Fresh from their highly acclaimed, sold-out Woman To Woman tour with fellow artistes Julia Fordham and Rumer, trailblazing British singer-songwriters Beverley Craven & Judie Tzuke will again team up to play a new 14-date UK tour this autumn, with Beverley confirming that these are to be her final farewell live shows. Buy tickets here.

Performing with the Gabriella Swallow String Quartet, this intimate new Strings Attached acoustic show (proudly presented by RLN Music) will feature songs and stories spanning their entire groundbreaking careers.

Brit Award winner Beverley Craven first shot to fame in 1991 with her eponymously-titled debut album featuring the hit singles “Holding On”, “Woman To Woman” and the eternal classic, “Promise Me”.

This tour will not only be special because it’s Beverley Craven’s last tour but for many other reasons too. Rarely do we get to attend a concert that has something as special as a string quartet and The Gabriella Swallow String Quartet will bring an incredibly beautiful spin on the music of Craven and Tzuke.

For Craven, this will be a beautiful way to say goodbye to touring and we can’t think of a better send off. Another great reason to attend this tour is for the incredible or should I say Unsinkable (title of new record coming in October) Judie Tzuke.

Judie Tzuke first came to prominence in 1979, signing to Elton John’s Rocket Record Company and scored a worldwide Top 20 smash hit with her timeless classic “Stay With Me Till Dawn” and her critically acclaimed album ‘Welcome To The Cruise’. She will release a new 23rd studio album, ‘Jude The Unsinkable,’ in October 2023 (with copies on-sale at these autumn shows). The forthcoming album’s lead track ‘Keeper Of The Sun’ boasts a string arrangement written by Beverley and will be performed live during these Strings Attached shows

Craven and Tzuke are a great touring duo – they are witty, down to earth and their shows are so wonderfully intimate and laid back! Beautiful vocalists, together with the Garbriella Swallows String Quartet, this tour is definitely one ‘not to miss’ and will be one fans will treasure memories of for years to come. As stated above, this is Beverley Cravens last tour, so this opportunity will not come around again. Many times have I regretted not attending a show and then missing out forever, so if there is a possibility you can go and you’re maybe hanging on a simple ‘should I, shouldn’t I? ‘ Then take it from us, you should!

I caught up with Beverley to discuss this final tour. Beverley was wonderful to speak with. For me, it was extra special as her debut album was one of the first, if not the first CD that I ever owned. They say not to meet your heroes, but Beverley was like speaking to someone I had known for years, like catching up with an Auntie. We spoke on personal topics which aren’t part of the interview and of course on the Strings Attached tour. We also spoke of the Woman to Woman tour which we attended in Northampton. On this particular night, her sister was in attendance and her mother was also meant to be there. Unfortunately, due to cancer related sickness, her mother was unable to attend. This sadly made it near impossible for Beverley to sing Promise Me as she became too emotional after the first line. As emotional as the moment was, the whole audience and those on the stage such as Julie Fordham and Judie Tzuke all came together in this moment to sing the song for Beverley. That moment of unity showed just how supported and loved she is and I truly hope she knows that!

I hope you enjoy our interview!

Hello Beverley – how are you?

Yeah, I’m pretty good thanks, doing a lot of sorting, I’m in the mood for sorting.

Are you all prepared for the tour? It starts at the end of the month…

Yes!

Time flies doesn’t it?

It does and then the agent sent through a list of how tickets are doing and I was pleasantly shocked! I thought, wow, that’s great! There’s a lot that are limited now and I think one has sold out. We rehearse on the 16th with the string players. They are so quick, we only need one rehearsal! They kind of know the songs anyway because months and months ago they did a one off gig with me and Jude. You know what classical players are like, you just put one dot in front of them, their sight reading is ridiculously good. You almost run through a song for the first time and you go “yeah, that was good haha, didn’t really need to rehearse”. They are gorgeous players. Even when they are warming up backstage just tuning up and running through a few scales and stuff it’s ridiculous. I just feel very very lucky that they doing this because it was just a win!

About two or three years ago, just before lockdown happened, I thought “what do I really fancy doing? What do I really want to do?” And then I thought “yeah, I want to go out with a string quartet”. I didn’t know if it was possible financially or how I would go about finding the players but I made a few calls and Gabriella Swallows name came up several times from different people, different musicians who had worked with her. So I started with her and she said “yeah, I can get a string quartet together”. So, all girls and they said to me “what shall we wear?” Because they are so used to wearing black and melting into the background and I said “no no! Wear something glamorous and even go sexy in heels and sparkles, you’ve got to look great!”. We play dress up before we go on!

Ooh, well I am coming to the tour so I will have to dress up too!

Oh absolutely! Isn’t it lovely though to have an event, an occasion where you can push the boat out just a little bit!

I agree, it doesn’t happen often enough now, even at the theatre, people always dressed up but not so much anymore!

