If Lou Reed was a prophet when he wrote "What Becomes a Legend Most", his lyrics would have said to all the great British singers, "Play with Blair Booth". Not only is Booth the best musician Terry Hall has ever worked with (and this includes Rachel Welch's backing band); she's also a strong vocalist whose talents have graced many vital records (particularly the Associates' swan song, Wild and Lonely). Along with Billy Mackenzie (whose song "Those First Impressions" she covered so beautifully on The Affectionate Bunch: Volume 1), Booth has added her talents to notable work by Johnny Thunders, Marc Almond, and even Nick Heyward . After spending the first half of the nineties as the female presence in the fascinating rap group Oui 3 (a logical extension of the old Sugar Hill Sound, and a precursor to the Fugees), Booth has upped the eclecticism factor a notch with solo work that stretches the borders of contemporary dance and pop. Her latest, Blair, contains one of my favorite song titles ("Lie Back & Be Boring") and one of the more addictive pop gems to dance through my head this year ("2 Late 4 Love"). While Terry Hall fanatics may find it hard to believe she'll top her work with Terry, Blair, and Anoushka (the most consistent record in Hall's career), Blair proves that her talents are prodigious and her future has no bounds.

The following interview was conducted via email in the rather nasty month of September, 2001. It is fitting, as her music is filled of juxtapositions, that she was a total delight to correspond with in that unpleasant period of the year.

Splendid: Could you elaborate a bit on your background in music before Terry Hall asked you to join his post-Colourfield group (Terry, Blair, and Anoushka)? Were you already a fairly seasoned musician by then?

Blair Booth: I started playing piano at the age of six. I didn't discover my voice until the age of eleven. My parents were of an artistic nature, with my father having a doctorate in music, and my mother was an artist. Although my father was what was known then as a "legitimate" musician (remember, we're talking about the 1970s), he had always loved, and in his earlier days played, jazz. The only problem was that he couldn't afford to bring up a family, even if it was only one child to support. When he became chairman of the music department in Reno, Nevada USA, he endeavored to hire those who were legitimate. So he scoured the casinos in Reno and the Gospel choirs that were around at the time. I suppose he felt that it would be a benefit to me if I were to be involved with what was termed as such a legitimate crowd. I sang in various jazz festivals and was hired as a backing singer at the age of 17 for a not so well known artist, Catharine Chase, at the MGM Grand Casino. The money I received funded my venture to London. During this time I was also very much involved in the theatre, which is probably why I've seen so many interviews that state "Terry Hall teamed up with an American actress"!

Splendid: Have you kept the demo that helped Terry see what you could bring to his post-Colourfield project? Were the songs from the demo much like those actually used by TBA?

Blair Booth: Not only have I kept the demo, but I still have the old sequencer MC500 that I used to write and arrange the songs for the TBA album! The thing is, Terry never gave me a demo of his songs. They were all done from scratch, and I submitted many tracks to him that I thought he would not only like, but be able to contribute to in the lyrical sense.

Splendid: What makes "Fishbones and Scaredy Cats" your favorite of the TBA songs? And I always tend to ask artist this, but do you have any cats of your own? Do they, or any pet you may have, make it hard to fully enjoy a career where you must constantly travel or tour to promote product?

Blair Booth: I loved "Fish Bones & Scaredy Cats" because it was such a chastisement of Terry and his somewhat paranoid character! I mean, (Question) What about the Fishbones? (Answer) They might choke us! (Question) What about the windows? (Answer) They're all closed! (Question) What about the neighbours? (Answer) They're still with us! (Question) What about the Fishbones? (Answer) There you go! Scaredy Cat! I think that as naïve and silly this song may seem, there was a lot more to it than one is supposed to realize, and that, in effect, is its charm! I must say, Terry had a few hang ups that were made apparent to me! Oh, and I did have two cats, one a chinchilla Persian, the other a black mongrel. Sadly, both died of feline leukemia.

Splendid: As baffled as I remain by TBA's lack of commercial success, it also surprised me that "Missing" (despite being my favorite song on the record) was chosen as the lead single over your wonderful, more radio-friendly duet with Terry, "Sweet September Sacrifice". As I've always imagined Terry as someone who shuns the easy route to success, did the great success of his "Thinking About You" almost work against that song?

Blair Booth: Yeah, I think at the time "Missing" sounded a bit like the theme to an Australian soap here called Neighbours! I loved "Sweet September Sacrifice", even though the musical direction came from Terry. My all time favourite Hall track is "Thinking of You".

Splendid: Given its proximity to Vegas, did your Reno, Nevada childhood roots provide any influence or inspiration for the music and arrangement behind songs like "Just Go" or TBA's choice cover of "Love Will Keep Us Together"? Also, was "Love Will Keep Us Together" chosen after the group already knew it was breaking apart? And lastly, do you know if your Nevada upbringing had anything to do with the name choice of Terry's next band, Vegas?

