“Fame and fortune almost destroyed me. I nearly became a farmer and I turned down Corrie… but now I'm back”

It’s 24 years since her All Around The World soared to No1 in the pop charts and set her on the path to global stardom.
Yet Lisa Stansfield says the fame and fortune garnered from selling 20million records and winning two coveted Brit awards nearly destroyed her – and drove her into a decade of self-imposed exile away from the relentless glare of publicity.

She said: “I gave up everything and nearly became a f***ing farmer, walking around in headscarf and wellies for 10 years to find my confidence again.”But now the straight-talking Lancashire lass has decided she’s ready to go back on the road with a new album.

And launching a European tour in Paris, she talked about life as a pop idol, turning down Corrie, her respect for Madonna, why she’ll never be a judge on X Factor – and regretting giving millions to Tony Blair.
Lisa, 47, said: “The fame thing made me run – it got out of hand and I needed to go away.“I’m not the sort of person who if everyone thinks you’re fabulous you thrive on it.

“Fame made me insecure and insular. I wanted to run away from being me.“I needed to learn to f**king sit back and enjoy my life.“It took me 10 years to realise that and get myself straight.”

Lisa, who grew up in Rochdale, spent much of her 10-year “exile” in Ireland with her producer husband Ian Devaney.
But when she lost the ability to hit some of her famous high notes she quit the cigarettes she’d always cherished and accepted £4million for her house and the couple moved back to England, settling in north London.

And Lisa’s written most of the songs on what will be her comeback album.
The death of her mother and reflecting on her life and success in the 80s and 90s have inspired much of the new music.
She said: “When I finally took stock of what I’d done it was a massive shock. “I remember thinking ‘F***ing hell, you’ve done all right.’

“But I didn’t have time to think about what I’d achieved while I was in it. You get one award after another and say ‘thank you’ and say you’re really appreciative – but you aren’t really because you don’t get the gravitas of what you’ve done and can’t believe it.” 

And Lisa praised the new generation of female singers like Adele, 25, who won this year’s Oscar for Bond song Skyfall.
Lisa said: “I admire her so much. She’s a brilliant writer and a wonderful singer. I’d love to meet her for a chat.” And she paid a special tribute to Madonna, 54, and Kylie Minogue, 44.

Lisa said: “I can’t believe how relentlessly they have worked. I couldn’t have done it.” Work has never been just about music for Lisa, though. She started in showbiz in 1981 hosting pop show Razzamatazz with Brendan Healy and went on to act in films and TV, including a guest spot on Marple opposite Geraldine McEwan. In 2010 she was ­offered the role of Rovers Return manager Stella Price in Coronation Street. But she said no because it was a three-year commitment – and Michelle Collins got the job.

Lisa was also concerned at how Corrie fans would react, saying: “You get into a role and people see you as that ­character, so they’d be confused because they know me as Lisa Stansfield. It would freak them out if I was pulling pints at the Rovers.” At the height of her fame, when George Michael asked her to duet and she met Prince Charles at a charity bash, Lisa gave millions to Tony Blair’s New Labour.

Does she now regret it? She conceded she did give “a lot” then added with a grin: “I’ve got a really funny story. I shouldn’t tell you this – but I will.“We were invited to Labour headquarters to meet Tony Blair and he went, ‘Sooooo, how’s it going?’ I was just going on tour and ­replied, ‘It seems to be going all right so far – great crowds.’

“And he went, ‘Not you. Me.’ And I thought, ‘Oh dear, give me my f***ing money back.’”
She went on: “I’ve always been political but I don’t like to bring it into my work any more because I think it limits me.
“The political world is now so nondescript it’s ridiculous. Put it this way – I’m not writing any more cheques for anyone.”

As you’ve probably noticed, Lisa loves the F-word and often howls with laughter when using it in stories about her life.
With her honesty and humour, you feel she would make the best X Factor judge ever – like Sharon Osbourne’s more credible but twisted younger sister.

