News!

New name, new venue!

Diva! Are relaunching their singers’ night/ open mic/ jam session/ whatever.

We’ve a new venue – The Royal George, 133 Charing Cross Road, WC2 0EA (two minutes’ walk from Tottenham Court Road tube, down a cul-de-sac named Goslett Yard by G-A-Y nightclub, almost opposite Denmark Street).

New name – An Evening with Diva! and Friends

And a new night – the last Friday of every month

As before we’ll be the House Band and provide full backline – drums, keyboards, bass and guitar amps and pa. The Diva!, Samantha Jean, will be your hostess most nights though sometimes it’ll be one of two other Divas sharing the honours with her – Kate Hayes and Kate Winter.

You can sing with us, play with us, sing on your own, tell jokes, eat fire, tap dance, whatever takes your fancy. We can manage most styles of music, jazz, disco, pop, blues, etc

It’s a nice boozer – real ale included, reasonably priced for where it is, food to 9:00pm.

Our gala Opening Night on Friday January 29 will be free and all three of our lovely Divas will be there to entertain you and make you feel at home.

And as an added incentive, everyone who turns up gets a free pass (plus one guest) to one of our subsequent evenings.

It’s going to be a great night – put it in your diaries now!

Two Evenings with Diva! and Friends

June 2009

We had such fun, we're doing it again*. And here's the pictures, taken by the very talented Chris Huning**.

Kate Winter's the blonde. Kate Hayes has the highlights. Paul Zec's the guy with the saxophone.

The black room is The Spice Of Life. The pink one's the River Bar.

*at The Spice Of Life on July 19th.
**www.huning.co.uk

An Evening with Diva! and Friends

March 2009

We’re hosting two special nights soon, and to mark the occasion we’re going to be joined by some of our friends.

The beautiful and talented Katelyn Winter and Kate Hayes will be providing backing vocals and harmonies, and we’ll be adding the cool jazz stylings of Paul Zec on alto sax.

The first one’s at The Spice of Life, 6 Moor St Cambridge Circus London, W1D 5NA on Sunday March 22.

And the second one’s at The River Bar, 206 Tower Bridge Road SE1 2UP, on Thursday March 26.

Showtimes (both nights) 7:30 pm and 9:30 pm.

Just great music from the Forties to the Noughties, performed with passion.

Out Now - Diva's Debut Album!

April 2008

Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, Diva! are thrilled to be able to announce that our first album is now out! Full versions of all the tracks were on our main audio page, but from now on if you want to keep them you’ll have to buy one! Short clips are still available to whet your appetite!

Here’s what one reviewer said:

‘There seem to be a lot of divas around in today’s popular culture. The word gets bandied around with little concern for its precise meaning. But once you’ve heard Diva! you’ll realise that for once the moniker is deserved. Singer Samantha Jean is a revelation. She doesn’t so much carry a tune as wear it like the finest haute couture.

Tunes are what Diva! are about. In an age when rhythm has all but eclipsed its bedfellows - harmony and melody - Diva! put the song back where it belongs, centre stage.

And when it comes to songs, Diva! cover the waterfront – from jazz, to pop, to soul, funk and beyond. And when Diva! cover a song, they make it all their own. They’re a grown-up band, of proper musicians. In Diva!’s capable hands – and Samantha Jean’s exquisite voice – these songs come out fresher than the day they were written. This is one class act, and if class is your bag, this band’s for you.’

- David Dix, musician and journalist

The album’s available from the band on live gigs for £7.99, or by mail order at 111 Waverley Road, London, SE18 7TH for £7.99 plus £1.08 post and packing. Please make cheques payable to ali clark.

And now, the plaudits:

We’d like to thank:

Mike Westergaard for engineering and co-producing it: www.mikewestergaard.co.uk
Michael Munday for the artwork: www.michaelmunday.co.uk
Steve Smith for the photographs: www.flickr.com/photos/destinysagent
Les Miserable for helping us get Diva! up and running in the first place: www.bluesmother.com

...and everybody else who played a part in getting us where we are today.

Debut Album coming Soon!

December 2007

We’ve been back to Studio 99 and now we have enough tracks down to make an album. It’s due for release in March. Meanwhile, you can hear the whole thing on our audio clips page. Download it now while it’s still free!

