Music

Julia loved music and loved being around musicians. She wrote songs and handed them out to musicians she knew and encouraged them to set them to music and often incorporated music in her plays.

Together with Tim Dalling she recorded the CD Rendezvous which intersperses six of Julia’s poems, read by her, with Tim’s settings of eleven of Julia’s poems. In accord with Julia’s enthusiasm for knitting, the initial run of 200 came in a hand-knitted CD cover. Unfortunately the CD is no longer available but Tim Dalling’s website includes a full track list and audio clips, including Julia reading How to Make a Curative Soup.

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The full poetry anthology Sudden Collapses in Public Places was made into a song cycle with musical arrangements by F, Neil Blenkinsop and Dave Scott. This was performed at the Sage Gateshead in 2004 with vocals by Zoe Lambert. The CD is still available to buy from New Writing North by clicking the link below.

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Julia had worked previously with Zoe and Dave on songs for the one woman show ‘Personal Belongings’. These memorable country flavoured songs accompanied passengers on the north bound train as the play rolled along from London to Newcastle.

In writing A Short Manifesto for a New City for Northern Stage Julia worked with Jim Kitson to create the songs that were central to this piece of theatre. Unfortunately there aren’t any recordings of the songs available.

In an interview with the Crack Magazine in 2003 Julia was asked about the band she was in called the Tulips:

‘Please don’t imagine that I can sing. The Tulips are a song writing group. I love writing songs and listening to people like Maggie Thacker or Zoe Lambert singing them. ..Our sound is… well a bit odd. It’s acoustic, with rather wordy songs, some of which are funny, like our hit about Wheelie Bins. We have a performing arm of musical people but in the background us tone deaf creative people are turning out peculiar songs ad finitum’.

The Tulips produced a CD called ‘The World of the Tulips’ which does feature Julia singing on some of the tracks. Fellow member of The Tulips Nicky Rushton recorded Apology for Absence with her band Mush on their CD ‘ In the Evening’.