Lisa got her big break on TV by Johnnie Hamp in the early 1980's and the Granada TV studios is was where it all happened. Earlier on in the year Lisa took part in the one hour documentary at ITV's London Studios. 
Peter Kay takes a tour of Granada Studios for one final time before it closes its doors for good. Once the home of Coronation Street, Prime Suspect and The Jewel In The Crown, production is moving to newer premises in Salford and this documentary takes a behind the scenes look at some of the UK's favourite shows filmed there, including one of the earliest TV clips of Lisa when she was 14 years old. 
(This show was recorded back in March and was aired on UK TV on the 15th June)

Lisa Stansfield performs at  The Queen’s Hall on Tuesday. Back after an eight year hiatus with a new album, the Brit Award winning artist is one of the most successful UK vocalists of all time. She was thrust into the limelight back in 1989 when her talents featured on Coldcut’s seminal People Hold On. However, it was her solo number one All Around the World that cemented her place in the hearts of the worldwide music scene so expect highlights from her sultry back catalogue too. i-on magazine talks to Lisa - words by Stu Todd 

What attracted you to music?
It just gave me a huge sense of freedom.  

What’s the highlight of your career so far?
Still being here. I'm very flattered that people are still interested in what I do. I'm very lucky in that respect and I never let myself forget it.  

What’s your dream?
To do what I love for as long as I can. If people still want me to do it then I'm gonna keep going.  

What’s your prized possession?
I have two little vases of trees with little fawns in front of them. My Grandma gave them to me before she died. I said to her as a little girl, “Grandma, when you die can I have those vases?” and it was so lovely that she remembered. I put them in the cupboard now because I'm scared they might get broken. I also have the last dress my mum wore too. It's not weird, it's lovely.  

What’s your favourite song of all time? 
I don't really have specific favourites. I suppose a lot of the old soul songs do it for me by artists like Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye. I don't think I can ever have an all time favourite song. It is wonderful how evocative music can be. It's almost like smell in that respect. It does conjure up memories that seem very tangible. Also music can remind us of people we don't see anymore. It's sometimes like visiting an old friend.  

What are the best things in life?
Being fortunate to have been in love with the same man for the last 25 years and laughter. I love to laugh. Me and my husband laugh our way through a lot of things.  

What can’t you live without?
I don't think I could live without music or the mental freedom it can give. 

Lisa Stansfield, soul superstar, is sat in a nondescript office a few miles from her north London home, munching wine gums (the red ones are her favourite). She's wearing a fake-fur coat big enough for Pavarotti and there's a smudge of red lipstick on her full lips that makes those hazel eyes pop. Oh, and she's lost her phone. Again.

"It's probably in this coat somewhere," she laughs. And laughs and laughs.

Once we've got used to such a foghorn blast from someone so tiny, the whole room joins in. Lisa's laugh should be available on the NHS.

"There are ideas for new songs on there and everything," she frets, before letting out another cackle. "That'll be fun if someone finds it."

Lisa is 47 but you'd never know it. Her hair is the longest it's been and, with an elegant side parting, she looks all kinds of sophisticated. Her face is still pixie-beautiful and, when she laughs, still childlike. Now imagine that every sentence is peppered with something unprintable. Add in fits of giggles every minute or two plus the odd segue into stories that generally involve being down the pub. 

Then remember that this is a woman whose voice is among the finest ever heard, whose writing of songs such as All Around the World is lauded and multi-award winning, who has sold 20 million records, who has sung with Barry White and George Michael, who has produced Dionne Warwick and who, when asked to join Whitney Houston on The Bodyguard's soundtrack, almost decided against it because she was "down the pub and, you know, couldn't be bothered".

But that's the wonderful thing about Lisa. She talks like some hair-netted harridan from Coronation Street in its black-and-white days. But when she sings, you get goose bumps.

Since her last studio album in 2004, Lisa has stayed mostly out of the spotlight with her husband of 25 years, Ian Devaney. There was a stint in Ireland - some say it was for the generous tax discount they give to artists but Lisa says it was to get away from the glare of celebrity - and then there was the death of Lisa's mother Marion in 2006.

"One of my biggest regrets is that towards the end, I never really sat down with her and told her things in confidence," says Lisa. "But then she was a blabbermouth!" That leads into a happy story about how Marion, giddy on her daughter's success, was nicknamed the Queen of Rochdale.

"She'd be at the checkout with this voice she'd put on: 'Good morning, I'm Lisa Stansfield's mum.' And we'd all be like, 'Oh God, she's doing it again…' But she was so lovable and would do anything for anyone. She just got carried away with it all."

Then Lisa pulls out a picture of the two of them together. The love just jumps out of it.

"I organised a big photo shoot for her 60th and we got all the family together in Manchester," she says. "We got a suite at The Lowry Hotel and everyone felt really close that day.

"The fame thing had got in the way. We weren't able to appreciate each other in the family because one of us had gone off and done something very strange…"

It got to the point where I was thinking, 'Do I really want this?' when I realised I'd rather stab myself than go through more of these pelvic examinations where they're treating you like an animal. Her mother's death affected Lisa deeply, and in some unexpected ways. Previously untroubled with maternal instincts, she suddenly felt the urge.

"It was like my body was just crying out," she says. Lisa was into her forties by then and IVF was the only option. She and Ian moved to New York and tried for four years. But the realisation finally hit home that motherhood wasn't for her.

"It got to the point where I was thinking, 'Do I really want this?' when I realised I'd rather stab myself than go through more of these pelvic examinations where they're treating you like an animal. And I do think that it didn't work because I finally realised I didn't want a child."

