But as Covid-19 hit and the world went into lockdown, Wendy had to reschedule her tour three times.
Wendy says:
"The venues, who've been under extraordinary pressure to stay afloat, were inundated with every single band rescheduling!
"But! We did it... Thank you to the venues, the promoters and of course thank you to the National Health Service, my love to anyone and everyone who has lost someone to this pandemic, thank you to you all for getting vaccinated and helping open our collective lives again! And... Thank you to The Wendy James Band!
"Most musicians have had to find other ways of money earning because they simply couldn't work their chosen vocation... very hard indeed, but my band did what they had to do, and we're still standing and happier than ever to be heading into rehearsals to get this mammoth setlist learnt and then hit the road! Finally!"
In August Wendy will embark on a
twenty-eight date tour, which will visit
Concorde 2 Brighton on 30th September 20201.
"Not only are we celebrating a return to live venues, we are celebrating Queen High Straight, and also a different set list every night, from Transvision Vamp through all my albums!"
An English singer-songwriter born in London, Wendy exploded onto the British music scene in 1988 as the fearless front woman of chart-topping alt-rockers Transvision Vamp.
When the band broke up Wendy went on to collaborate with Elvis Costello, James Williamson (Iggy & the Stooges), Lenny Kaye (The Patti Smith Group) and James Sclavunos (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds), who joins her on drums and percussions for Queen High Straight.
Also joining her on this album are James Sedwards (lead guitar), Harry Bohay (bass), Alex J. Ward & Terry Edwards (horn section) and Louis Vause (accordion).
Wendy began writing her recent album after a long stretch of writing/recording/delivering/touring her previous album The Price Of The Ticket, which charted in the UK at No.14.
Wendy says of the title track:
"I gravitated toward some jazzy type of chords which lent a gentle lilt to the song, it sounded smooth and it reminded me of when I was a young child listening to Sergio Mendes 'Brasil '66'!
"Some of those lovely chord progressions, some of that lovely harmonizing the singers did and of course Bacharach and David."
"Overall, my taste and style have not changed with time," adds Wendy.
"The music that excites me now, ultimately, is the same as when I was starting out songwriting and back through my days in Transvision Vamp.
"I continue to marvel at Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground, I continue to be blown away by The Stooges, I continue to be everlastingly enthralled by Bob Dylan, but of course, the older one gets the more one discovers and I am now informed more cohesively and fully by all the music, new and old, which settles into my consciousness."
"My track listings are never altered from the order in which I write the songs, maybe it's because it"s too tangential for me to try to shuffle songs around but really I think, in some kind of holistic way, the order in which the songs are written must surely be the very most natural order for them to be listed in.
"Around song fourteen "Bliss Hotel" I hit a wall.
"I did not know where the inspiration was going to come from!
"But then somehow, miraculously, it comes again and one pushes on through, as it turned out, to some of my favourite songs on the entire album.
"My perfect moment? song 18 'Cancel It… I'll See Him On Monday'; it was a 'Eureka' moment. I ran outside and started dancing, "I"ve got it! I"ve got it!!!"
The Wendy James Band play Concorde 2, Brighton, on 30th September 2021. CLICK HERE for tickets.