Harleighblu

July 2014

IT was at last summer’s Splendour festival and a backstage chat with Jake Bugg’s manager that the seeds were sown for Harleighblu’s current success.
She had been on the local music scene for a few years, picking up acclaim and tips for success on a regular basis. Then came the deal with Tru Thoughts and the subsequent debut album Forget Me Not, plus national airplay and magazine cover features.
But she’s stepped it up a gear this year, making her Glastonbury debut last week, playing the Isle of Wight Festival, festivals in Switzerland and France, with more to follow including Bestival and The Great Escape.
“There are lots of great things coming up,” says the 22-year-old, who lives in Carrington.
“It’s going to be a good summer. It feels like it’s going to be my year.”
It all started with a mini-tour of the UK, including the Rescue Rooms, in February.
“I’ve not stopped since then,” she says.
The jump from local gigs to international festivals has been down to her finding a manager.
“It’s had a massive effect on my life,” she says.
“I only came across him because of a big talk I had at Splendour last summer with Jason Hart, Jake Bugg’s manager. He said I needed a manager who would, eat, sleep and breath me, who totally gets the direction I want to go in, someone with time, money, energy... all of that.
“It was invaluable advice. And I soaked it all in. Then I played an industry festival that was showcase for Tru Thoughts. Chris Young was there to give a talk about the success of Subtracks, a producer he manages. He’d just been in the States working with Drake.
“Chris knew who I was because XFM’s John Kennedy had been championing me and I’d been played on 1Xtra. He said he was interested in managing me and I told him I was in between management. I wasn’t, I was doing it all myself,” she laughs.
“He gave me his card and that was it. He sorted my life out. Now I can enjoy the singing and he can sort out the business side of it. That had been killing me and the reason why I’d not been playing so many gigs.
“Then, as soon as you give that job to someone who knows what they’re doing... bam! it all starts.”
Not that Chris is finding managing Harleighblu that easy.
“He gets quite annoyed with me because I’ve not been checking into flights on time when I get the emails,” she laughs. “All this flying malarkey, it’s a bit much for me. I find it really confusing.”
Already this summer she’s played the Isle of Wight Festival, then Fete Du La Musique in Switzerland.
“I didn’t know until I got there that I was on the main stage. I thought I was playing some little jazzy stage. There were thousands of people there. It was massive. I was in the Geneva newspaper as ‘one to watch’ and even when I was soundchecking there thousands of people waiting and staring at me. And when I started singing they knew the words. It was a really surreal feeling.”
Last weekend’s Glastonbury was a good experience she says but the smaller, leftfield festivals are what she’s most excited about.
“Glastonbury is as mainstream as I’m getting,” she laughs.
“It was great but the next day I was in Paris supporting Charles Bradley and the Dap Kings at La Defense Jazz Festival.
“On Tuesday it was Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Festival in th South of France. I’ve got Love Supreme this weekend where I’ll get to support De La Soul again, and Laura Mvula... just cool soul and hip-hop artists. And I’m excited about the other jazz festivals I’ve coming up in France later this month.”
Harleighblu is her real name. Her mum was pregnant with twins that she planned to call Harleigh and Blu, merging the names when she lost one of them.
It was her mum’s vinyl collection that inspired the music she makes today.

“Singing is definitely the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do,” she admits. “I have no plan B.”
Her debut album, Forget Me Not, came out on Tru Thoughts last summer. It earned great reviews but wasn’t a commercial success.
That said, it served its purpose, she says.
“Forget Me Not was a great platform, just to get something out there and start the ball rolling. I got the attention that I needed from that album but now I’m moving on.”
The more she plays live with her band, the more her sound is developing: “It’s going a bit more trip-hop and electronic. It still has that hip-hop soul element but it’s developing. I’ll release an EP with that new sound at the end of the year or in January.”
Harleighblu is back in Nottingham tonight for the Tia Maria Dark Room, a curious event in a pop-up venue in Broad Street.
TV and radio presenter Gemma Cairney is the curator of what is billed as “the ultimate girls’ night out” that includes cocktails, hair styling, manicures and live music.
“I wasn’t sure about doing it because it’s the day after I come back from France and I’m off again to Love Supreme the day after,” says Harleighblu.
“I could have done with the day off. But Chris said that Laura Mvula did it last year and I like her. I think she’s cool. And I pretty much do as he says anyway.”

The Tia Maria Dark Room, with Harleighblu and One Girl, One Boy, is at Unit 2, 7 George Street, Lace Market from 5pm to 11pm and again tomorrow from 4pm to 11pm (Harleighblu only appears tonight). Admission is free but tickets are required. Go to facebook.com/tiamariadrink for details.

WHAT THEY SAID

“The new queen of hip hop soul”@ Radio 1/1Xtra’s Mistajam

“Her protean, dexterous voice immediately impresses. A talent to watch"@ Q

“A raw talent… with a voice that pours old soul in unfeigned torrents… a polished yet stirring debut.”@Clash

“Great soul. Look for this voice to grace some future high profile collaborations”@ DJ Mag

“Great vocals and songs to die for… expect big things and a bright future (5/5)@ Blues & Soul

“Unforgettable”@Echoes

“Can’t get enough of Play Me”@ 6Music’s Nemone

“A tune that a lot of people are asking about… Harleighblu… I like that!”@ 1Xtra’s Trevor Nelson

“She is something else. Massive, massive”@ 6Music’s Huey Morgan

Harleighblu at HMV

January 2014

The last gig Harleighblu played in her home city, it was for the launch of her debut album at Nottingham Contemporary and hundreds of people had paid to see her.

Since then she’s had songs played on Radio 1, 2, 6Music and 1Xtra by the likes of Trevor Nelson and Craig Charles.

