because pretty much everyone in every culture knows that song. It’s also a good tune for testing singers: there’s a tricky interval, a fifth, in the melody, and if somebody couldn’t manage that, then I knew that they would struggle in the choir.
I had my bellyful of Mariah Carey-style R&B singing. That style of singing uses a tone that I have worked hard to avoid both in my own singing and when working with young people. I feel it is all too often the facsimile of emotion, a sham, effectively saying, ‘Listen to me, everybody, look how emotional I’m feeling.’ Ghastly. From a vocal point of view the auditionees were using their noses as a kind of resonator and had a collection of vocal tics and burps that were carried off with considerably more panache by Whitney Houston (RIP). This style works for Mariah Carey because when it comes to the big notes, she can deliver; there is muscular support there, there’s an actual sound. But when it is adopted by 13- and 14-year olds, it can sound like foxes mating.
I followed that up with an ear test, playing them a few notes for them to sing back to me. This instantly sorted the wheat from the chaff. Unsurprisingly, some of the students found this to be impossible. I managed to contain my exasperation as many of them valiantly, but ultimately unsuccessfully, tackled some tricky intervals. I gave each of them a score out of ten, and if they were below a seven, there was no way I could have them in the choir. Full stop. It came down to ability.
Sometimes it was a small difference, a dab of performance skill, that helped. Rhonda did a little dance while she sang ‘Tainted Love’ and that made her stand out for me when I was looking back through the 160 faces as ‘the girl who did the dance’. She remembers the audition as nerve-wracking. ‘I was terrified. I was shaking. You were laughing a bit, you did the note test, and then I went outside and had a quick panic attack.’
When I came out of the auditions I was worried about the boys, many of whom were struggling with the trauma of their voices changing (I much prefer ‘changing’ to ‘breaking – they don’t break, they just grow), and the fact that I didn’t have a single sixth-former out of a fairly reasonably-sized sixth form: not one. I don’t know whether that was my fault or their fault, but we struggled to reach that age group. On the other hand I was very confident about the quality of the girls’ voices. There was some real talent there. Clarion-voiced Lisa was a real turn-up and in a superb example of nominative determinism(had her parents had an inkling?), Melody Chege turned out to have a lovely melodic voice. Even so, in my selected 30 for the choir of 25 plus 5 reserves, I only had 19 definites and 11 maybes.
Quite soon after gathering the choir together to start work (it was my Fame moment: ‘This is where the real audition begins!’), I hit a problem. I wanted to include a girl called Chelsea Campbell in the choir, but she was in the middle of what they call in educational circles a ‘managed move’, which meant she was being relocated to another school. Nobody would say why but I assume she’d been in trouble of some kind. Although I had not spent more than five minutes with her, the moment when the head told me she couldn’t be in the choir was included in the documentary.
After the programme aired I received a bunch of letters stating that it was unfair and that I should have fought harder with Chris Modi for her inclusion, but it wasn’t as if I was pre-warned, ‘Go in there and fight for Chelsea’ – Chris said no and I had to respect his decision. The letters all said ‘how wrong the school was’, but in fact as far as the school was concerned it was quite a minor administrative decision: she doesn’t go to this school any more, so she can’t be in the choir. Although it might have appeared unjust, that was the reality. Chelsea had a rough couple of years at Northolt and it was time for her to move on. Goodness knows what running the choir would have been like if she had stayed, because she was very feisty; she had it written all over her face. At least I had a choir. I can’t say I was leaping about with joy. I had some great singers and some concerns, but although the choir was imperfect, I could start rehearsals with them.
We began with a bump. From the very first scales I could hear some distinctly unpleasant noises akin to a vacuum cleaner being started up or the braying of a clearly unwell donkey. Nevertheless I was resolutely chirpy: I would make this group sing if it killed me.
In order to enter the World Choir Games each choir has to submit a recording as well as the repertoire for the final performance. I was taking a risk since the choir had been together for only a few weeks. Normally I would not have submitted a repertoire until I knew what they sounded like – how can you tell what an imaginary choir will be able to achieve? I certainly didn’t know what sound I would ultimately be able to draw from the Northolt High School choir. I hoped it wouldn’t be the sick donkey one. Also, I would never generally make a recording until the choir had been properly rehearsed, so we were ridiculously unprepared for what came next.
After only a few sessions with the choir, I took them down to a local recording studio in Chiswick to make a CD. We had a limited amount of time, about an hour or so, to record ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’ from The Lion King. It was one of my first times in a recording studio, so I was learning the ins and outs of the technique while the kids thought they’d hit the big time and were buzzing about finding themselves in a studio.
Early in our development though this was, we didn’t have a choice because the submission had to go in around the Christmas holidays. I was spooked by this and so was really determined to make the recording as good as we possibly could despite time being against us. However, I couldn’t work miracles. Some of the singers hadn’t yet learnt the notes.
For me a particular low point was when I asked Raul, one of the less confident singers, not to sing on one of the takes. I was caught between wanting to create a recording that would get us into the World Choir Games and appearing heavy-handed and insensitive to a boy who was doubtless trying his best. The fact was that Raul was brilliantly keen and had positioned himself right in front of the microphone. He was bellowing. And it wasn’t sounding great. I knew it, the choir knew it and the recording engineer told me that it was obliterating the sound of the rest of the basses and tenors. I tried moving him back a little. That didn’t work (I could still hear him). I made a snap decision, which I regretted later: I asked him not to sing.
I learnt a valuable lesson from this moment. There is a balance to be struck between artistic ideals and educational motivation. I got it wrong that day. That is, of course, what I feared: that my mistakes would be highlighted on BBC Two and as I watched myself back months later I cursed the decision and hoped that the public and Raul would forgive me.
Would I do the same today? I hope I would have found a better way to ask him, perhaps more sensitively suggesting that he sing more quietly because his ‘powerful voice’ was cutting through or some other way of sugaring the pill. So do I regret asking Raul to pipe down? Yes.
To his immeasurable credit Raul bowed out of the take and we got something down that was passably in tune. In retrospect, most of the singers were shouting, but they had very little experience of singing, a lack which was matched only by my own inexperience of the situation.
This was a moment that I reflected on for months and which I believe gave rise to my working method for series two: Boys Don’t Sing … but I’m getting ahead of myself.
After we had finished singing, we went into the control booth to listen to the playback. This is always an amazing moment. Ashley, one of the younger girls who had a feisty attitude and a neat turn of phrase, turned to me with a look of shock on her face and said, ‘You can hear everything …’. She was horrified because she had thought, as many people do, that there was ‘studio magic’ that would suddenly make them sound good.
It was their first experience of hearing themselves singing. They were quite shocked that all the sections that were rough around the edges could be heard. They had had enough rehearsals to know the music and wanted to get it right, so they were alarmed when it didn’t sound absolutely perfect.
I don’t think they were all that impressed with the CD (I know I wasn’t), although Rhonda played it to her mum, who cried buckets when she heard it. Bless her for that. For Rhonda the recording studio was the moment that changed things. ‘We hadn’t really bonded with anyone else in the group. We knew people, but