A few weeks ago while at BBC GMR, the producer of the ‘Michelle Around Midnight’ programme Hayley CAVILL, game me a new cd to listen to.

The album was the new one from BEULAH, called MABEL AND I. I had never heard of BEULAH but I put the cd in the player and began to listen. It was astonishing. Track after track of sheer brilliance.

I scored every track as I listened and every one was a 5 Star track with the exception of track 3 which was just 3 Stars.

When I returned the cd to HAYLEY she told me that she had arranged an interview and session with BEULAH in about three weeks time. From out of nowhere I told her that I would be doing that interview. What do you mean she replied? I’ll be doing that interview I repeated, and that was that.Now you have to understand that the regular presenter of ‘Michelle Around Midnight’ is the fabulous Michelle MULLANE, and I only get to present the programme when she is ill or on holiday.

With three days to go to the interview senior producer Lawrence MANN calls me to tell me that Michelle was ill and wouldn’t be presenting the programme the evening. Would I do it? YEP!That was Wednesday evening. On Thursday the same conversation and the same result... I presented the show. And so to Friday and guess what. Michelle is still not well and I have to present the show. Hayley could not believe it.

On that evening’s show we had two sessions planned for the final hour in our ‘Live Room’. The first was Jenny K JONES who has a new album My disobedient hair. She was fabulous and her version of Ian Curtis’ ‘Love will tear us apart’ is sensational. Jenny went into the Live Room at 11:30 and was done by 12 midnight. This meant that we had the full hour with BEULAH.BEULAH arrived with a fairly large entourage and we all settled into the studio for our interview and a few live songs.

I cued up my favourite song on the album and we began. I suppose that it wasn’t until we got into that first song that I realized that something special was going on. During the song not one person spoke a word. Everyone listened intently to every word of the song. It is called NEVERMORE and as BEULAH explained, the song was written for a friend of hers who had lost a child. It is a most beautiful, and in my humble opinion, religious song.From there the evening just got more memorable with BEULAH telling me all about her and her life. We spoke about her family and her “wonderful” childhood. In between she sang songs from her awesome album including STAY, SWEET KINDA SOMETHING, the single and the title track MABEL AND I.

As you will see from this feature over the coming months I have interviewed a number of people who have touched me but I say this without fear of contradiction no one has touched me with their personality and music as beautifully as BEULAH has.As I said to her as she eventually went on her way I had a distinct feeling that God was in this album. Even now as I write this review and listen to the track NEVERMORE again, I am more convinced that this is a work of sheer genius.

This interview with BEULAH will always remain one of my favourite interviews ever.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the individuals who have taken the time to come onto my shows over the years and who have given me some truly wonderful memories.