How Collette Cooper got the blues - Rye date

“Blues is the music I was brought up on. My dad introduced me to the really great artists growing up, people like Bessie Smith, a massive influence of mine. She goes way, way back but my dad introduced me to her music when I was a little girl. She is just fantastic. She was just so gritty and so raw and so real and so powerful and she really tells a good story. I just fell in love with her voice and her persona. My dad was always a fan of the blues and I think when you're a fan of the blues, you always want to know how it all came about and you want to know the history of it. I come from Irish roots as well and we've got a lot to sing about in that respect. And I'm from Manchester and working class and there's a lot to sing about there as well!

“So I started listening to all these great artists like Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Nina Simone and Billie Holiday. I loved all those guys and I used to busk in the streets with my friend to earn a little bit of cash. I am an actor. That's what I always really wanted to do but I've always loved music. But I never really thought about my voice even though I was always around music when I was growing up and my dad bought me keyboards when I was nine. But I suppose I just took it for granted. It was the acting that I wanted to do and I still act. I still work as an actor but now I do both. I've just finished a play which I did for three months in which I was playing Janis Joplin which was a great role to play. So yes, I will always be an actor. But the music just really started in between jobs. In between jobs I would sing a bit to earn a bit of money and I just ended up thinking that I was meant to do more with music than just treat it in such a flippant way. I wanted to write music and that's really how I started and now I'm just trying to balance the two. When I'm acting I’m acting and when I'm singing I'm singing but really it's all under the same umbrella.

“I have done three albums and I'm in the process of making another album. I'm just taking it slowly. The majority of it will be my own compositions. I do love singing other people's work but I just prefer doing my own because if you mess it up then nobody knows! Basically there is the old saying that you write what you know about and so I suppose I try to draw on my own experiences but sometimes I draw on other peoples. I just try to make it real. The blues is about telling a story. It's about touching on the emotions and relating to people. I think the blues could save the majority of the world! It's relating to the issues of everyday life like love and money and heartache and that's the kind of thing you sing about. People can relate to that because everybody has experienced heartache at some point in their lives but I also tried to do some comedy twists to it as well so that it is not all sad!”