Kiwi to pay homage to Joni at festival

BACK IN TOWN: Julia Deans says she won't be reinventing Joni Mitchell's "magnificent wheel" of work but will be interpreting her songs her way. PHOTO/MAREEA VEGAS

Kiwi songstress Julia Deans is raring to take the stage in Wairarapa once again after many moons away; this time around paying homage to singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell.

Speaking from her hometown of Auckland, Deans recalls staging concerts in Wairarapa more than a decade ago that included Masterton's Summer Hummer in 2005 and, earlier still, at "a bar called Alcatraz, which had prison bars and cages - it was really weird".

She also played Masterton with The Adults at King Street Live in 2013. Deans counts links to the region through Featherston musician and King Street Live co-founder Warren Maxwell, a friend she met while both were studying music in the capital.

Deans, who has been arcing through a broad rainbow of musical theatre projects and solo endeavours, will play the Carterton Events Centre as part of the Kokomai Creative Festival, and reprise a performance she initially staged at the Auckland Cabaret Festival last year.

The Both Sides Now show will comprise "interpretations of about 15 or 16 of JM's amazing songs", she said, and will also feature guitarist Paul McLaney, multi-instrumentalist Sean "SJD" Donnelly, drummer Tom Broome, and pianist Robin Kelly.

"We're not trying to reinvent her magnificent wheel either, we're paying homage to her songs in the form that she wrote them and adding our own personalities without completely changing them."

Deans tipped her hat to Billie Holiday as well this year, singing tunes from the late American jazz great in a show with six other Kiwi divas including Hollie Smith, Annie Crummer, Whirimako Black, Ria Hall and Camille O'Sullivan.

The Kokomai date precedes five shows Deans will perform, opening with a solo acoustic set for fellow Kiwi singer-songwriter Mel Parsons, playing five New Zealand theatres including the Theatre Royal in Nelson, the newly refurbished Isaac Theatre Royal in Christchurch and historical Crystal Palace Theatre in Auckland.

"Every musician enjoys working with their peers and people they respect and admire. It keeps you on top of your game and you learn new things. Not only about the way they play but you test your own boundaries as well, your own abilities and limitations."

Deans is in the midst of mixing songs for a new album, We Light Fire, that she started writing about four years ago after shifting back to New Zealand from Australia.

The sophomore album comes after her solo Modern Fables, which dropped in 2010, although the stampede of collaborative work and musical theatre had drawn out its completion.

"It's just taken a long time because I've be[en] doing a lot of other things like the Brel show (with Jon Toogood) and Jesus Christ Superstar at the end of last year.

"I've just been doing lots of different projects, which have been amazing. It's put my album on the back-burner several times but we're finally getting through it now, which is great.

"I'm really, really excited about the songs and how they're sounding. Some take ages to write and others just fall out of the ether and into my head."

Deans said most of the songs were written on piano "or using old synth sounds, but I haven't gone Lorde-ey on it".

Julia Deans stages her Both Sides Now show at the Carterton Events Centre on Friday, October 23. Tickets cost $38 and are available online at www.eventfinda.co.nz