NATASHA WATTS - NEXT LEVEL: HEADLINING ICE IGLOOS CONCERTS

Natasha Watts: “I love to travel. I’ve been to 49 countries. I’d really like to get to hundred countries in my life. I’ve been to Norway and I’ve been to Sweden, but I’ve not quite reached out to Finland. There are ice igloos in northern Finland, where I’d really love to go and stay, because there you can also see the northern lights.”

Considering that Natasha has a huge fan base in Japan and especially Japanese tourists love those ice igloos, so why not combine the two matters and organize an ice igloos concert for Japanese soul music fans in Lapland? It can be house music as well. Promoters, take note!

Natasha has been active on the music scene ever since the early 1990s. She has written over 300 songs, has released dozens and dozens tracks and scored a respectable number of hits, both in soul and house music genres. Some of her more soulful deliveries are highly emotional and impassioned, so you can freely add Natasha to the list of great UK-based female soul artists, such as Dusty Springfield, Lisa Stansfield, Sade, Ruby Turner, Joss Stone, Mica Paris, Amy Winehouse and Caron Wheeler, to name a few.

MUSIC IS MY LIFE

Natasha’s latest album entitled Music Is My Life was released on March 24, 2023, on NW. “NW is completely independent, so I don’t have a record label per se, but I put it out through my company, Natasha Watts Music Limited. The album was recorded in London, Wales and Marbella.” The music is released also on a cassette tape, which is a USB stick, and on vinyl and digital later this year.

The opener, I Am Me, is a soft song with a “woodpecker” beat, and it was produced, arranged and composed by Dave Doyle, a renowned UK producer and DJ, who has earlier worked with Jody Watley and Incognito, among others - not to mention Gloria Gaynor and Samantha Fox. Natasha co-wrote the lyrics with Dave. Natasha: “I have written every single song on every single one of my albums. I Am Me is my favourite on the set, because it’s powerful, it’s personal and it’s where I am in my life right now. I think it encapsulates everything I want to be. It will definitely be a single and I’m doing a nice video to that one.”

We’ll meet Dave still later on a dancer called R U Ready, which is the most contemporary track on set. “It’s got a good groove to it. You can play it in a club and have fun on the dance floor.”

A multi-instrumentalist named Ziggy Funk hails from London and he produced, arranged and composed both a stepper called Home and the fast and sharp Not What You Think with a “zigzaggy” beat. Natasha wrote the lyrics to both songs. “Home is a great, feelgood song. It gets you going on the dance floor. It’s about family, so it means a lot. Not What You Think has a good message. It’s got a lot of sass, and it’s very attitudy.”

The third Ziggy collaboration is Heaven Sent, a smooth and laid-back siren call. “This is a love song. It’s a sexy song. It’s a song about finally finding the person that is going to be your everything; literally sent from heaven.”

Natasha co-wrote the lyrics with Nick Cohen to the mellow and easily flowing Part of My Life. “It’s a song about friendship. I wrote that song about my friend and what she means to me.” Natasha is backed by a rhythm section consisting of Tony Remy on guitar, Nick Cohen on bass, Nick Gilmore on piano, Andy Gangadeen on drums, Carl Vanden Bossche on percussion, and also Elizabeth Troy on background vocals.

I DO, I DID, I’M DONE

Three tracks are created by the collective of Natasha, Mike Patto and Toni Economides. Mike and Toni produced and composed the songs – Natasha naturally wrote the lyrics – Mike plays keys, Tony Remy is on guitar and Julian Crampton on bass. Natasha: “I’ve worked with Mike Patto and Toni Economides for some time. The song Right the Wrong is about basically asking for forgiveness. I think that’s a quite relatable song also, and musically it’s got a great groove.”

The second collaboration, a hooky and sprightly dancer called Brighter Days was released as the first single. “Brighter Days is a song of hope and of understanding that the brighter days will come. Things will get better. You have to continue to hold on to hope.”

The third track, the positive Feels Like Sunshine, is again upbeat and it has a Latin fiesta feeling to it. “It’s about a woman, who has fallen in love and the man makes her feel so special and so unique that she ‘feels like sunshine.’”