Lisa has a sneaking respect for show boss Simon Cowell. She said: “He’s done a lot of people a favour in the music business. “Since these shows happened all that corporate bull***t has been broken down and there are not as many big-label signings.

“It’s not worth being with a big label anyway – they take 85 per cent of your money and just sit there while you do all the work. “For others, though, X Factor can be the bane of their lives.” But she added: “I’ll never be a judge ­because I just couldn’t do it and I swear too much. I’d be f***ing all the way through it and they’d have to gag me.”

Meanwhile, work on the new album is well under way. Lisa said: “Let’s face it, I have a fun job at the end of the day.”
- Lisa plays Hampton Court Palace Festival on June 14. Tickets: www.hamptoncourtpalacefestival.com

Courtesy and thanks to Dean Piper and the Daily Mirror for using this article.

Courtesy of John Thirkell - check out his complete blog here ……….

It’s 7.59 am and I’m on my way into London for the first full day of rehearsals for Lisa Stansfield’s 2013 European Tour. The tour will take in much of Europe (France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Holland) as well as a number of dates in the UK and a couple in Istanbul.

Along the way I shall be writing a daily blog in an attempt to convey something of what it’s like being an itinerant musician on the road.

I’ve been working with Lisa & Ian for almost 20 years and I can honestly say that every minute has been an absolute joy and I’m sure there will be lots of tomfoolery over the coming weeks as we laugh our way around Europe.

It’s a fairly new band, having been put together for a handful of dates in 2012 (Snowboy and I are the only two band members who were around back in the 90s), but it has quickly gelled into the kind of happy family that comes with working with such great people. The mood of everything always comes from the top, and Lisa & Ian have always managed to combine the serious task of making sure we put on a great show, with lots of mucking around.

Along the way I will be sharing profiles of all of the band and crew and I would point out that the tone of each of these will be entirely commensurate with the number of drinks they buy me.

We’ll be maintaining a fairly hectic schedule with plenty of overnight drives from country to country so there will be plenty of time to write about nothing much happening.

I will try to post at the end of every day, details of the day’s exploits which I shall write up loosely in diary form and also include as many photographs and quotations as are publishable.

So, if you want to know what life is really like on the road, follow me on twitter (@johnnythirkell) for a daily link to the inside story.

Update

It’s now 1.00pm and we still haven’t played a note. Something went wrong with the gear apparently so we’re off to lunch. Once we’ve eaten then we should have just enough time for one run through, before Lisa arrives at 4.00pm. Welcome to the music industry 

7.00pm – All finished and on the way home after a hard day at the office. In the middle of ‘Can’t Dance’ Mickey Donnelly (Sax) made a comment which, although totally unrepeatable, made me laugh until I thought I was having a heart attack. Band is sounding great and everyone is pumped for the first show. We leave at 11.00pm Wednesday to travel overnight for the first show in Paris on Thursday.

Until then…………..

Lisa appears on the BBC documentary "Queens of Jazz" which is a celebration of some of the greatest female jazz singers of the 20th century. It takes an unflinching and revealing look at what it actually took to be a jazz diva during a turbulent time in America's social history - a time when battle lines were being constantly drawn around issues of race, gender and popular culture.

This is a documentary about how these women triumphed - always at some personal cost - to become some of the greatest artists of the 20th century; women who chose singing above life itself because singing was their life. Here's a little clip of Lisa talking about her first memory of hearing Billy Holiday and how she made her feel at the time.

Lisa Stansfield; Brit winning, Soul/R&B singer/songwriter/superstar, with 20 million album sales to her name - these facts are well known…the Lisa Stansfield I met, and had chance to ask a few searching questions to, you could probably add other descriptive words to, like; recluse, plain-speaking, learned, dogged, determined, revitalised…oh and I nearly forget, cheeky! I did ask the big question…'where the heck have you been?' Which is answered in our print issue…but lets start at the beginning because this cracker of a story, in my eyes, deserves a very quick recap - well it has been a while hasn't it?! 

