After last year’s sterling tribute concert to Amy Winehouse, The Cotton Club’s resident singer Naomi Fitch returns to The Pearl to salute the Purple One. She’ll be dipping into Prince’s insanely deep discography, performing stone cold classics like ‘Purple Rain,’ ‘When Doves Cry’ and ‘Kiss.’
Besides being the resident singer at Cotton Club, you perform other gigs and festivals and are now doing a two-night Prince tribute. How are you juggling all these things?
It's been a pretty hectic schedule recently (laughs) but it's fun because every gig and venue let's me explore a different musical genre and style so it keeps things interesting. They are also all such different environments to play in and can draw quite different audiences so it's great in helping me to develop as a performer and become a more well rounded and experienced singer.
Last year, you paid tribute to Amy Winehouse. Why Prince this time?
They are not necessarily worlds apart in my mind. They are both artists that I massively respect and admire, as well as fantastic songwriters with very unique and distinctive styles and sounds. Both musical geniuses in my humble opinion and both people I feel honoured to get to pay tribute to. Amy was vocally perhaps closer in sound and therefore may have appeared a more obvious choice but it's good to step out of one’s comfort zone every now and again!
Speaking of those Amy Winehouse shows, how did they go?
The Amy Winehouse shows were an amazing experience for me and it was the first time I'd ever performed a tribute act. It was great fun to sing her brilliant songs and to try to build a show around the storylines. I hired two very talented dancers for those concerts and I think it brought something new to the table.
Will these Prince shows have a similar format?
This show is going to be taking it up a notch for me in terms of costume, lighting etc - I feel like I want to keep bringing something fresh.
What can people expect from the show and how were you able to pick the songs considering the Purple One’s vast discography?
There are SO many incredible Prince songs so selecting the show numbers was tough! I wanted to include some of my personal favorites and mostly songs from his earlier career - Purple Rain era. Prince has written many songs that were recorded by other artists and perhaps more widely associated with that other artist. I wanted to include some of those too, perhaps there'll be some surprises?
Who are some of the musicians that will be backing you up and will there be a lot of costume changes?
Apart from the bass player who moved back to Portugal, the band is the same set up as the Amy Winehouse show. We work well together as musicians and I respect and admire every one of them and their beautiful musical talents! On guitar we have the incredibly talented Eddy originally from New York. We met by working together at a the Cotton Club and have been doing so for around 1.5 years. Providing the sick beats on drums is Yam. Been here since 2004 and is a professional musician and Drum kit and Percussion teacher as well.
Keys is "King James". A fellow Brit and a wonderful pianist. You can catch James once in a while guesting with us at The Cotton Club and we've actually worked on a number of the Encore Live series together too. This is the dream team!
What’s the best Prince song for...
Getting ready to go out for a wild night?
Let's Go Crazy.
Chilling out after a wild night?
Purple Rain.
Waking Up To?
When Doves Cry.
Psyching Yourself Up With?
1999.
Getting romantic?
The Beautiful Ones.
After these Prince shows what are you up to and where can people check you out?
I'll still be performing five nights a week at The Cotton Club and probably here and there around town. I usually post on my wechat where I'll be people can follow lil_nom. I’m hatching my next concert plans (laughs), which can be stressful and exhausting but when you get to work with some of the best musicians in Shanghai and see happy faces in the audience it's also the most fulfilling and incredible feeling in the world!
Mar 18-19, 9pm-late, RMB180-220. The Pearl, tickets. See event listing.
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