Texas

“I knew from the start, right back when I was 18 and the only song TEXAS had written was “I Don’t Want A Lover,” that we were capable of making an album as good as The Hush. I never had a doubt. For me, this new record is not just our best yet, this is the TEXAS album we’ve been building up to throughout our entire history.”
Sharleen Spiteri. January 3 1999

“Pop Life,” she’d diligently inscribed on a canvas army bag at school. The girl with the black mop of hair, the black Telecaster and the bittersweet black-eyed anthems, had always been a big Prince fan. “I’d wondered what it would sound like if Fleetwood Mac and Massive Attack had gone into a studio with Prince in charge,” she’d quipped to the press around the time of her last album’s launch. Those that were listening probably smiled and turned their attention back to the striking White On Blonde sleeve photographs.

A little over a year later, Sharleen Spiteri and her band had scored five consecutive top ten singles in the UK (three of those sitting at number one on the airplay charts for months), while their album had sold over four million copies around the world. White On Blonde was not just a number one record in its home country, it was an album that actually returned to number one six months after its first visit and sat high in the top 40 for over a year. The girl who’d hummed “Pop Life” during her history lessons now graced every other British magazine cover, from Q to I-D to GQ to The Face to The Daily Telegraph’s Saturday supplement. Expressions like “star” and “It girl” and “women of the year” were being thrown about with dizzy abandon. Yet Sharleen seemed to keep her feet firmly on the ground; after all, it wasn’t the very first time she’d attracted the spotlight. When she was 18 and living alone in Glasgow she’d written her very first song together with her friend Johnny McElhone. “I Don’t Want A Lover” from their debut album Southside became a massive hit all over the world.

She “never had a doubt.” And being a Prince fan, it was only appropriate that, The Hush, arrived in 1999 and was something of a bright, non-stop funky pop journey. Recorded largely at Sharleen’s house in Glasgow and produced entirely by Johnny McElhone (with additional support on a couple of tracks from Manchester allies Rae & Christian), here was a set of songs really worth singing about…

“I’m so proud of what TEXAS have achieved here,” stresses Spiteri. “I’d say The Hush is the first time that all the musical styles and influences that we’ve explored have really come together as one. And when it all came together, it wasn’t like: ‘pow! bang! pop-art explosion!’ It was more, ‘mmmmm pass the sun lotion, baby.’

“The Hush is a really sexy record, I think. It’s certainly a really positive record. I do think that White On Blonde was a really strong TEXAS album, but it was also a collection of songs that had to take us from where we had been to where we wanted to go. And we wanted to be right where we are now with The Hush. I mean, everyone knows we’ve always been into Stax and The Beatles and Motown and Al Green, but this time I think you can hear lots of the other pop stuff we love…some prime-time Abba, some late Roxy Music, even some early Human League. It’s all a very natural mix for us.”

The publishing credit “(McElhone, Spiteri)” has always been all about striving for a great mix of pop and rock and soul styles – with the blues and hip hop and country and moody filmscore music all stirred into the stew. Not just “well-crafted” compositions, but winning tunes shot through with passion and belief.

“A good song is to me, worth more than a thousand rave reviews in a trendy London magazine,” says Spiteri. “For years I’ve idolised Ashford and Simpson, Neil Diamond, Dawn Penn, Holland and Dozier, Carole King…the list stretches on and on. These people weren’t moody, hip rock ‘n’ rollers.

“The fact that Johnny and I were nominated for three Ivor Novello awards after White On Blonde meant so much more to us than all the other acclaim and fuss of that year. And we got the award that really counts: ‘an outstanding body of work’. ‘Say What You Want’ and ‘Black Eyed Boy’ aren’t
the only good songs we’ve written.”

Always good for a quote, Sharleen Spiteri has, however, never been one to really blow her own trumpet. Let it be stated here emphatically then: her vocal performances on The Hush are universally stunning. Early visitors to Mark “Spike” Stent’s purpose-built mixing facility at Olympic Studios in Barnes actually asked who was providing the deep male harmonies on a couple of tracks. And Spike Stent, a man who’s sprinkled fairy dust over great songs from The Spice Girls “2 becomes 1” to Massive Attack’s “Protection,” wants no credit for Sharleen’s new, stunning vocals, either. The Hush was the first record he chose to mix at his new Olympic mixing studio, and he’s under no illusions as to its relative merits. “It’s their best record yet, both in terms of songs and in terms of the sound,” he says. Spiteri sang everything, of course – from the funky falsetto on “Tell Me The Answer” to the dreamy Diana Ross tribute of “Day After Day.” Her amazing voice is getting even better with age.

“I actually sang with Sister Rose Stone (Sly Stone’s sister) when I was about 23, and she told me that I had the kind of voice that could keep improving for another twenty years,” reveals Spiteri. “I didn’t pay too much attention at the time, but Sister Rose was right. Mind you, working alongside a producer like Johnny and a mixer like Spike (Mark Stent), doesn’t do your vocals any harm either.”

But which songs will end up following “In Our Lifetime” onto the nation’s radio stations? It would take a very brave betting man to wager against “Summer Son” and “When We Are Together” dominating the radio airwaves in the next eighteen months, although “Tell Me The Answer,” “Day After Day,” “Sunday Afternoon,” “Saint” and “The Day I Went Away” are all, arguably, even stronger songs still. “The Hush,” meanwhile, has already won universal praise as a result of being previewed (in an alternative mix) on the Rae &
Christian LP release, “Northern Sulphuric Soul.” To help heat up the debate even further, Mark Rae himself thinks “Move In” (the other new TEXAS/Rae & Christian collaboration) is the real chartbuster.

The only certain thing is that TEXAS have rounded-up ten years of writing and recording with an album containing absolutely no filler. This is the main reason that The Hush is the record they’ve always been aiming at. Sexy, bright, breezy, warm and lush, it’s a fitting album to see in a new era…