Blair Booth: Yes, and what an astute question! I think that at the time (and remember, Terry had just had a kid) that he was very much influenced by his home life. I clearly remember him saying to me that he'd seen Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats and really loved it. As I came from not only a cabaret circuit, but also musical theatre, he embraced the concept and union between two. I always loved the Captain & Tennille, and remember watching their TV show in the states. I reckon I was the first to buy "Love Will Keep Us Together". Sadly, they broke apart -- and eventually the same fate happened to Terry. Odd coincidence that he liked a song that was such a favourite of mine. I loved doing the arrangement!

Splendid: Have you done any pop duets since then, and is there any current artist you'd love to trade vocals with?

Blair Booth: The only other duet I've done besides Terry Hall's "Sweet September Sacrifice" was a duet with Marc Almond. The song was "Madame de la Luna" on the album Enchanted! I loved working with Marc -- I've always really liked gay men -- and was thrilled that the spec was to sound angelic! I hope I fulfilled it!

Splendid: When TBA disbanded, you provided vocal support for some other veterans of the British pop scene, like Billy Mackenzie and Nick Heyward. Did Bob Sargeant, producer for much of TBA, help get you this work, or did your work with Terry Hall open doors for you?

Blair Booth: Absolutely. The Nick Heyward project came about because Nick couldn't get a record deal. Bob Sargeant and his manager thought that the only way for Nick to obtain his deal was if he had a band around him. Get this -- nobody wanted to be in the band! Record deal or no record deal! You see, a lot of session musicians pride themselves on the fact they are free agents and nobody controls them. So through default, I ended up signing a substantial deal with Sony Records, split down the middle! I was happy...until I realized I wasn't meant to do anything. I spent a year at Eel Pye Studios in Richmond, England (Pete Townshend's studio) learning the art of cooking! (Mainly how to do a fine white wine and mushroom gravy for roast chicken and not have it lumpy! Actually, I learned more about drinking white wine than I did gravy!) I did however get to see The Who's master tapes and the famous guitar where the whammy bar severed Pete's arm!

Billy MacKenzie was quite another story, though. I had done an album called UNO. Eric Claremontet had got funding for this album and he had many guest singers, of whom Billy was one. I was working for a charity a couple of years before the Terry Hall album and he rang me saying that one day we'd work together. I had been seeing a Swiss programmer called Philipp Erb, who had been offered the job of programming Billy's Wild & Lonely album for Circa Records. Billy contacted me again, but a few years down the line, and asked if I'd arrange one of his tracks. This I did, and not only arranged his album but became his "mermaid" as well.

Splendid: Mermaid?

Blair Booth: I guess kind of an inside joke! See, I'm Piscean, born in March. I also had at the time these very long golden and curly hair extentions -- a bit like Jerry Hall. Anyway, I know what you're getting at! We quite liked each other!

Splendid: After TBA came the wildly different Oui 3, and despite this group's commercial success, it seems fewer guest stints came your way. In terms of supporting roles on other artists' records, have you found your ability to cover many styles of music helpful in the business world of pop, or are you generally pigeonholed by the powers-that-be into whatever style you're performing at the moment?

Blair Booth: Once you've signed in blood to a record company, they own you. I had been asked to do many things, one of which was a TV show with the Beloved in Barcelona. I wanted to go so badly, as I had never been there before, but was denied to do so by management and the record company. As and artist, I just love music. I hate when people ask me what influences me because it is so wide-ranging, from Vivaldi to Hendrix to Lee Scratch Perry to Andrew Lloyd Webber to Massive Attack to The Mamas and The Papas to Parliament to Led Zeppelin. You get the gist? I think as a musician, you decipher every note in order to learn the art from other artists. In consequence you can most likely write or arrange in many different genres.

Splendid: Video is seen by some as a mere way to sell the product, but I've always thought it could enhance a band's music, particularly message songs like "Poison" or Oui 3's all-too-relevant adaptation of "For What It's Worth". Have you been pleased by the videos you've done, and do you think you can achieve as much from them as from live performance? Also, will you use Public Domain Productions to produce online video as well as online music?

Blair Booth: I think that videos are meant to enhance the music, but in a lot of ways fall short in doing so. Sometimes you may get a third party in that really doesn't have a clue about the group or the music. And then, of course, you have all the politics of the record company to deal with as well. Case in point: I felt passionately about our first 7" single, a cover of "For What It's Worth". It had been my idea to take what was originally a protest song of the sixties and juxtapose it with some of the current events of the nineties -- in particular the Gulf War. I felt that the track was and still is as relevant now as when it was written. Anyway, MCA hired a company to do the artwork. For some bizarre reason, and still to this day I can't figure it out, the designer wanted a drawn picture of an African hut with a little figure in the background. I could not figure for the life of me what this had to do with our single. I remember him saying that he was thinking farther ahead than I, and that there was a whole concept behind the African hut. I jokingly said, "Oh, I get it! By the time we get the album out we'll have an entire village"!

