{"id":769455,"date":"2026-09-13T15:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T15:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/769455\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T15:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T15:30:12","slug":"elkie-brooks-looks-back-before-i-went-on-stage-i-used-to-drink-guinness-and-a-few-shots-of-brandy-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/769455\/","title":{"rendered":"Elkie Brooks looks back: \u2018Before I went on stage I used to drink Guinness and a few shots of brandy\u2019 | Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elkie Brooks in white jumpsuit, standing outside the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1977 and 2026<\/a>Elkie Brooks in 1977 and 2026. Later photograph: P\u00e5l Hansen\/The Guardian. Hair and makeup: C\u00e9line Nonon at Arlington Artists. Archive photograph: courtesy of Elkie Brooks <\/p>\n

Born Elaine Bookbinder in Salford in 1945, Elkie\u00a0Brooks is a rock, blues and jazz singer known as the British Queen of Blues. She spent much of the 1960s on the cabaret circuit, during which time she\u00a0supported the Beatles. She joined Dada in 1970, before forming Vinegar Joe with Robert Palmer<\/a> in 1971. She went solo after their split, breaking through with Pearl\u2019s a Singer and Sunshine After the Rain, scoring 13 UK Top 75 singles. A celebration of six decades in music, The Long Farewell Tour, is now on the road.<\/p>\n

This is me in a white jumpsuit outside the Royal Albert Hall in London. I\u00a0have very few memories of the gig, but I know I would have felt daunted as it\u2019s such a large venue. To overcome the nerves, I\u2019d have tried to focus on the music and remembered, \u201cIt\u2019s just another gig.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vinegar Joe had folded three years before. We\u2019d had a fantastic time and\u00a0it\u00a0broke my heart when we disbanded as I had thought that it would last for ever. But Robert Palmer decided he was going to embark on a solo career and the rest of the band said, \u201cOh, well, that\u2019s it then.\u201d It was\u00a0pretty hard going for me \u2013 the only real fallow part of my life. I\u00a0had a couple of months of not doing very\u00a0much. Then I got asked to join a band in the southern states of the US called Wet Willie, and after that I\u00a0started my own solo project. Pearl\u2019s\u00a0a\u00a0Singer was released in 1977 and we went out on tour, finishing the year with this Albert Hall show. As the end of Vinegar Joe had been emotional for me, and it had taken many years to get a group of people together who all got on and were brilliant musicians, this day, that gig, would have been quite a moment.<\/p>\n

Ever since I can remember, I have been singing, often in the bath, to\u00a0my\u00a0mummy. When I was seven I\u00a0would get invited to sing Mr Sandman with the band that would play at weddings and barmitzvahs. As\u00a0I\u00a0got older, I\u00a0adored Johnnie Ray and Ella\u00a0Fitzgerald, then Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Dakota Staton, Esther Phillips and Aretha Franklin. The cantor at the local synagogue used to give me singing lessons, all in Hebrew\u00a0and Yiddish. He\u00a0was the one who taught me the correct way to project my voice.<\/p>\n

double quotation markI still train now, which is one of the reasons why I\u00a0managed to get into this jumpsuit 50 years later<\/p>\n

Even as a child I had a low voice. When I auditioned for the primary school choir, I sang All Things Bright and Beautiful. The headteacher, who used to play the piano and lead the choir, said to me, \u201cBookbinder \u2013 you sound like a\u00a0blinking boy.\u201d Was\u00a0I\u00a0embarrassed? Not really. Deep\u00a0down I\u2019ve always had a\u00a0reasonable amount of confidence in the fact that I have a natural singing voice. Not the greatest singing voice in the world, but few people practise as much as I do. She let me into the choir,\u00a0anyway.<\/p>\n

