Daughter of an artist fan of jazz and a sea captain passionate about rock, the singer from Texas recounts the joyful soundtrack of her childhood in Glasgow and the beginnings of her group.
Sharleen Spiteri at 13 with her little sister Corinne. Personal collection
Published on April 28, 2024 at 3:30 p.m.
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Where did you spend your childhood and in what environment?
I grew up in the Finnieston area of Glasgow. [Écosse]. We lived with my parents and my little sister in a large five-story building. My father was a captain in the merchant navy. My mother, a window artist, decorated the windows of many stores in the city. Quite shy and very quiet, I didn’t like school. On all the school reports that my mother kept, the teachers mentioned my inability to understand language.
For a future author, this is quite ironic. I didn’t fit in with the other students. I had long black hair, I dressed in big baseball t-shirts, cut-off jeans and tube socks. It was a bit like my uniform. I got around on a skateboard. With my little group of friends, we loved going to the park by bike, playing baseball with the bat that my father had brought me from the United States. I left high school at 15, when my friends, all a year older, left.
Did your parents listen to music?
My mother, who was a very elegant woman with a somewhat hippie style, blue eyes and long blond hair, loved Mahalia Jackson, the Staple Singers, Al Green, Marvin Gaye and Billie Holiday. My father loved the Byrds, Gene Clark, the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Eagles, Johnny Cash and the Rolling Stones. Often absent for long periods for work, when he returned he spent all his money at the record store. I remember the day he spent the afternoon in the living room dancing like a San Francisco rock star to the record Rumours, by Fleetwood Mac, volume up.
What is your favorite song from your childhood?
Around the age of 9, my parents gave me an old Dansette record player with a stack of vinyl records, in which there were These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ by Nancy Sinatra. When I passed it for the first time, my heart started beating very fast, I felt strange, overcome with infinite joy. As a teenager, listening to Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell gave me intense emotions of happiness. I had never heard anything so beautiful.
What was the first concert you attended?
That of Simple Minds, at Tiffany’s, in Glasgow. I must have been 14 years old. My cousin took me there with a fake ID card, entry being prohibited for under 18s. I remember the smell of alcohol, cigarette smoke, spectators all dressed in trendy outfits. The lights went out and Jim Kerr ran back on stage to the cheers of the crowd. I loved his energy. At the time, I noticed his silk shirt. I even talked about it in the documentary I participated in about the group. When the film came out, he called me and admitted that it was a blouse that he had borrowed from his mother!
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Did you learn music as a child?
My father played guitar, my mother sang beautifully and my grandfather was an excellent boogie-woogie pianist. There were many musical instruments at my grandparents’ house. With my sister and my cousins (two of whom became musicians), we often had fun playing the piano or the small pedal organ, one blowing the air, the other pressing the keys. I started playing guitar at the age of 10. My father showed me some chords and very quickly, I started working on my own. The first song I learned was Dreams, the Fleetwood Mac.
I met Johnny McElhone when I was 17. He was already part of a group but wanted to start a new one. A mutual friend recorded my voice on a cassette and passed it on to him. We arranged to meet and, in the evening, we started working together. It was also that same evening that we composed I Don’t Want A Lover. Our goal was to write the best songs possible. We played our first gig in 1988, when I was 21, at the University Bar in Dundee. I was terrified. The stage was 30 centimeters high and everyone in the audience was taller than me. I spent the concert clinging to the neck of my guitar which served as a safety barrier.
Do you remember the first song you wrote?
The very first one I wrote is I Don’t Want A Lover, with Johnny. It’s pretty incredible. We composed and wrote together. He would start playing a bass line and I would sing over it, without really putting words to it. Little by little, the song was born, a week before my eighteenth birthday!
Sharleen Spiteri, from Texas, during the era of the hit “I Don’t Want A Lover.” Photo Julian Broad
2024-04-28 14:00:27
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