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Lisa Stansfield is best remembered for her massive ’90s dance hit “All Around the World,” in which the protagonist passionately —or desperately, depending on your perspective— sought out an erstwhile lover. Her soulful voice steered the song into the hearts of fans and onto the pop radio airwaves. It remains a beloved smash of the decade. Stansfield continues to tour and perform actively and just released Live In Manchester, a live album and DVD via earMUSIC. The release truly captures Lisa Stansfield in her natural habitat — on the stage and belting out her catalog of love-themed songs. Stansfield joined ARTISTdirect’s Amy Sciarretto to discuss how she prepared for this gig, the process of capturing the live event on film, and how her relationship with her biggest hit has evolved over time. Amy Sciarretto: How did the idea of recording a concert in Manchester come about? Was it so you could sneak up the road to your home in Rochdale? Lisa Stansfield: The town I come from is literally 20 minutes away. Whenever you go shopping, you go into Manchester, at least when you are younger. For me, it was a big deal and it is a big deal to play Manchester. You are from the same place as these people. It’s quite daunting. But in a lovely way. You are proud and you want everyone to be proud of you. In the past, when I’ve done certain gigs, in New York or London or Manchester, or Paris, there is an attitude. As I’ve gotten older, I realize that the reason people buy a ticket to see a show is because they are on your side. They don’t spend $50 on a ticket to look at you with disdain or to boo you. They won’t spend money on something they don’t want to see. It was like homecoming in a way. It was beautiful. We did the strings and we can’t do that in every show. We’re not there yet. AS: Did you experience any nerves upon returning to the stage after a hiatus? LS: It was nice. When your friends and family are there, you have more nerves, since you want to impress them the most. It is a comfort that they are there, as well. My family and friends are in the audience. It is a lovely, warm feeling. My husband [Ian Devaney] and I tour together and he said, ‘I can’t look at any face I know.’ But I think it’s really nice. AS: Can you walk us through the process of assembling and working with a live band? Do you use the same players? LS: We’re always gigging, so it’s the same band most of the time. It is easy to get back into the swing of things. We have an amazing band. We know each other so well, mentally and musically. It’s like a finely-honed thing. You know where the ball is going all the time. It’s lovely to see the crowd enjoy it as well… them enjoying you enjoying the gig. AS: With such a long career’s worth of material, how did you choose the set list? Do you have a set structure or an advance plan when considering the show? LS: It is difficult, since you structure the whole thing, which is usually an hour and 45, to have a fluidity and a lot of different songs and albums to choose from. You have to structure it. I am not good at that sort of thing. I leave it to my husband and the band. AS: “All Around the World” was such a massive hit for you in the ’90s. Has your relationship with the song changed over time? What do you think audiences are reacting to when they hear that tune? LS: I think it has changed around six or seven times or more than that. It’s been 20-odd years. I always say that the song is like a very old friend. It’s like having an old cronie with you. It is so sweet to me. I think, ‘Oh my God, I have to sing this again?’ Then everyone goes ballistic and knows every word, and it makes me feel so happy. It is beautiful to know that you make people happy. AS: Did the pressure or knowledge that you would be filming the concert change how your addressed the songs? Did it make you want to avoid any improvisation since the fans who would purchase it are looking for or expecting something specific? LS: If I do a gig, I am doing a gig. It was special in Manchester, but not more special than anywhere else. I don’t give 50 percent in other places. If I am doing a gig, I will do it to the best of my ability. I will try and make everyone happy. That’s why people go to a gig, isn’t it? AS: What are some of the key songs on the release that really capture Lisa Stansfield live? LS: I think on this album and DVD and it has to be ‘Conversation.’ It’s beautiful in a sense that I know what it’s about but I don’t and I’ve written it. Sometimes you pour things out and don’t understand them at first. I think that song is about a second chance but it is emotional. It’s lovely when you have that live. It’s just me and the keyboard. To hear not one sound in the auditorium… it’s like, ‘Thank God, they’re not eating popcorn or on their cell phones.’ It got quiet and beautiful, and quite scary! I have to get everything in tune and every breath has to be right. AS: Do you have a personal ritual before a live show? LS: The most recent one in the last year-and-a-half… I don’t smoke anymore. I used to smoke nearly two packs a day. My voice would get tight and I’d have to do literally an hour of warm-up before the show. Now I don’t. I put Etta James on and I sing ‘I Just Want to Make Love to You’ at the top of my lungs. I scream it! People think I am being murdered! As long as you don’t think that onstage, I’m fine. AS: This concert film is a one-off experience, but how do you sustain the spontaneity of performing multiple nights on the road? LS: We have a template, but I would never ask anyone doing a solo in a tune or had their own moment of glory to do it as it was on record. That is ridiculous. Why call it live music? I ad-lib a lot. It’s good for the morale of the band. We give everyone free reign if you have to perform the material over two months. If you don’t have permission to be free as a musician, you may as well work in an office. Interview by Amy Sciaretto for Artist Direct
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Lisa appeared on the BBC's 'The One Show' for a piece called Story Of the Song whereby she explains how her infamous tune 'All Around The World' came about. You can re-watch the programme until mid-August via the BBC iPlayer (UK and IRELAND only) via http://bbc.in/1UCNDGo Here are some image stills from the programme.  Catch up with Lisa's exclusive interview for the June edition of Sussex Style Magazine that she did last month. Many thanks to Sean and Richard at Sussex Style for their kind permission to republish this interview by magazine Editor Alex Hopkins. Check out the complete June edition online now: http://issuu.com/sussexstyle/docs/ss_june_2015 
Lisa had a catch up with Gary Spence from Solar Radio for a post-Christmas interview a few weeks ago. Watch and listen to the interview below.  Yousif Nur from The Quietus, interviews director Elaine Constantine and actor Lisa Stansfield about their new film Northern Soul
Northern Soul is a tale of two young lads (played by Eliot James Langridge and Josh Whitehouse) discovering the music that changes their lives. They harbour ambitions of DJing as a partnership and flying to America to dig out rare soul records. However, along the way their friendship is tested with tragedies, drugs and egos. Set in the fictional northern town of Burnsworth in 1974, director Elaine Constantine was conscious that she didn’t want to “stitch any towns up for saying this is Oldham or Rochdale, it didn’t feel right calling them shitholes.” Northern Soul was shot in Burnley, Bury and Bolton (“all the B’s”) with the Wigan Casino dance scenes filmed at the King George’s Hall in Blackburn. Authenticity is an overriding theme that crops up time and again with Elaine, and she didn’t skimp when it came to detail with everything from 70’s fashion and dance steps to sourcing out houses suitable for shooting. Lisa Stansfield, who plays the mum of the lead character John Clark, also speaks to the Quietus. She describes the film itself as being “so true to form... it’s serious shit alright” and of Constantine being “a fucking anorak.” Was there an overwhelming sense that this was a film that simply had to be made? Elaine: Totally. Northern Soul was always going on in the background for me. I decided that I wanted to do some documentary footage on the scene. This was back in the early 90’s and because I’d been into Northern Soul since the 70’s, I kept filming stuff thinking it didn’t have the vibrancy or urgency that it had when we were teenagers, so I needed to re-create this to get that message across. Because all I wanted to do was say Northern Soul was brilliant. And the energy and ethos behind it, the need to get across the Atlantic to find music that was lost and the idea of bringing it back to people who’d never heard it before, with that absolute raw energy and enthusiasm that’s so esoteric was such a strong feeling. The only way I could portray that was to do it in fiction. I’m not a writer and I don’t consider myself one. But the only way I could get that idea across was to write the script myself. I considered hiring writers but in the end none of them came through. So I ditched the documentary idea and went into the choppy waters of screen writing! Lisa, how did Elaine approach you to feature in the film? Lisa: When Elaine and I went out for lunch one day before she started shooting, she said that she really wanted me to play the mum! I thought, “that’s a bit different but alright I’ll do it.” Elaine had plans for this film being like a British Saturday Night Fever. When you’re a kid and go right back to how you remember the north back then that’s exactly what it is. It’s incredible how Elaine’s done it. Could you relate well to John Clark’s mum? Lisa: I think you’ve got to relate to every role you play. If you play a complete bastard after seeing the good side of them, then you’d see that no one is a complete and utter horror. I really did see part of the typical northern mum in me. She’s always on your case all the time and shouting at you, ‘take your sandwiches and don’t forget your coat’. But she’d always be there for you when you were sad. They weren’t bad northern mums. They were just looking out for you all the time. How necessary was it to have