My first show was at the Laurent Club on Cheetham Hill Road in Manchester, when I was just 13. I went up with a jazz trio and afterwards the owner of the club said, \u201cWould you like to do a few little songs here\u00a0every\u00a0night this week?\u201d A\u00a0few years later I\u00a0saw in the Jewish Telegraph that Don\u00a0Arden<\/a>, Sharon Osbourne\u2019s father, was holding auditions at the Palace theatre in Manchester one Saturday morning. I\u00a0went along and sang a Cliff Richard B-side. Don thought I was wonderful and put me on the show that night. When he drove me in his car to another gig, he said, \u201cYou can\u2019t be\u00a0called Bookbinder any more.\u201d Don had Jewish heritage and was obviously concerned that people wouldn\u2019t like me if I had a Jewish name, as there was\u00a0a lot of antisemitism around. At the next gig, he introduced me as \u201cElaine Mansfield\u201d, which I hated. I\u00a0managed to get rid of the name years\u00a0later: a friend told me that my name in Yiddish was Elkie, so I took that and shortened Bookbinder\u00a0to\u00a0Brooks.<\/p>\n

For most of my career I have been in\u00a0a male-dominated industry, but\u00a0it\u00a0was never uncomfortable \u2013 I\u00a0was\u00a0tomboyish and brought up around blokes, as I\u2019ve got two big brothers. The most trying experience\u00a0of being outnumbered was\u00a0at the Beatles\u2019 Christmas show in 1964. I was not only the only woman on the entire bill, but in all the production as well. About 200 men, and me. It was bad because nobody took any notice of me, which made me feel dismissed. The fans were\u00a0all getting ice-creams and walking around the theatre when I\u00a0played, but\u00a0when the Beatles came on, the girls all screamed.<\/p>\n

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The demise of Vinegar Joe was a hard moment creatively, but personally, too, because my first husband had left me shortly before. It wasn\u2019t an easy time and I struggled to think sensibly. I managed to pull through \u2013 I always do, because I\u00a0focus on the music. Where does my strength\u00a0come from? My mum. She told me she was going to have an abortion when she was pregnant with me, as she didn\u2019t want any more children \u2013 she already had two sons and had a few serious health issues. The doctor, a lovely man, said, \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a girl. I know you want a\u00a0girl. Don\u2019t have an abortion. You\u2019ll be fine.\u201d So she had me.<\/p>\n

Being on the road in the 1970s was often rock\u2019n\u2019roll \u2013 before I went on stage, I used to drink Guinness and a\u00a0few shots of brandy. These days I like everything in moderation; I haven\u2019t had a drink before going on stage since my eldest son, Jay, was a baby, nearly 50 years ago. Having had so many hangovers in my youth, I now only like a little taste on special occasions. I don\u2019t want to ruin a workout the next day. I\u2019ve always tried to eat well, too. When I was with Wet Willie, they\u2019d always stop off at hamburger places, but if I ate them I\u2019d get pimples on my back, so I realised, \u201cThis is not for me.\u201d I haven\u2019t eaten a cheeseburger since 1974. Instead I adore hummus, and fruit and nuts.<\/p>\n

I am very active, too. In 1995, I\u00a0achieved my black belt in karate. I still train now, which is one of the reasons why I managed to get into this jumpsuit 50 years later. I fell through a stage when I was with Vinegar Joe at the Marquee Club in London, and it wasn\u2019t until many years later, when I had an X-ray, that doctors told me I had a fractured hip. Last year I had a hip operation and, blinking heck, I\u00a0have felt fantastic ever since. I did six backdrops this morning.<\/p>\n

Aged 81, this is the best time of my life for many reasons. There\u00a0were\u00a0moments when I was young where\u00a0people were a bit dominating in areas of my work \u2013 telling me how\u00a0I\u00a0should look or what I should sing\u00a0\u2013 and various people, who shall\u00a0remain nameless, have tried to knock my self-esteem throughout my career. I never lost it entirely, and\u00a0always had a strong sense of who\u00a0I\u00a0was.<\/p>\n

Not only do I feel great, but for the first time in years I\u2019ve actually got a\u00a0band I like \u2013 we all chat to each other, and performing live is a wonderful feeling. I\u2019m thoroughly enjoying myself \u2013 and plan to keep doing so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elkie Brooks in white jumpsuit, standing outside the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1977 and 2026Elkie Brooks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-769455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}