Diva! supports Cancer Research UK

September 2007

The Cancer Research UK Relay For Life is now less than a week away and Diva! are proud to be lendin our support, taking place on Saturday September 8th starting at midday at the Bannister Sports Centre in Harrow.

The Relay for Life is an overnight event in support of Cancer Research UK where relay teams complete laps around a full-size running track for a period of at least 20 hours.

While the relay is going on, team members not on the track will be running stalls like a coconut shy, beat the goalie etc., and there'll be other events going on all the time – bands, dance troupes etc and every hour there will be a novelty lap, e.g. bouncing on space hoppers! So there'll be plenty of entertainment for you to enjoy!

This is just one of the many community fundraising events taking place all year round at venues all over the country organised by supporters of Cancer Research UK to raise awareness of cancer, celebrate survival and to pay tribute to those touched by cancer, including two members of Diva! for whom this event will have an added significance.

We will be taking to the stage for our first set at 5pm, and again at 9.30pm after the Candle of Hope ceremony and we'd love you to join us. Please make every effort to come along and any donation - big or small - will be gratefully received. In between sets, some of the band might be forming a relay team and doing a couple of circuits (bribes are looking increasingly likely to get ali clark to break into a jog), so please come and cheer us on!

More information about the Cancer Research UK Relay for Life can be found here, and for details of the Harrow event, please click here. If you'd like to come see us on 8th September, visit our gigs page.

If you would like to find out more about the work of Cancer Research UK or for ways to make a donation, please visit their website at www.cancerresearchuk.org - or why not subscribe our Myspace blog.

Brand new demo tracks - just out!

May 2007

We've been in a proper recording studio this week (Mike Westergaard's- Studio 99 in SE London as it happens but as he's snowed under with film and TV work at the moment it seems pointless to plug him. Lucky chap).

We got six tracks down in a day which is pretty good as it goes, and no skimping on musical quality. Edits will soon be available for a demo, but we mean to keep the full versions as the basis of an album. And this is what we did:

Tell Mama (Carter/Daniel) - Originally recorded by Etta James -a stomping piece of Old Skool Rhythm 'n' Blues.

You Can't Do That (Lennon) - We slowed it down and turned it into a shuffle, an idea I freely confess to have stolen from my good friend Richard Ansell. This way the sheer venom of Lennon's original song is brought into sharp focus. We did I think a good job of changing the lyric to suit a female singer. But you'll have to wait to hear that!

No More Tears (Enough is Enough) (Jabara/Roberts) - I think it sounds better than the original version by Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer, not only by simply stripping it down but also by changing the rhythm on the outro to an African 6/8, for which credit is due to our guitarist, Peter Clifford.

The Day Before You Came (Ulvaeus/Anderson) - Not one of Abba's greatest hits, but one of their best, full of dark Scandinavian angst. Our version, which was a real collaboration for which none of us takes sole credit, reminds me of nothing so much as what might have happened had Sergio Leone got his hands on it!

I Get a Kick Out of You (Porter) - Cole Porter Walks on Water! One of the truly great composers of the 20th Century, witty lyric, a melody that's red meat to an instrumental musician, full of demented twelfths and flattened nineths - and still it passes the Old Grey Whistle test.

Les Feuilles Mortes (Prevert/Kozma) - First a hit in the original French for Yves Montand, many know it better by Johnnie Mercer's English translation "The Autumn Leaves". But ali, our drummer thinks Mercer's lyric sucks compared to the orginal. Plus there's an intro he completely ignored (possibly because, at least according to Andrew our keyboard player, it changes key four times!). So Madame Diva does it in French. And, much to my surprise, it's one of our best-received numbers on gigs!

The end of an era.

March 23rd 2007

Well, it's a sad day at Diva! HQ, because last night saw the end of our season at The Hampton Court Palace Hotel, home of the Singer's Night since the beginning of February. We made some great new friends there and re-acquainted ourselves with some familiar faces along the way.

A huge thank you to all who came along, either to sing or play with us, or whether it was just to drink and enjoy the atmosphere - we couldn't have done it without you.

We're now on the hunt for a new venue and of course, we'll keep you updated of our progress here, but if you want be one of the first to find out the gossip, subscribe to our Myspace blog and we'll keep you informed every step of the way.