elements of tragedy in the film? Elaine: When I was young there were some fatalities with kids that would go crazy and would go over the edge on a lot of things and there were some tragic moments. I’ve been to some funerals on this scene and I’ve experienced that. This film is not Billy Elliott or The Commitments; it’s a real film about real things that really happened, warts an’ all. So it’s not been certificated to suit everyone. It’s a film that is truthful about the experience of growing up in the north in the 70’s. “ You ran a series of dance clubs in preparation for the dance scenes. How long did you run these for and how receptive were the kids? Elaine: We started putting on these dance clubs for five years before filming. We’d started training the lead, Eliot James Langridge, six years before. We tried to do as many videos as we could to put onto YouTube to spread the word and get more kids through the doors. In all we had 500 kids. We’d been filming these dance clubs for the kids that we’d been training up to populate the scenes. So many gatekeepers of that scene were like ‘No you’re not doing that, don’t do it!’ But then as soon as we started posting up these videos of the dancers, everyone suddenly came on board. These kids were not dancers. This wasn’t Pineapple Studios with legwarmers and leotards, these were real kids coming in and going ‘I want part of that.’ They came for years and got involved with the culture. It wasn’t about ‘let’s work out how to do that move’. It wasn’t like there were mirrors in front of them and they were line dancing. It was more, ‘whack it on and get on the floor.’ Every so often we’d stop the music and say ‘Right, what kind of hand gestures are you doing? See what other people are doing and try to interpret what dance moves they’re doing. Fall in love with the music and we’re going to believe you when you’re on screen dancing because you’re really going through those emotions.’ Why are you so passionate about northern soul music? Elaine: I think for me fundamentally it is because it’s got a melancholy sort of feel to it, mixed with euphoria, which is a very strange contradiction and it makes my emotions just lurch. So, there’s that element of it which gets you right there. I’m talking about a particular number of records here. I’m not talking about Wigan’s Ovation or Tony Blackburn’s record or a load of shit they played in Wigan in the mid to late 70’s. I’m talking about the black, full-on late-60’s, heartfelt, raw emotional voices. And I think at the end of the day, I believe those voices when they say ‘My heart’s breaking.’ I don’t believe the voices that sing repetitive rubbish lyrics that are in the charts because there’s no feeling to them. And then I think that the accompanying music is so well matched to those voices that it’s almost like perfection. Then there’s the etiquette around the scene and the kind of bonding with people that are into northern soul that appreciate that stuff that says to me, ‘we know something and we’re doing something that’s really special.’ And then there’s this wonderful dance floor etiquette, which is all about appreciating that record and dancing to it without any distractions. So you can just dance, get right under that track and be a part of it. Because if you’ve experienced that music on the scene, especially as a youngster growing up, forming your opinions and the way you feel about the world, then there’s nothing quite like it. Every time I hear certain records and it doesn’t matter how many times I hear it, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. And that’s why it won’t die because it has that ability and effect to make that happen to me after 35 years or more of listening to it. And then there’s another element to it, which is the progressive side. You’ve got a certain amount of DJ’s, collectors and promoters who are pushing that genre and boundaries. So you can still go out to nights around the UK and you can hear a record you’ve never heard before because somebody has had that kind of drive or passion to go to America or go through the internet daily for hours and hours to search out these masterpieces, bring them back and play them on this wonderful scene. Elaine: Because it’s brilliant! There’s something about that record that doesn’t immediately hit you when you hear it. It took me 2 or 3 plays but when you do get it, the song goes somewhere deeper than all the rest of them as there’s a certain kind of tension. It was written and produced by a woman called Josephine Armstead who then went on to be a boxing promoter! Do you feel there could be a revival in the soul scenes popularity because of the film? Elaine: There are a lot of those young kids who we got involved in the dance clubs who are now filtered into the northern soul scene. The age range is quite a wide spread. I think for it to be like how it is in the film, there would have to be a revival, like the one that happened duringQuadrophenia. Because bands like The Jam emerged at the same time as the Ska revival in 1979. That’s how I filtered into that scene as well. Remember I’m too young to have gone to Wigan even though I discovered northern soul in the 70’s through youth clubs when I was 18/19. I was in a mod/suede/skinhead type of network. That group of people is now everywhere and they’re the people who will go and see this film because though they may not be into northern soul they will be interested. Maybe there’ll be a revival and maybe those kids will have their own dos because they’re discovering that music for the first time. If they take the doctrines of the Northern Soul scene, they’ll know they can’t DJ with anything other than the original vinyl. Be nice to think that music might be championed by the youth and that they stop listening to the charts, stuff that’s pushed into them and think ‘actually this is quality, I want a piece of this.’ Lisa, you released ‘Carry On’ as a single from your latest album, which is clearly influenced by northern soul. Have you written songs that have been influenced by NS directly or indirectly? Lisa: I’m not sure really. I think that because I was doing the movie, it comes to the forefront of your brain and you can’t help but feel it. I’m terrible in that if I listen to a certain type of music or an album. I try not to when I’m writing because it influences me so much. Sometimes I can listen back to something I’ve written and think ‘Oh shit I’ve written someone else’s song!’ That’s why it’s so good! So you can’t afford to do that sometimes but I guess I’ve been influenced by so much soul music whether its funk, northern soul or Motown. Fran Franklin a choreographer on the production team passed away a few months ago. What impact did she have in terms of the film production overall? Elaine: The film was complete when Fran died and she saw the film in its finished form in February this year. So in that way it didn't effect the dance sessions as we stopped doing them after filming. As for the dance community, they were completely devastated as was every member of the team; Fran was one of a tight bunch of friends who had been working towards this film five years before it was green lit. Fran also was involved in the wardrobe of the film as her day job was as a seamstress so she made lots of skirts for the girls and lots of the jewelry too. The film was dedicated to her memory and she lives on through her influence not just in dancing but her warmth and generosity. Courtesy of The Quietus Northern Soul the film is set for it's UK cinema release this coming Friday 17th October and with that comes promotion. Lisa will be doing the rounds (on UK tv & radio) this week together with some of the films cast members. You will be able to catch up with her on the following programmes: BBC Breakfast on Monday 13th October (around 9am GMT) BBC Radio Manchester - Monday 13th October (from 1pm GMT with Becky Want) ITV - Good Morning Britain on Thursday 16th October (7.00 -9.30am GMT) There are some further TV appearances coming up. Watch this space for more information. Lisa arriving at Media City and meeting Elaine Constantine director of Northern Soul for their interview with BBC Breakfast - Manchester Evening News article Lisa chatted to Gary Spence on his Sweet Rhythm show on Solar Radio, talking about the forthcoming back catalogue re-issues . You can listen to that interview below which includes an exclusive play of Lisa's brand new single "There Goes My Heart" (CoolMillion remix) due to be released at the end of October.
Back in the early to mid 90's before the internet had truly taken hold, fans found other means to communicate with each-other. Most read the latest snippets and updates via the official Lisa newsletter as well as a fanzine called Soul Deep. In one particular edition, I remember a small article about a fan who owned a most unusual scooter which he had personally customized and bedecked with images of Lisa across it. Those photos were initially published in black and white, but the images really did not do the bike the justice it deserved to show it off in it's full glory.  'Affection' the scooter owned and cherished by Ray Ward Bev: Hi Ray, thanks for taking the time to chat to the fansite. Tell me, how long have you been a fan of Lisa Stansfield and when did you first discover her music?
Bev: I remember in the early 90’s seeing an article about your scooter appear in an edition of the Lisa fanzine 'Soul Deep'. How did that come about?
Bev: Bearing in mind that your scooter is getting on a bit, would you be tempted to part with it, assuming that the price was right? As the recipient of two prestigious Ivor Novello Awards, three Brits and a World Art Award, Lisa Stansfield has achieved iconic status. Her seductive, soulful voice took the world by storm in the late 1980s, with her first solo album, Affection, proving to be a worldwide hit. Last year saw Lisa release her seventh album, her first in ten years, to great critical acclaim. She’s been All Around The World... and is now about to land in Brum, much to the delight of her Midlands fans. Click on the below images to take you to the recent interview with Lisa by Angela Kelly for the Lancashire and North West Magazine.
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