Cabaret singer Queenie van de Zandt has just been nominated for a Helpmann Award for her show that explores the music of folk singer Joni Mitchell.
“I’ve always loved Joni Mitchell, every since I wa sin my early twenties.” Queenie told OUTinPerth. “I discovered her through a friend who forced me to listen to her, but it took years,at first I was like ‘No, not this hippy lady.
“Then we I heard A Case of You which is one of her most wonderful songs, it became my favourite song of all time, I got the Blue album and I was hooked. Now I’ve got everyone one of her albums.”
Last year Queenie had a year off from performing while she was having a baby. Thinking this would be the perfect break to write a new show she committed to delivering a new show about Joni Mitchell.
“Of course I didn’t write anything before the baby came, and then I was putting it together when the baby was four months old. I wrote it all with my writing partner Max Lambert, I was there breastfeeding, tits akimbo with the baby on the boob while we made it.” Queenie shared.
In retrospect the singer is glad she didn’t start writing the piece until after she became a mother because she realised as she read more about the singer that lost motherhood was a big part of Mitchell’s story.
“She gave up a child for adoption when she was nineteen, it had such a profound effect on her and it was one of the contributing factors to her melancholy and depression.”
“All her songs have a such a sadness about them, which really came from her experiences of giving up a child.”
Queenie says that Mitchell is one of those singers that people assume they don’t know her work, some people may be familiar with hits like Big Yellow Taxi or You Turn Me On Like a Radio, but most people say they don’t know her songs. Yet when the show gets underway people soon realise they are familiar with her work from other singers performing her songs.
“A lot of her songs have been performed by other people like Crosby, Stills and Nash, but she’s the genius who wrote them”.
The singer wonders if Mitchell would have had more recognition if she’d been male.
“Because she’s a woman I feel that she hasn’t had the recognition that she would have had if she’d been a guy. The fact that Bob Dylan won the Nobel Literature prize and I go ‘that’s great’ but Joni is better in my opinion.
Queenie said she it was great to be nominated for a Helpmann Award for the show, describing the nomination as “wonderful” news.
“It’s really lovely to be recognised, especially for this show. I’m really proud of this show, it’s exactly what I set out to write.
“The show is like the experience you have when you put on a Joni Mitchell album. I only every put them on when I’m sad. You usually go and have a melancholy pity party for yourself, you can sit and be sad as long as the album lasts. It’s a beautiful thing, like a soft little cocoon that you go into.
“I really wanted the show to feel like that, like you go into this world that gently rocks your sadness. The show really brings together all the skills we’ve developed over many years and it’s lovely to have that recognition from the Helpmann awards.” Queenie said.
Blue: The Songs of Joni Mitchell is Downstairs at the Maj from Thursday 19th July, head to ptt.wa.gov.au for tickets.
OUTinPerth will be reporting live from the Helpmann Awards on Sunday and Monday night. Follow us on Twitter for the results of the awards.
Graeme Watson
