tuesday, October 7, 1980
daily nebraskan
page 9
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Photo by Mark Billingsley
Singer Judie Tzuke defies
attempts to label her style
By Casey McCabe
For an English artist looking to make an
impression on an American crowd, opening
a show for Elton John is testing the waters
in grand fashion.
Despite waht some would view as intim
idating circumsatnces, Judis Tzuke (pro
nounced zook") is taking it all in com
fortable stride. With two albums under her
belt, the attractive 24 year-old Londoner
has made a successful name for herself in
England where her debut album went
gold, while her latest effort, Sports Cary
is nearing the same status.
The notion that her music may fall un
familiar to most of the American ears
on this, her first U.S. tour, doesn't worry
Tzuke, and her relaxed stage presence
along with that of her six-piece band
reveals growing confidence in the mater
ial that has got them here.
"We've done very good in England, but
while I want to make it in America, I don't
think it makes any difference towards our
career in England," says Tzuke. "I like to
do America, it's like starting over here.
And I can't tell you how different the
audiences are here. In England when I
first started, I was playing to 500 people a
nigh, whereas here I start out with
15,000."
People pleasing
Tzuke speaks in a thick English accent,
which disappears in her crystalline, well
controlled voice. As the composer, along
with guitarist Mike Paxman, of all the ma
terial she sings, Tzuke is interested in
reaching more people with her work, but
not at the expense of compromising her
values, and submitting to labels.
"I don't have any labels," she says.
"And if anybody gives them to me, they
won't stick.
"I've been compared to just about
every woman singer in the world, and a
few men, and as long as they don't find
me as one particular woman, I'll know
none of them know what they're talking
anout."
The words she sings read almost more
poetically than they do lyrically, and in
deed it was an early involvement with
poetry that made Tzuke seek out musical
accompaniment.
"I was in a boarding school where I
didn't like many of the people and got
along with only one of the teachers and
no one else,' Tzuke said. "So I used to
write a diary. What I tried to do was write
a little poem about something that had
happened in the day, and it just grew into
writing more things about how I felt. I
started to teach myself guitar and started
putting the poems to music."
Music of experience
At 15 she met Paxman with whom she
has collaborated since. They have tried to
avoid any pretensions by 'Always keeping
the songs about things we feel, that we
really know about."
Her first album, Welcome To The
Cruise, was a surprising debut success in
England, but certain circumstances that
surrounded the record kept Tzuke from
giving it her full enthusiatic endorsement.
"I hated the production of the first
album, that's why we decided to produce
this last album (Sports Car) ourselves,"
explains Tzuke. "If you listen to the first
album you. will know what I mean, it was
totally overproduced.
"It was really difficult for me because
the album had done really well in England
and I had to go around the country pro
moting it where people kept saying to me
i really like the album, but I think it's
overproduced. What do you think?'. . . .
thinking I was going to argue.
"I had to decide whether to tell them
the truth and that I agreed with
them, which was then an insult to the
people who were buying the album, or not
say anything.
"In the end I decided to tell the truth. .
that it was overdone, which was
difficult," says Tzuke. "I was dying to get
my second album out which I could pro
mote and actually.
Though creative control is a highly
prized value for Tzuke, she and Paxman
will be handing over production chores
solely to percussionist Paul Muggleton on
the upcoming album tentatively entitled
The Flesh Is Weak and the Hearth Willing.
"Paul is doing the third one because we
found we really enjoyed doing production,
it was very difficult for Mike and I to be
objective about ourselves," she notes.
It is the sixth week of the tour with
Elton John and, according to Tzuke, ''It's
getting harder because we're getting tired
and I'm losing my voice slightly."
Tzuke cofiaberated with Elton on the
writing of Give Me The Love" off his lat
est album, and though part of his lavish
entourage for this ILS. tour, Tzuke does
not want to be cast under any shadow.
"It (the collaboration) happened on the
spur of the moment and has nothing to do
with my career," she says. "I have my own
career and he has his, I like him and he
likes me. But I'm separate. I like to think I
got here on my own."
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-Charlie Brown's creator is highlighted in "Charles
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-The comedy of Monty Python's John Cleese returns
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musical comedy, Anchors Aweigh, on the MGM Movies
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