Kazuo Ishiguro, 58 Moving to England from Nagasaki, Japan, at five years old, Ishiguro has become one of Englands most celebrated authors, receiving the Man Booker Prize for The Remains of the Day. His novel Never Let Me Go has also been turned into film. He lives in London with his wife Desert Island Discs brought us together. I was invited on the show, which is a terrifying thing to do, and I spent ages deciding on my eight tracks. I wanted to choose a jazz song – there are some great jazz musicians out there such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald etc, but I think that everyone responds to someone from their own era most. My favourite singer of this kind of material was Stacey Kent. Id been to one of her gigs in north London in 2002 and Id listened to her first two albums. There was something about the way Stacey interpreted those songs for this generation that I loved. I didnt think much about it after that until I got an email from her record company, saying that Stacey had read all my books and was thrilled that Id picked her, and would I be interested in writing the liner notes for her new album? I wanted to, so I sat down and wrote about why I liked Stacey for her album of Richard Rodgers material, In Love Again, which she did with her husband Jim. For a few years we knew one another, but we didnt socialise that much; she invited me and my wife Lorna to her gigs, and wed chat in her dressing-room and do occasional lunches. It was only in late 2006 where that changed. I got an email from Jim, her husband, producer and arranger of the band, who said: Weve come as far as we can with [the Great American Songbook] material, and we want to try working on new songs. They wanted me to try and write some lyrics. I dont know whether they knew, but songwriting was an old passion of mine. Earlier in my life Id been a singer-songwriter until I turned to fiction. So I was both excited and daunted at the idea, as Id not done any since I was 21. But I went to their house and the next phase of our friendship started. We sat down together and tried to figure out what a modern jazz song would be like. I remember our first discussion, with Stacey saying: Ive read your latest book, Never Let Me Go. Its really a depressing book. I hear this a lot but its not something that I experienced with it. Then she said, Sad songs are OK for me but... – and she held up her thumb and finger ...I need just a little bit of hope in these lyrics. Weve since bonded through our creative work and have became close friends. When I go over to hers for dinner now I usually play on one of the guitars lying around her house. In many ways, her approach as a singer is similar to my approach as a writer: when I hear her sing I feel she captures a sense of internality. Its the thing that draws me to her as a novelist, as Im used to working in the first person; listening to what someone is thinking to themselves, capturing the faltering hesitancy and little rushes of enthusiasm, and many great singers dont do that.
Posted on: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 13:04:43 +0000
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