Those with tickets for tonight’s Eddi Reader concert at Eden Court, Inverness, are in for a fabulous night, if her new album, Vagabond, is anything to go by.
It offers a veritable smorgasbord of smouldering hits with a subtle hint of smoke-filled continental jazz and blues nightclubs, but also reflects her love of travel.
“I didn’t have the idea to call it Vagabond until the collection was recorded and I realised the tracks were all about travel,” said Eddi.
“Everything I’m attracted to lately is about travel, either in my head with other people singing ancient songs such as I’ll Never Be The Same Again, which is a 1920s song which my granda used to sing while standing at the mantelpiece.
“He liked to sing the popular songs of his day and it turned him from being a shipyard-working Glaswegian shop steward into a flapper girl in front of my eyes.”
While Eddi confesses to being slightly obsessed with the past, she has no desire to be born in a different era.
“This is a wonderful time to be alive; this is my now, and it’s joyous to be alive and experiencing the world the way I see it now that I’m in my 50s.
“I do wonder, though, how people like my mother coped with having seven children, five under the age of five, before she was out of her 20s.
“When I’m in song, it transports me back to the past, and I know the future will take whatever I’m recording and carry it on, which will also be a link to the past.
“Realising that was a kind of beautiful moment to arrive at in my life.”
Eddi was joined on the album by a cast of well-chosen musicians and friends, eager to play their part in this deeply personal album.
Among them were John Douglas (Trashcan Sinatras), Alan Kelly, Ian Carr, Ewen Vernal, Roy Dodds (Fairground Attraction), John McCusker and Boo Hewerdine.
“I have been on a journey with this set of recordings,” said Eddi.
“Two years ago, I began writing and playing with ideas on John’s new piano.
“It took me all the winter of that year to become acquainted with the idea that I was writing and that I should start recording.
“I did, but only the odd day here and there.
“The year 2012 was a wonderful and weird one. John and I got married on June 8.
“With that we are both blissful, but in other things we were challenged.
“John developed an incurable illness and we were distracted by health issues and family troubles.
“I took a while to steady my feet about all of that. Then, by the end of the year, I knew I needed to pull the fellas together and try recording live, if only to bring myself back to land.
“The good news is John is walking the road to recovery and will get better.
“The recording sessions progressed throughout January 2013, and they were amazing.”
The result is an album with a continental air which perhaps stems from the period when Eddi lived and worked in Paris as a teenager.
“I left home at Irvine at 18 for a folk band in Glasgow and went on a whole learning period as a street musician, which was pretty unusual then.”
In the early 1980s, she travelled around Europe with circus and performance artists before moving to London, where she quickly became a sought-after session vocalist, teaming up with Annie Lennox and Eurythmics.
“When I was singing with Annie Lennox and Eurythmics, we visited Paris. While there, I revisited some of my old haunts and managed to get them into places for free, which felt great,” said Eddi.
“That’s when I realised singing had given me social mobility.
“Music has given me so much, including tickets to different places, from the streets of Avignon to the dinner tables of kings.
“I’ve been to dinner at Holyrood Palace and Buckingham Palace, but I think the ‘poshest’ place I’ve been was the British Embassy in Paris for a Scottish evening.
“The place was really opulent and a long way from the Paris I knew as a teenager.”
Among those joining Eddi tonight are Boo Hewerdine and Alan Kelly.
“I’ll definitely sing all the songs that I’ve loved and been part of from Fairground Attraction to beyond and before.
“Who knows, I might even get in a couple of those songs that my granda used to sing at the side of the mantelpiece.”
Tonight’s show at Eden Court starts at 7.30pm. Contact the box office on 01463 234234 or visit www.eden-court.co.uk