Yes! That’s right, it was an event wasn’t it? You would put your sparkles on! Yeah! Jude is very “rock-hippy” that’s her style and then I am thinking if the girls (quartet) are going to be sparkly and sexy and lovely then I might go a bit more masculine, a bit more of a suit, just so that there’s a different look on stage. I am still opening my wardrobe and thinking “what the hell am I going to wear?”.

I can’t wait for the show, I have to tell you that your debut album was either one of the first, if not the first CD’s I ever bought.

You’re kidding? Oh I’m so chuffed about that!

It’s lovely to look back on it and remember that I was about ten years old chanting Promise Me loudly when my friends were all maybe singing New Kids On The Block or whoever was out back then!

Oh fantastic! That’s put a big smile on my face, how lovely!

I think Memories has always been my favourite!

Oh, well I will be doing both of those songs at the gig (Promise Me and Memories).

Oh good! I came to see your Woman to Woman Tour in Northampton too!

Oh dear, that was the one where I booed (cried) on stage wasn’t it?

Do you know what though, I found that was a very emotional and beautiful moment of unity because everybody came together for you. Whilst it wasn’t very pleasant for you, it showed how much support you had!

It was totally unexpected. Mum would have been at that gig because it was where my sister lived, where she still does live actually but she was going through Cancer at the time and she passed away just after Christmas.

I’m so sorry!

Yeah, it’s a big one when you lose your mum! It kind of shocks you because it’s what they symbolise as well. I felt like I was coping at the time and I knew how much she wanted to be there because she likes to go to every show! That might be one of the reasons why I have decided to knock it on the head (touring). I think in hindsight, I was carrying on touring because I knew how much mum liked to go to the gigs. I knew that it would break her heart if I said “actually mum, I’m not going to do it anymore”. So maybe the fact that she’s not here has been another reason why I’m kind of like “yeah, I think it’s time to stop now”. There’s lots of reasons really, there’s a long list of reasons why, not least of which is my age. I have to pace myself now, touring is exhausting! Especially the way I have done it which is to pack up the car myself, drive myself, set out all my merchandise, do the shows, sell it afterwards, pack up the car and drive all the way home and then I am exhausted for two days afterwards! It’s a young persons game touring I think!

Yeah, I can understand that! I love the fact that you sell your own merchandise because for us fans, it’s a big part of the experience! It rarely happens now even with smaller shows. But getting to meet the artist and buying the merchandise direct is highly memorable! Those moments, you don’t forget as fans!

Aww! Yes, I did it for many years. A lot of years of hard slog. Julia Fordham calls it “being at the coal face” and it really is a slog. We have all done it which is why I came up with the idea of the Woman to Woman tour. Our agent was booking us all our own individual gigs on the small clubs and art centres circuit where you’re playing to a maximum of 200 maybe 300 people a night and I said “look, instead of booking us all individually, why don’t we just get a five piece band for all of us and the three of us (Beverley, Judie Tzuke and Julia Fordham) go out together, you can book bigger venues, it will be more of an attraction because we will have all of our own fans plus people who are coming who wouldn’t see all of us individually.

I thought it was tick tick tick, it works on so many levels. His initial response was absolutely not! I think he thought that three divas would be a nightmare to deal with! Which we weren’t! We were thoroughly respectful of each other and very grateful to be back playing the sort of venues that we played in our hay day! It was nice to connect with women too who had trodden the same career path as you and have the same kind of experiences and then obviously sharing the nerves backstage as well. I am not saying it wasn’t fought with difficulty as well because once you’re playing bigger venues, all of the outlay goes up as well. They cost a lot to put on those shows and we funded them all ourselves. These Strings Attached shows that I am doing with Jude, are relatively straightforward. It’s just going to be a lovely evening of classical pop and it will be very up close and personal. I know ‘intimate evening’ is often used to describe gigs but it really is. I know that Jude is looking forward to it as much as I.

I long for shows like this because, well I’m not going to lie, I do like to sit down at a gig now haha. But just to sit down and be quiet and enjoy the music, every note! I rarely get to go to these kind of shows anymore and I can’t wait!

What is it like going on tour with Judie? Any tour traditions? Do you have a rider?

No we don’t really have a rider, we kind of bring our own stuff. Sometimes we will go out to eat beforehand but it’s a case of whether you have time between soundcheck and showtime in case there are any issues to sort out. For instance, we’ve got a Viola player who can’t do two gigs so we’ve got a dep coming in so obviously the sound check for those gigs are going to be used up just running through the trickier songs for her. We will have to sort out when we are going to eat on those particular shows.

Well I hope you get a chance as I know you have said before that you hope to avoid only having service station sandwiches on tour. Thank you so much for talking today, it’s been such an honour and I can’t wait for the tour!

Thank you Hannah!