Lisa also admits that some people are quick to judge a woman who doesn't want to be a mother.

"You talk to some women who have children, normally the prudish and priggish ones, and they look at you as if you're guilty of something, as if you're being selfish. But there's no baby there - I'm not depriving a child of love."

And then, quick as a flash, she's off on one of her tangents again. 

"A little while after Mum died, me, my sisters and my mum's best friend decided we needed to do something fun, so we booked a suite in The Ritz and got a clairvoyant in. And as we were walking into the hotel, we see Shirley Bassey. I know her so I walk over and go, 'Oh, hi Shirley!' and Shirley goes, 'Oh, hello gorgeous!' I say, 'I didn't know you lived in London,' to which Shirley replies, 'No, darling - Monte Carlo!' then she just swishes off, gets into a Rolls and drives away."

Lisa could carry on like this for as long as there's air to breathe. But then the star with the working-class roots and the heaven-sent voice, the woman who paved the way for Adele ("I don't want to sound cocky but it's nice to think that maybe I gave the opportunity to people like her"), is something of a poster girl for normal. 

And what could be more normal than missing your mum? "More than anything else," she says, lowering her eyes, "I'd just love her to be here right now."

Courtesy of the Daily Express - interview by Stephen Unwin

Courtesy of http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk - interview by Gordon Barr
Lisa Stansfield is back! The singer plays the Tyne Theatre in Newcastle next week and our Entertainment Editor GORDON BARR caught up with her to find out all about it



It's been two decades since I last saw Lisa Stansfield in concert.That show still rates as one of my most enjoyable of any female singer, so when I heard she was hitting the road again, I was a tad excited to say the least.It had also been two decades since I last interviewed her, but remember her being lovely, down-to-earth and like a long-lost friend back then.

The years haven’t changed her, and Lisa is full of life and cracking jokes throughout our chat, in that instantly recognisable Rochdale accent of hers, which hasn’t mellowed, despite years of living in Ireland and more recently London.

“I’ve just been biding my time really,” she tells me, when I ask where has she been all those years. “I’ve been getting a lot of work done that hasn’t been seen. “This tour is just testing the water really and seeing what’s out there. We did three gigs before Christmas and got a completely tremendous response, so it was wonderful, so why not just keep doing more and see how many we can do.”

A new album is in the offing too. “We are going to do a few of the new songs.“But we’re not going to do all new stuff as it’s not fair.“I’ve not done things for quite a while and I think people are going to come and see me primarily for what they know.“But it’s really nice to put some new stuff in there and see how people respond to it.

“It’s great to do the old songs when you’ve not done them for a while. You look at songs in a different way. You sing them a little bit different as well.“I don’t want to sing things too different because I think some people really don’t like that.
“But I love it when you think of ad libs you’ve never thought of before and different ways of singing things, it’s lovely, and with different arrangements.”

With an extraordinarily successful career, Brit-Award winning Lisa, who not only boasts nearly 20 million album sales but also a string of Top 10 UK and European hits, has been hard at work on a seventh studio album which is now nearing completion, details of which will be released shortly.

Forever pushing the creative boundary, she has also completed the filming of a major motion picture based around the Northern Soul phenomenon, due for release this year.“Everyone keeps saying the album is going to be called Seven,” she laughs.“We’ve never even suggested it. The more we hear it the more we think ‘maybe we should’.

“We’re still finishing it and polishing it up and putting overdubs on it and I’ve still to do vocals – I want to do something with the vocals after touring as my voice will be a lot stronger and I will be into the swing of it all.“It’s definitely soul. I don’t think I am going to go back to the old pop thing. I don’t think it suits me.“It is primarily soul that I do. If pop is not the ‘thing’ that you do, it is very difficult to do. It looks really easy but it is quite difficult.”

Northern Soul, which also stars Steve Coogan, Christian McKay, Ricky Tomlinson and Roisin Murphy, is due for release at the end of the summer.It is the story of a youth culture which changed a generation and influenced songwriters, producers, DJs and designers for decades to come.

Northern Soul tells the tale of a nightclub-based movement which developed in bleak industrial North West England, as the tail end of Mod Culture delved ever deeper into black American soul music.

It’s a story of insistent rhythm and raw emotion, a film about ambition, fuelled by a desire to break out and succeed. The tale of two young men whose lives were changed forever. It was a time when clubs were to earn a place in music history, by embracing an embryonic sound that would soon be known as Northern Soul.

“I’ve known Elaine Constantine the director for a long, long time,” explains Lisa.“I’m from Rochdale and she’s from the next town, Bury, and we made friends and would go out to lunch together. There are a few of us girls who go out for lunch.

“We got talking and she’s always wanted to make this film anyway and she said do you want a part in it. I said, ‘yes, YES’.“She asked me if I didn’t mind playing a mum and I told her I was the age of a mum, so it wasn’t a problem and so I ended up playing a mum.

“It’s a very gritty film. It was lovely being in front of the cameras. I enjoy acting.“It’s a long day and you are waiting around for most of it but when you are actually doing your scenes, it’s really good.“We just had a really good laugh as well. Everybody on the crew was lovely and all the actors were really gorgeous. We just ended up crying with laughter all the time.“We’d be doing a really sombre scene and we’d all be crying, and then we’d cut and we’d just start laughing again. It was mad. Then you had to go back crying again. So lots of tears and laughter.

“The first disco I went to always played Northern Soul and I had my first kiss to a Northern Soul song.”