1960s, she would have become a PE or home economics teacher, or perhaps a commander in the Israeli army. Anything would have been better than performing lightweight pop songs in cabarets.

Failing to achieve the success she was promised after winning a reality-type show at Manchester’s Palace Theatre when she was just 15, she found herself stuck on the cabaret circuit to pay the rent, packaged as a pop starlet, deeply unhappy and seriously doubting her own abilities.

On her last dregs of hope, she was prevented from making the biggest mistake of her life by jazzman Humphrey Lyttelton. Humph invited her to be the guest vocalist with his renowned band and, with him, she came into her own and found her way.

Her relationship with Humph would last for the rest of his life. They went on to produce albums and perform together on and off for more than 40 years.

“I had made a record, Something Has Got A Hold On Me, and it got quite a lot of play on the radio but never really got in the charts,” she recalls.

“My management put me on the cabaret circuit, which I didn’t like. I was not keen on a lot of songs that I was doing. I needed to be with a band that knew my music. I was 18, I was thinking of jacking it in and going back home and maybe going back to school and being a PE or domestic science teacher. Anything was better than doing what I didn’t want to do musically.

“If it had not been for Humph, I wouldn’t have stuck with it. Maybe I would be a commanding chief in the Israeli Army.

“One of my friends was thinking of going to Israel and joining a kibbutz at the time and that appealed to me.”

She joined the rock/jazz fusion band Dada which became Vinegar Joe.

In 1981, her album Pearls became the biggest selling by a British female artist in the UK and she became known as the British Queen of the Blues.

Nothing could have predicted the woes looming ahead.

And yet, in 1998, Elkie lost her home, moved into her tour bus and lost nearly all her worldly possessions after her accountant mishandled her tax returns.

Due to badly negotiated contracts, she was unable to recover some of her royalties.

Soon Elkie and her husband had their bank accounts and assets frozen.

While hardship on such a scale would have tested and most certainly broken a lesser woman, Elkie plodded on, rebuilding her life piece by piece.

“The recession hit us a bit earlier than everybody else but we came out of it. My son Jay and daughter-in-law took over my management in 2002 and I’m on my fourth album with him.

“Music took my mind off things. I can remember when I was going through the repossession of the house, I had done a song called Yesterday.

“It was written in the wrong key, so working on it certainly took my mind off things. You have to keep busy.

“We’re moving on, we really are. I’m looking forward to my new album and promoting it.”

If forging a career in a male-dominated industry where, she was once told she was finished when she became pregnant with her first child, had taught her anything it was fortitude, positivity and resilience.

“It’s not an easy industry, the music business. When I got pregnant with Jay in 1978, I can remember a head of my record company say to my management: ‘It’s the end of her career’. But I carried on. I was not going to cave in.

“I was on the road, pregnant with Jay until two weeks before he was born.

“I think if you dwell too much on the past you end up being a very old and bitter person. You have to put up with things you don’t always want to put up with.”

This time around quitting was beyond the question.

“It never ever entered my mind. If you’ve got reasonably good fitness levels there is no reason why you can’t carry on for a long time.

“I’m nearly 70, it’s my 55th year in the business and I’ve still got a long way to go.”

A mother first and foremost, when asked what was the most life-changing event in her life, she doesn’t miss a beat.

“Having my children – it was the most amazing experience. I never thought I was going to have children. I had them quite late; I was going on 42 when I had Joey. That’s my highlight.”

<li> Elkie Brooks will perform at the Wyvern Theatre on March 5 at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £23. To book visit swindontheatres.co.uk or call 01793 524481.