The concluding song named Goodbye leaves you almost in euphoric state. This beautiful and touching ballad was composed by Carl Utbult out of Malmö in Sweden and here Natasha is backed by the Japanese Hundred Birds Orchestra. “It’s a 16-piece string orchestra. I had worked with them, so they recorded the track for me in Osaka. I wrote the song eleven years ago, and I kept it for me. Nobody else has recorded this song. The song originally was going to be for Deanna Lewis, but her team never took it. I listened to it maybe two years ago and thought that I’m going to sing it, and I’m so pleased I did, because it’s such a beautiful song.”

FROM HAMPSHIRE TO THE WEST WALES SEASIDE RESORT

Natasha, who turns 46 on August the 6th, was born in Basingstoke, Hampshire, 87 km southwest drive from London. “Basingstoke was very nice. I had a multicultural family, because my mother is white and my father is black” (roots in Jamaica). “I grew up in a predominantly suburban town, where still in the 70s and 80s there was interesting stuff going on. I have a really wonderful memory of my childhood. We didn’t have a lock. It wasn’t mandatory. I grew up with a lot of love, and I was surrounded by family, which was very close. We always had food, clothes and warmth. And we loved music, so my childhood was a very good experience.”

Natasha is the only one in the family that is involved in music. “My dad was a deejay. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, it wasn’t the nightlife that there is today, so a lot of people had to entertain themselves at home. People would come to our house, so I was always listening to music from a young age.”

Today Natasha lives close to the Wales Coast Path, in a small community called Llangrannog. “It’s been very idyllic calm and carefree being here. It’s very slow. I live surrounded by fields. It’s beautiful. My husband Neil has a couple of companies in various trades – finance and house improvements. He’s always busy, and he also works from home, so we spend a lot of time together.”

“For me the biggest turning point was in 1985, when Whitney Houston released her first album. There had not really been anybody for me to look up to, so I really fell in love with Whitney Houston. Since then, my favourite singers to date are Gladys Knight – obviously touring with Gladys was wonderful for me. I got to spend a lot of time with her, I saw all her shows and I became a part of the team – also Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway, who is probably my favourite male singer. I love his vocals and there is so much depth to his son”

A-MAZE-D

Initially there were plans for Natasha to become a musical star, and therefore in youth she took dance lessons. “I was meant to be in the West End. I always wanted to do musicals, but then I was a little bit too short (laughing). I then changed and made myself into a recording star. I was trying to work in London and I met up with Robin Cave, who introduced me to a gentleman called Roame Lowrey, who was and still is one of the founding members of Frankie Beverly and Maze. They flew me out to the States and that’s where I decided that I wanted to sing more on the commercial lines, as opposed to doing the musical theatre. That’s when I changed the course and became more of a recording artist.”

Natasha travelled to the USA at the age of 16-17. “My parents let me make my own decisions and they believed in me from a young age. It was really nice that they let me do that, because it was a really good lesson for me.” There Natasha got the opportunity to perform in a humorous musical called He Say…She Say…But What Does God Say? Kirk Franklin was in the leading role, and in Texas Natasha was in the chorus for six months.

At one point Natasha was also close to signing a record deal. “I was working with David E. Talbert, who directed the He Say… musical. He introduced me to Michael Mauldin, who at the time was A&R for Columbia in New York. He’s the father of Jermaine Dupri. I come back home to England for a holiday, when we were in talks to sign a record deal. What happened? Unbeknownst to me, I was actually pregnant with my son, and I made the naïve mistake of telling the record label, so unfortunately I never got signed. But it was the right thing. My son Taylor is 27 this year. He’s a great guy. I lived up to my responsibilities.”

“I stopped doing music at 18 and I didn’t start again until I was 28-29. Then I lost my mom, when I was 30, and I started back in music, when I was 32. I returned back to America. I did numerous recordings and shows in 2010 and 2011, but that was more with my house music.”

IN THE HOUSE

Natasha’s very first recordings appear on Funkshone’s album called Shining, which was released on Skyline Records in 2008. She’s leading on four tracks: the big-voiced The Raw, the aggressive Deeper Love, the funky Droppin’ and the quick-tempo Wired. “It wasn’t really my project. I was a bit of a guest vocalist on there.”

