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Part II
Annie Haslam Artist's Collection
PCM: I had read one that you would never over dub your voice. What made you change your mind?
Annie: When I started to live with Roy Wood who is a musical genius. I learned a lot from him musically. When I did my album Annie in Wonderland. He was the one who talked me into doing over dubs for the album. Song for All Seasons was already written and Northern Lights, I remember the guys coming into the studio one day, why don’t we try putting three voices I know they recorded more than one voice why don’t we put them together to see what it would sound like in the verse. That’s where you have the triple tracking. That’s what made it special, why it was such a hit. So it was Roy Wood, he turned me around. He was a brilliant man.
PCM: Do you think it was your classical training that initially prevented you from over dubbing?
Annie: Possibly yes, I was also one of those people that was a little afraid of change. The older I get the easier it is to change. It a hard thing to do, change something you know.
PCM: Was it easy getting Annie in Wonderland out?
Annie: It was wonderful. It didn’t get enough publicity.
PCM: Do you think it was because of your voice and people didn’t know how to market it?
Annie: I don’t think so. Seymour Stein was really behind us. Maybe, I don’t. Know. I’m not sure . A lot of the details I have forgotten or put behind me. The thing is with my music I’m trying to let it go and just don’t remember things because I don’t want to. I’m a different person now. When I do interviews I don’t want to go on about my past because everybody knows it. I don’t mean that against you. I was just making a point about why I didn’t remember things.
PCM: I didn’t take it that way. When I called you I did have a different idea for this interview. I wanted to talk you and classical music and your painting. I figured you must be tired of talking about Renaissance. But we have gone in a different direction.
I read that you used a different technique when working with David Sancious on the last tour.
Annie: Yes, David probably is in the top five session musician on this planet for keyboard and guitar. I was asked to do a benefit last year and it was to much time and money to get a band together for five shows so I asked David. He improvises everything. He doesn't play a song the same way twice. I really had to have my wits about it. I had to watch him, have eye contact. I didn’t get it together until the third show. It was completely alien to me. I had to face him. On stage I couldn’t stand like I normally do facing the audience. I had to do it side on facing him. It was brilliant once we got the eye contact. We did a couple pieces we wrote together. We didn’t record it for cd. Nothing is going to happen with that.
PCM: I did see you a few times and I was at the show at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park. Do you remember that show?
Annie: Yes. Most of my solo career I didn’t have a proper manager or agent.
PCM: Is it hard marketing you?
Annie: Yes, definitely, it’s unique music. It’s not commercial. I’m not that kind of commercial entity. I guess if somebody like a really brilliant manager came said OK, right let do this. Like what they did with Enya. Enya’s music puts me to sleep. I don’t want to be judgmental. I’m making a comment. It’s amazing what they did with her. They’ve made her a huge star. It’s what you can do with money.
PCM: I think they put the same album in a different sleeve for soap stores.
Annie: I shouldn’t say that, she has a wonderful voice.
PCM: You don’t sing anymore?
Annie: I did the thing with David Sancious I did a guest song on an EP with a band called Magenta from Wales, I worked with Jon Wetton and Jeff Downs last year. I did demo work for a film called Roger in California. I needed to move on from music. I doesn’t give me pleasure anymore. It’s to stressful, the business is different now. I do have something in the back of my mind that I won’t get into now.
PCM: You have a CD Woman Transcending coming out soon?
Anne: I felt time is going by so quickly and with the state of the world now, If I get any ideas I just want to go with it. We have to seize the day everyday. I was going to leave this album a few years down the road. One reason is the publishing end of this is so vast to get it all together but I thought, you know I’m going to do it now. So I got all the songs together that I had on cassette and DAT for several years, since the seventies from my solo career that were recorded as just really great demos that never saw the light of day. Songs that never made an album because there were to commercial, like the Bee Gee’s song. There's a Mike Rutherford song a Carl Perkins song, two Perkins songs. One by Carl and Family and one by his son and daughter. Two country songs! And then I sing with my brother Michael, and a song Reaching Out that was with the Intergalactic Touring Band, that’s the last song on the cd with the London Symphony Orchestra. It's just gorgeous.There's also a song I wrote with Steve Howell called Lily's in the Field that we wrote for a benefit concert I put together in 1995 that for kids of Bosina.
PCM: It’s think this is a good time for it, not in a couple of years.
Annie: That what I felt. Why wait? I’m gad I did it. The art work is a painting I did the Essence of Leonardo de Vinci. It came to me at the end of the day. I had these paints left over and something took me over and I ended up with this painting with this white dragonfly in it. I don’t know where it came from. I had no intention of putting anything in it. I feel a strong connection to him. He was a good man, he was a vegetarian and a singer. They also called him the Renaissance Man.
PCM: Would you ever write a book?
Annie: I get asked that a lot. No, I would have to live my past again why do that. I have already made my money from my past. Why go through all that again. I don’t have the time anyway I am busy painting now. I love it with a passion as much as music if not more.