Splendid: In "For What It's Worth", there's a brilliant, almost punk-like chant for peace ("Hold your fire, put down that weapon/You'll never get to Heaven with that AK47"), to help the song evoke not only sixties protest and a politicized Sugar Hill Records band, but also bands like the Clash. Since hip hop and dance are probably best at incorporating other genres within them, is this the easiest genre you can fit your wide-ranging song ideas into?

Blair Booth: Very interesting, because by the time we had started our next album, Threedom, it was Phillip's interest in and the influence of Punk that forged what we had hoped would be a new direction. There was a slight movement in fashion and music in the mid '90s called "New Wave of NewWave". It didn't really take off, but Philipp had secured Mathew Ashman (Adam & The Ants/Bow Wow Wow -- Malcolm McClaren's brain child) to play guitar, which cost all of us far more than we had expected. Here's a funny one: the chant ("Stop, Hold Your Fire, Put Down Your Weapon, You'll Never Get To Heaven With An AK47!") was Trevor's idea! And initially I thought it wouldn't work. God, how you can be so wrong! What a hook!

Splendid: Oui 3 is the first band I ever heard whose rise to success was thwarted by the misclassification of a single ("For What It's Worth") as a full-length. Since Threedom is as playful as the first, it didn't seem to dampen your creative spirits, but was the band a bit crushed by this bit of bad luck (which kept the song from becoming a Top Ten hit)? Also, did that mishap have any role in the band limiting future singles to just three or four remixes, as opposed to the seven on "For What It's Worth"?

Blair Booth: My spirits were really dampened! In fact, I called my lawyer! Seems that the BPI rules are that you can have one single with as many remixes as you want, but not exceeding 25 minutes. If, however, you have a B-side, which we did -- a track called "OUI Love You" -- the rules are that you can have only a further two remixes. As it stands, and the CDs now are quite a rarity, we had a total of five tracks on the single of "For What It's Worth", and entered the album charts at 50! How the record company did not check the ruling, especially as the MD at the time was Chairman of BPI, is beyond me! Trevor used to say, "We always give value for money!" We entered the charts at 28 on a Sunday, by Monday we were banned, by the next week we remained in the top 20s with only 40% of vinyl and cassette sales counted! A few weeks later the CD was repressed, with four tracks and poor packaging. Retailers would not delete the five track single so fans bought the banned one! Yes, we were robbed of a top ten hit. But we recovered with "Break From The Old Routine".

Splendid: Of the two Oui 3 albums, your singing plays a more pronounced part in Threedom. Was there an explicit motivation behind more evenly integrating vocals with the raps?

Blair Booth: My singing was quite a bone of contention with Trevor. MCA had, however, wanted more vocals, and our new management at the time did also. I did try to encourage Trevor to sing, but it's hard work when someone really is predominantly monotone.

Splendid: Also, with Threedom, Oui 3 were branching out in other areas, like the electric guitar surging through "Caring '90s". Since your voice often evokes Grace Slick as much as or more than Tracey Thorn, have you ever thought about experimenting with more rock-oriented music?

Blair Booth: I always loved rock music and grew up on a diet of Led Zeppelin, Hendrix and Aerosmith I think my favourite film of all time has got to be Spinal Tap! Seriously, though, there was most definitely a concerted effort to incorporate guitar, and it was at Philipp's request that Mathew Ashman be brought in.

Splendid: Having written songs for over a decade, was there ever a time where you wanted, like Pessoa ("If only I could go back/To when I wrote old love letters/Without thinking/How ridiculous?"), to be uncritical of your own work-in-progress and put total trust in whatever inspiration that was guiding you?

Blair Booth: I'm afraid I am severely critical and an absolute perfectionist. And most likely too hard on myself. Sometimes I fear starting to write a new track in case I am disappointed with the outcome. It is very hard for me to remain objective.

Splendid: This question is along the same lines, and seems to me a possible downside to owning your own studio. Have you ever written a song that you now think, in hindsight, was great, but ruined it with endless tinkering and over-effort?

Blair Booth: Absolutely! You can kill a song dead! And again, because I won't let go, I keep battling on. Then, after time has passed, I realize that the first version was fresh and had spark. It's so true that in order to bake the cake you need the ingredients! I get very frustrated at constantly searching, creating new sounds that inspire me, but this takes up so much time and tinkering that it would probably be better if I just accompanied myself with piano.