The same year Natasha was the leading vocalist on Aaron Ross’s house track titled Time to Shine, which was motivated by the passing of her mother. Since 2010 she has worked with numerous artists and visited on their recordings, both in the U.K. and in the USA. Among those US contributions there are Look Inside by Hed Kandi (in 2012) and Back 2 U, produced by Rick Atari in Atlanta. The UK sides include Day by Day with Richard Earnshaw, Won’t Let Go, with Beat Rivals Lift Your Voice; plus Takes Me Higher and So High in 2015-16 and a recent one in 2021 called Time Will Never Stop with a Dutch DJ and producer by the name of Diephuis. The fast Live Your Life was recorded in Sicily, Italy, with Leo Lippolis. Other UK partners those days included Reel People, Speedometer and Yam Who? Add to that also Natasha’s Downtown Diva II EP from 2017 with such songs as Street Life and Touch Me. “Although they’re UK tracks, a lot of them went worldwide.”

As noted above, Natasha has increased her popularity not only in the more traditional soul field, but she’s a big name among house music fans as well. “I’ve had quite a lot of success with my house music, and I’ve done a lot of gigging for house music, because the club factor. I’ve flown all over the world to do house music – to Russia, Africa, Singapore, all over America, all over Europe, out to the Middle East – so it’s been very lucrative for me.” Actually, Natasha’s Best Of compilation in 2018 was a double CD, where the first 10-track disc was devoted to soul and the second 8-track disc to house music.

COOL MILLION

A special mention goes to Natasha’s 2011 cover of I’m In Love, a beautiful ballad originally sung by Sha-Lor in 1988. Next significant acquaintances in Natasha’s career were Rob Hardt from Germany and Frank Ryle from Denmark, collectively known as Cool Million. “I was introduced and recommended to them by the wonderful Kenny Thomas, who’s a UK soul singer. Rob and Frank were looking for singers for their projects.”

On Cool Million’s album titled Christmas at Sedsoul in 2010 they released Natasha’s mellow You & Me This Christmas and two years later the easily flowing Show Me, which turned into a sizeable hit. “On their German SedSoul label they released my first album, which did really well.”

Natasha’s eponymous album was released on Rob Hardt’s SedSoul label out of Bremerhaven, Germany, in February 2014. It contains mostly mid- and uptempo dance music, but among those twelve tracks there are also three downtempo songs: Go Slow, the melancholy So Done and the soft and melodic Tonite. “My favourites on the first CD are Good Love, Go Slow and Born to Be a Star.” Good Love is a finger-snapper, Go Slow a beat-ballad and the first single, Born to Be a Star, a bouncy mid-tempo beater. Another single release off the album was the bossa nova related Change. Eight out of the twelve tracks on display were produced by the Cool Million duo.

INSATIABLE

Natasha’s sophomore Sedsoul CD was released two years later and again there were many poppy dancers, but also four downtempo numbers – the smooth Lonely, the beaty Breath, the pretty Everything and the one to draw the biggest attention, Insatiable. “That was a huge hit. It was a duet with Omar.”

Mostly produced by Rob Hardt – “it was the same setup as with the first album, really good” – also Omar, Richard Earnshaw (Everything) and Dan Goldman (the poppy Easy Come Easy Go) contributed. One song that made its mark was a poppy dancer titled Love Who You Are. “Love Who You Are was an absolute, huge hit off that album – mostly in the U.K. and Europe, but it was very well received in Japan, too. I have a nice Japanese fan base. They ordered my albums on import and off of that I went to Japan and now I’ve done numerous shows over there. The whole album really was successful, and I’m really proud of it.”

The third studio album was titled My Next Chapter, and this ten-track set was a self-released item in 2018. Recorded in different UK studios, besides hooky dancers, house beat tracks and smooth movers there’s also a bossa nova type of a song called Talk to Me, a mid-tempo jazzy number titled Only You and a mellow reggae bouncer named Baby. Natasha’s light dancer called I Do, I Did, I’m Done appears here for the first time. The name Richard Earnshaw features here again on the production side, along with five other gentlemen. “They’re mixture of Americans and English.”

