Cabaret performer Christa Hughes is heading back to Perth to perform her show ‘Beer Drinking Woman’, a show filled with songs about drinking.
Chatting to OUTinPerth Hughes shares her love of performing, discovering different songs and taking risks. Hughes recalls the time when she was asked to sing at the birthday of outspoken author Germaine Greer.
“A friend called me and asked if I’d sing at Germaine’s 70th birthday party, and I said, ‘Of course, I’d love to sing at her birthday!’ Once I put the phone down I thought, ‘What in God’s name do you sing at Germaine Greer’s birthday?’ Hughes recalled.
Hughes shared that when she was a teenager she used to sing jazz at a hotel in Surry Hills. She recalls meeting a Russian author named Sascha who approached her after a set one day and asked if she knew a song called ‘Shave Them Dry’? The author introduced her to the crude blues song from the 1920s and noted that he remembered Germaine Greer singing the song at the quadrangle at the University once.
“The lyrics are pretty full on,” notes Hughes, it starts off with the line ‘I’ve got nipples on my titties that are as big as my thumbs…’ and then it just gets cruder and cruder. I knew it was a great story and it would be the perfect song to sing at her birthday.”
Unfortunately the singer was unable to double-check the story with the Russian author as he’d passed away many years ago. So Hughes took a leap of faith that she’d remembered the story correctly.
“I thought, ‘I hope I’ve got this right’, or else it would be really embarrassing,” Hughes shared, “I entered the room and sang the first line, ‘I got nipples on my titties,’ – and Germaine Greer leapt up and put her hands on her chest and sang the next line ‘as big as my thumbs’, and we did the song together as a duet!”
Hughes confirms that she is indeed a beer drinking woman as the title of her show claims, although she points out she’s not exclusive.
“I love beer, but I love white wine, I love red wine, I love tequila, I love whiskey, I’ll pretty much love anything you put in front of me,” laughs Hughes.
The title of the show actually comes from a song by 1940’s blues-man Memphis Slim. Hughes first put together the show back in 2000 when she’d just returned from a trip to the cabaret festival in New York. Searching for a theme she thought there were so many fantastic songs about alcohol. Hughes went abut collating a collection of the best tunes and then wrote some new songs of her own.
“There’s stuff from the 1920’s and thirties which I just love,” Hughes shares, “I sing Bessie Smith’s ‘Give Me a Pig Foot and a Bottle of Beer’, and Memphis Slim’s ‘Beer Drinking Woman’ which is where the show gets it’s name from, and more contemporary stuff too, I do take on Britney Spears’ ‘Toxic’ which has got quite an edge too it, plus Cold Chisel’s ‘Cheap Wine’.
Since the song first debuted it’s been constantly evolving, Hughes says she’s always adding and subtracting songs to keep the show fresh.
Hughes career has seen her perform in a variety of styles from musical theatre, to rock n’ roll and even circus performing. Cabaret however is clearly her favourite genre to work in.
“Cabaret allows you to be a little more irreverent, I really enjoy not being too serious or earnest. ‘Beer Drinking Woman’ certainly fits into that irreverent category, its not a moralistic show that says drinking is good or drinking is bad. It’s just about drinking and what happens when we get drunk. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s stupid,” Hughes said.
‘Beer Drinking Woman’ will mark Hughes third appearance on the Cabaret Soiree bill, last she brought her ‘Neurotic Ladyland’ show to town and a few years earlier she was here performing alongside her father jazz pianist Dick Hughes.
Catch her show ‘Beer Drinking Woman’ Downstairs at The Maj until Saturday. Head to their site to book tickets.
Graeme Watson