Splendid: Do you have any interest in forming a new band, or do you have less interest in collaboration these days?

Blair Booth: I loved to perform, but hated touring. Everything goes nuts and you go nuts with it. I always thought that tour managers have the hardest task; they are what I call a glorified baby sitting service. I don't have plans at present but who knows?

Splendid: Right now, my favorite song on Blair is probably "2 Late 4 Love", a song powered by a muscular keyboard riff as classic in dance circles as, say, a Chuck Berry guitar lick is in rock camps. Do you find it easier to accept the primacy and power behind certain beats, even when they can't even feign to be new? Another way of asking this question: do you think simplicity is where it's at? Another great strength behind "2 Late 4 Love" was the way this phrase -- "You can dance, you can dance on the night train" -- is pictured so vividly when set against the music. It called to mind a Chantal Akerman musical from the '70s, or even Gene Kelly stuff. The whole world started swaying in technicolor, a feeling I get whenever a dance song just hits me right. How do you settle upon the final product for such songs? Do you ever test them in clubs, house parties, or on boardwalks?

Blair Booth: I am so pleased that you like "2 Late 4 Love". Vitaminic, a music web site, has not only placed the track in their "recommended position" and "charts", but is using the track on a CD compilation. Some 15,000 are to be distributed to universities and campuses throughout the UK. I think the trick is to make song and its arrangement sound really simple, when in fact it is quite complicated. I believe strongly that a song should maintain interest throughout the duration of hearing it -- yet at the same time you don't want the track to sound incongruous or bitty. It's quite an art, getting all these components to gel. For me, the thing that I like best about "2 Late 4 Love" is the very close harmony verses and choruses. It sounds very simple but is in fact very difficult to do. I think it has a really nice house groove and I like the quirkiness of the vocal. I love the line, "You can crash, you can bang on your bass drum, my hearing's good! I heard where you're coming from!"

Splendid: "Poison (Radium Mix)" is another personal favorite from the Blair record, and shows, as Oui 3 consistently did, that you don't flinch from confronting issues that are in the daily papers. So far, politics has only enhanced, not diminished, the artistic nature of your work; be that as it may, is there any issue so important to you that you don't care if it makes your music less enjoyable, as long as it gets heard?

Blair Booth: It has to be the environment. I love animals, plants, the Earth. It angers me so greatly that people still cannot figure out that when something is gone it can't be got back. Man has such greed, and is so careless in protecting the future. I feel especially for animals, as they have no voice and are completely at our mercy. God, how I wish things would change, but people don't want to lose their creature comforts -- just the creatures.

Splendid: Anti-capitalist sentiment seems to have great appeal among artists. In your case, I was curious if any of this comes from having seen so much disparity via your tours and travels, or from being in a business where the powers-that-be screw over those who not-be at such an extreme level...

Blair Booth: You know, the thing is, is that I am not anti-capitalist per se, and I firmly believe in democracy. I have most certainly seen depravity, especially in Morocco, that I found difficult to bear. But to add to this, what I really found disturbing was how wealthy the drugs barons were. To me, the climate of fear, hypocrisy and corruption was also unbearable. I don't feel that the philosophies of other political movements have the answers, either. Perhaps capitalism is the best of a bad lot. I do think we need to think globally and take responsibility for our actions and reduce our exploits.

Splendid: With TBA and Oui 3, you happened to be at the forefront of both the "kitsch" and the "male rapper/female vocalist" movement. Are there any new "sounds" or movements now in the underground that intrigue you, and seem worth exploring?

Blair Booth: Yeah, Drum and Bass, which I thought would be the very next big thing. But it didn't happen. Shame... What I love about it is the fact that it uses technology in a way that is unexpected -- complex and rhythmically fascinating, yet has a groove I can sit back and flop to! And of course, slow it down by half and you have one of the other musical genres that I love: dub and reggae!

Splendid: Are there any long-term plans for Public Domain Productions? And are you presently involved, or interested in, discovering and/or producing new artists?

Blair Booth: I loved the idea of having a production company called Public Domain because I've undergone so many lawsuits and really have an understanding of the meaning! Also, I like the idea, like the Internet, that it is meant for all. The production company is in its embryonic stage, but I do have great hopes and aspirations for it!

Splendid: I love the story of how your hairdresser helped you find Anoushka when you and Terry were looking for a guitarist. Has there been any more great tips or advice given to you by hairdressers, and do you think that is the quintessential daytime job for today's aspiring prophets?

Blair Booth: My favourite question for last! I've had some very poor tips and advice from hairdressers -- that I can attest to! Maybe me finding Anoushka was just a one-off, though personally I wouldn't call her a musician! I don't think I'll be heading down to my nearest to find the latest talent. But, hey, you get noticed!