“This was my first independent album. I like My Next Chapter, but it definitely wasn’t my best work. I rushed it. It’s not really fitting anything particular. I don’t think there was a conclusive sound through it. I probably should have taken a little bit more time, but it was still well-received. However, for me everything was built leading up to this Music Is My Life album, I think.”

SINGING WITH BIRDS IN OSAKA

Natasha’s popularity in Japan led to the creation of a fine album called Live in Osaka. Natasha is backed by a 35-piece Hundred Birds Orchestra, so - to say the least – the sound is rich and there are many fascinating solos on these thirteen tracks.

“It was a spectacular album. It was released in Japan by Universal, and it did really well. We had a wonderful experience with orchestra. We did two shows at the Billboard Live, and I’m hoping to get back to Japan this year.”

Besides her own hit songs (see the discography below), Natasha also does a few covers. Loleatta Holloway released with the Salsoul Orchestra a disco record called Run Away in 1977. “It was the orchestra that chose the covers, because they knew what they wanted to do. I went back the second time to Japan, and I did a Salsoul concert, and I did Loleatta Holloway a couple of times, because she was a big part of Salsoul.”

The slow and meditating Whenever You’re Around is a Jill Scott song from 2008. “I’m a big fan of Jill Scott.” In the four-song medley the last one is Thelma Houston’s recording in 1996, All of That, and the CD finishes off with Randy Crawford’s and the Crusaders’ crowd-pleasing jam, Street Life.

One song in the middle of the concert called Reach Up is a quick-tempo, storming number. “This is actually my song from 2008. It was released under the name of The West District Allstars featuring Natasha Watts. It was actually one of the first songs that I wrote. I love Reach Up.” Written by Natasha and composed by Danny Lewis, the song was released on Enzyme Records.

Besides performing and recording, Natasha has also taken to the airwaves. She had a weekly radio show on BBC Radio Berkshire. “That was in 2017-18. It was a 3-hour radio show every Thursday, and I had live guests. It was contracted for one year.”

“Next I would love to go on a worldwide tour – gigging in Europe, maybe go to America, depart for Asia, maybe come up to Scandinavia… I love touring and I love singing live. Singing live for me is my passion. It’s my addiction. It’s all that makes me happy. As long as I can keep singing, I will continue to stay happy.”

ALBUM DISCOGRAPHY

NATASHA WATTS (Sed Soul, SED 00062) 2014

Born To Be A Star / Change / Go Slow / Stars / Good Love / Hold Up / Worth / So Done / Skywards / Leave / Tonite / Shine

2nd TIME AROUND (Sedsoul, SED 1503) 2016

Waited For You / Let Go / Insatiable / Love Who You Are / Hit The Spot / Make It / Lonely / Easy Come Easy Go / Breath / Everything

MY NEXT CHAPTER (NW) 2018

I Do, I Did, I’m Done / It’s All Good / Enjoy Yourself / L.O.V.E. / Out Of My Mind / Talk To Me / Special Day / Fly Away / Only You / Baby

THE BEST OF NATASHA WATTS (NW) 2018

Waited For You / Stars / Born A Star / Hit The Spot / Insatiable / Love Who You Are / Let Go / Hold Up / Breath / Go Slow //

Good Love / Reach Up / Oh Yeah / Time 2 Shine / Light Up The Sky / I Know / Everything / Won’t Let Go

LIVE IN OSAKA – A HUNDRED BIRDS feat. NATASHA WATTS (Universal) 2019

Only You / Enjoy Yourself / Good Love / I Do, I Did, I’m Done / Runaway / Talk To Me / Reach Up / Whenever You’re Around / Baby / Special Day / Medley: Won’t Let Go & Everything & Out Of My Mind & All Of That / Love Who You Are / Street Life

MUSIC IS MY LIFE (NW) 2023

I Am Me / Home / Not What You Think / Part Of My Life / Heaven Sent / I Do, I Did, I’m Done / Right The Wrong / Brighter Days / R U Ready / Feels Like Sunshine / Goodbye

https://natashawattsmusic.com/

(Interview conducted on March 29, 2023; acknowledgements to Natasha Watts and Steve Ripley).

© Heikki Suosalo