But yesterday afternoon, it was around 50 who turned out to see her play a free show at the HMV store in the Victoria Centre.

The 22-year-old jazz, soul and funk diva from Carrington, was kicking off a series of weekly gigs there to showcase local music talent, tapping in to the burgeoning local scene that has been led by Jake Bugg but also seen the likes of Dog Is Dead, Indiana, Saint Raymond land major record deals.

Harleighblu (it’s her real name) signed to Tru Thoughts last year, through which the album, Forget me Not, was released in October.

Racks of the album flanked her on the stage to the rear of the shop.

“Come on, move forward, I’m not Beyonce, I need to feel you,” she grins, after opening songs Casanova, a woozy blues number and a funked up version of Eurythmics’ Who’s That Girl.

Those assembled dutifully shuffle closer, although some of us are hampered by Davina McCall’s Body Buff... and another fitness DVD in the obstructive rack called Butt Camp.

Used to a large band with a brass section, this was a new set-up accompanied by just a guitar, bass, backing singer and laptop, designed to inject more of a hip-hop vibe.

“It’s the first time we’ve done it like this so we’re just testing it out,” she says, as a shopper behind tries but then gives up on getting to the wall of posters, obscured by the band.

After trying to encourage some movement from us but failing, she resorts to a more sedate song, the soulful ballad Love Like This.

“You like the slower ones don’t you?” she asks, rhetorically.

There’s a premature finale, Let Me Be, her next single out on January 27. A minute after saying goodbye, she’s back.

“We’re doing one more,” she laughs, but then realises the backing singer has disappeared into the shop.

The closing song is her best, Play Me, one that has drawn comparisons to Amy Winehouse, after which she announces a date at the Rescue Rooms for March 8, the end of a debut headline tour of the UK.

“It’s a weird environment, a little bit more conservative than what I’m used to,” says Harleighblu after.

“I had to work more because of that. People at my gigs are usually on it and well-oiled by the time I come on stage. But with this they seemed to prefer the slower songs.”

“I’ve very proud of her and I like the new set up,” says Harleighblu’s mum, Diane Low, 45, from Grantham, who was there with grandma, Helen Low, 73.

“It’s my kind of music because it comes from her growing up listening to all of my vinyl, people like Isaac Hayes, Aretha Franklin and Marlena Shaw. So it’s beautiful to my ears.”

Mike Atkinson, 51, from The Park saw her at Nottingham Contemporary.

“That was a really big, full sound and this was stripped down and more acoustic. But it shows just how string her songs are that they can be stripped right back to the bare bones and still come through.

“And it was nice to see her relaxed in front of her hometown crowd,” he adds.

“I thought she worked the crowd really well,” says Beth Frisby, 20, from The Arboretum.

“It’s quite a formal setting but she warmed everyone up.”

Rob Maddison, 39, from Sherwood, is a member of local bands Spaceships Are Cool and Yunioshi.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen her with the laptop backing and I thought it was fantastic,” he says.

He’s played similar shows in France where Spaceship Are Cool have a record deal.

“We’ve done shops in Paris and one of them was smaller than the Music Exchange. So, yeah we’d play HMV.”

“It went really well and I’m pleased with the turn-out,” says the store’s social media manager Zoe East who organises the weekly gigs.

“It’s tricky doing it at 4pm because people are still at work so I was happy with the numbers.”

She adds: “We’ve had quite a few people come in store asking about playing.”

Next week it’s Josh Wheatley, with the likes of Oscar Speed, Josh Kemp and Georgia Rose to follow in the coming weeks.

For more about HMV Live follow @HMVNottingham on Twitter.

Harleighblu

July 19, 2013

IT feels like she’s been on the Nottingham music scene for years and yet Harleighblu is still only 21.

She started early: “I was in gospel choirs from being quite little,” says the music student, who lives in Carrington.

“And I entered singing competitions all over the country, winning vouchers to buy equipment. A karaoke machine was one do the first things I bought because there was a recording setting on it,” she laughs.

Although she moved all over the country with her mum’s job – a Toni & Guy hair stylist – Harls (you can call her that, go on) has spent most of her life here.

“It was my mum’s passion for rare groove, soul and R&B that got me interested in that kind of music. Even when I was at school I wouldn’t listen to anything else. My school friends were listening to Britney Spears or Busted while I was listening to Lauryn Hill and Jill Scott.”

Those influences remain despite many describing her next single, Play Me, as sounding like Amy Winehouse.

“It’s definitely a good thing as she’s amazing but it’s just a coincidence that Play Me sounds that way. The last track I had out, Enough Now, everyone said sounded like Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Lauryn Hill and Floertry. And that is what I listen to more than Amy. But it’s a massive compliment.”

She describes her music as hip-hop soul: “It’s beat driven with a soulful edge.”

Harls signed to Tru-Thoughts in December and has since been played on 1Xtra, 6Music and Radio 1. Play Me will be released on July 29 with the debut album due in October, after which she’ll tour the UK, France and the US.

Which means she is unlikely to finish her music studies at NCN.

How she manages to get to college is a mystery as she often stays up until the early hours writing music.

“I get the most creative in the middle of the night. I don’t know why,” she admits.

Harleighblu will be on the Courtyard Stage with a band slimmed down to a five-piece.

“I’m looking forward to seeing Jake because the last time was when he was about 16,” she says.

“He was amazing. Off stage, he was a typical Nottingham lad but when he was singing it impressed me so much! No one had done Bob Dylan since Bob Dylan and Jake added his own twist.

“I’m looking forward to seeing Georgie Rose as well and Joel Baker because they’re both amazing. And no, they’re not friends of mine before you start...”