Interview: Singer Cleveland Watkiss brings his Jamaican songbook to Cambridge
Born in London to Jamaican parents, Cleveland Watkiss revisits some of the music he grew up listening to on his latest album, The Great Jamaican Songbook. He is currently touring the album and will be coming to Cambridge later this month.
Hailed as the “best male jazz singer in Britain” by the Evening Standard, Cleveland Watkiss, who also works as a singing teacher, has gone back to his roots for his latest album and tour. Speaking to the Cambridge Independent from his home “just around the corner from Stansted Airport”, the singer says there may well be a ‘volume two’ of his Great Jamaican Songbook project.
“I think so,” he states, noting that a second volume might help when it comes to people asking, “Why these songs and not these ones?” – “but yeah, I think there’ll probably be another volume or two. We’ll see.”
You’re never going to please everyone when it comes to song selection, sadly... “I think artists have a duty to please themselves first,” suggests Cleveland, 62. “You have to believe in what you’re doing and know why you’re doing what you’re doing for yourself first.”
On the album, Cleveland covers tracks by iconic Jamaican reggae artists such as Gregory Isaacs, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Delroy Wilson, Dennis Brown, and Burning Spear. “Each song has an association with the period where I was at the particular time I heard it,” he explains, adding that for him the “golden period” for this type of music is the 1970s (that said, he does listen to a lot of modern Jamaican sounds too).
“I grew up listening to that music and it was my first real inspiration as a young singer and writer, and being of Caribbean heritage as well – just the immediacy of that music that was around at the time, with the sound system culture as well that I grew up around. And I still love it today.”
On what the Cambridge audience can expect, Cleveland – made an MBE in the 2018 New Year Honours for his services to music – says: “It’s very specific; it’s all of the music from the album – and some.
“We have an extended setlist so there will be some additional things that we’ll be playing: some ska things, dub... and some other artists that are not featured on the album as well. So it’s exciting, it’s a celebration of this fantastic period of music and songs, and artists that gave so much to the world.”
Does Cleveland make it over regularly to Jamaica, the land of his forebears? “I don’t,” he says. “I’ve been there once – and sadly I haven’t been back. It’s just circumstances that have prevented me from going back, but I do intend to.”
He continues: “It’s quite weird because when I did go – I went in I think it was ‘91 with my parents and some of my family and siblings – it was nothing like I ever imagined! I was in a whole other world, thinking that my parents being from the culture, born and raised there, that I would fit in.
“But you don’t, it’s a whole other world... Just the way you talk, the way you walk, the way you do everything. It’s quite a revelation and an eye-opener to see and experience that, because you’re a foreigner.”
An influential figure in UK music and winner of the 2021 Ivors Composer Award for Innovation, Cleveland Watkiss’ impact is felt across a range of genres. In jazz, he is known as the co-founder of the popular Jazz Warriors big band, as well as his work with the pianist and composer Julian Joseph and as a respected solo artist, regularly performing at leading venues both in the UK and abroad.
As a drum and bass vocalist and MC, he became the voice of Goldie’s Metalheadz label nights, a relationship that would lead to residencies at some of the world’s top dance music events – not to mention his work alongside US drum innovator Marque “the innamost” Gilmore and cut master DJ La Rouge, as a key member of the first live drum and bass band, Project 23.
Cleveland has also collaborated with some very well-known figures in the music industry, including Stevie Wonder, Nigel Kennedy, Sly & Robbie, Robbie Williams, the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, Joe Cocker, The Who, George Martin, Lisa Stansfield, Courtney Pine, Maxi Priest, Soul II Soul, and Björk.
[Read more: US ‘outsider’ Annie Dressner to play adopted hometown of Cambridge, Classical pianist Alexis Ffrench to address Wolfson College, Cambridge]
He finds it difficult to say which of these pairings he has enjoyed the most. “They were all memorable in different ways,” he says, “I just feel so honoured and privileged to work with such an array of musicians and artists from across all different genres – it’s all been valuable to me.
“But yeah, I guess being in the studio with Stevie Wonder while he was finishing composing a song was just... I still slap myself, like did it really happen? I remember when the record was about to be released queuing up outside Virgin Megastore, when I found out when the album was going to be released, and I remember going in the store, grabbing the album, tearing the cover off and I saw my name on there.
“I was like, ‘OK, I can stop slapping myself now, it really did happen – here’s the evidence!’”
Cleveland Watkiss will be appearing at the Cambridge Junction (J2) next Thursday (September 22). For tickets, visit junction.co.uk. For more on Cleveland, visit clevelandwatkiss.co.uk.