Lisa (Jane) Stansfield was born in Heywood, in the borough of Rochdale, Greater Manchester…three months before England won the World Cup - being a gentleman, I'll let you can work out her age! After co-hosting a children's TV show called Razzamatazz as a teenager and completing the odd jingle for various radio stations in the Manchester area, Lisa was signed by Arista Records and the rest, for 'solo Stansfield' …wasn't-quite-history! 

Firstly, the early eighties saw Stansfield become part of pop trio Blue Zone. This band formation came about quite by chance when eventual husband/writing partner/manager, Ian Devaney ran into old school friend Stansfield in a club - after the suggestion of getting together to start a band Devaney and Stansfield were soon joined by third member, session musician, Andy Morris. Blue Zone would go on to have limited success with singles; "Love Will Wait" (86), "Finest Thing" (86), "On Fire" (87), and "Jackie" (88). But it was to be a B-Side which was to kick start the ball rolling on the crucial transition from band member/front women to solo superstar…The song was called "Big Thing" (88) and was a B-side to "Thinking About His Baby" (87) and if you've done your maths you will notice that it took a year for this fine tune to get the airplay/love it deserved. 

Stansfield recalls "You must know the song 'Big Thing' - it was the B-side, when there were B-sides, to a real pop song and everyone in London really went mad about it!…all the clubs… It sold so many copies in a week, the record company came back to us and said 'your record sold like 10,000 copies within the last week.' We were like 'nahh, (laughs) I don't think so!' Then we realised it was 'Big Thing!' Everyone was just going MAD over it, so then we sat down and said we really need to re-think it all - that's when we decided to work with Coldcut cos we know them." 

In fact, this proved to be a real turning point in Stansfield's career when she sang guest lead on the track "People Hold On," first released in 1989 (UK #11) and then re-released to better effect in 1997 (#4) - it was the success of this track in '89 which made the decision final. "Ian and Andy said 'you should be a solo artist'…then I burst out crying!…It was horrible, it was like (laughs as she does an impression of her then band mates) 'you go then, you f#cking go and do it all!'" 

Stansfield explains the going solo process further "Yeah, we sat down with management and I went (mimicking how she cried) 'but I can't do it all on me own! What if I can't answer a question?' That was my fist panic…what if I can't answer a question, what if I don't know the answer to a question? Because Ian and Andy were always on either side…SOMEONE would look at me and ask a question and I'd go (looking either side of her as if to refer to the other band members) 'what do you think?' (laughs)…

That was one thing about my life and everything I've done really, it's like I've been on a diving board scared out of my life and someone just keeps pushing me!…it's like, if someone asks me to do something and it seems like a really exciting project, but I maybe really frightened about it, nine times out of then I'll say yes imminently because then I can worry after I've said yes!" 

Explaining the difficulties she encountered at the start of her solo career, especially in the U.S. as a white artist mistakenly thought of as black because of the R&B infused material she released. "Well is was funny in a way because now it could NEVER happen, but THEN people had never seen me, they had no idea that I was white - they had no idea that I was white and skinny, they thought that I was a big black women!" 

Lisa Stansfield tours Europe through May and returns to the U.K. in June to start a nationwide tour to the following venues: York, Opera House 10th, Edinburgh, Queen’s Hall 11th, Newcastle, Tyne Theatre 12th, London, Hampton Court Palace 14th, Manchester, Salford Lowry 15th, Birmingham, Symphony Hall 16th. Tickets: gigsandtours.com - 24 hrs hotline 0844-811-0051 Also look out for a new Lisa Stansfield album later in the year (full details coming soon) and an appearance in Elaine Constantine's "Northern Soul: The Movie" (later this year). Follow on Twitter at @LisaStansfield TO READ MORE FROM THIS INTERVIEW WITH LISA STANSFIELD CHECK OUT OUR PRINT ISSUE - 
WORDS LEE TYLER