AUDIO EXCLUSIVE: Pop jazz sensation Caro Emerald vows to get fans dancing on their chairs
In an exclusive chat ahead of her brand new 2018 UK Tour - listen to the full interview here - she also told how she plans to transport audiences musically to a South American jazz club and beach party.
And she'll have them back in time for supper.
The A Night Like This hitmaker, who performs a sold out show at Harrogate International Centre this Saturday, October 6, will be back in Yorkshire for dates at York Barbican on November 3 and Sheffield City Hall, to end her tour, on November 4.
But hurry. All tour tickets are selling fast. Full details below.
BUY TICKETS: Tickets, subject to availability, are on sale at all venues listed below and for all shows at gigasandtours.com, ticketmaster.co.uk, call 0844 811 0051 and 0844 826 2826. Also check out caroemerald.com, @caroemerald and www.facebook.com/CaroEmeraldOfficial.
AUDIO: Listen to Caro Emerald's full big interivew with Graham Walker - CLICK HERE.
VIDEO: Watch her sensational music video for A Night Like This, which has had 23m views on YouTube. It's on on our embedded video player - or CLICK HERE,
"We're going to have a party," vowed the 37-year-old Dutch superstar, who has the glamorous look of a Hollywood icon of yesteryear and a voice that oozes warmth and vitality.
"Fans can expect anything that they already know - a big variety of songs, from intimate to big numbers. We're going to build up the energy of the show until the end when people are going to be dancing on their chairs.
"The show is about traveling to a fictional place, imagine a big city in South America. We can be in a jazz club, but we can also hang out on the beach in the sun. We're going to take you there and that's going to be different from all the other shows that you've seen from us.
"It's going to be so different this show. We have some new songs. This set is definitely going to be completely different than the show that we did last year. So that is very exciting to me as well."
The star with vintage charm and an infectious sense of fun, takes her inspiration from jazz greats the likes of Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald. But the former demo vocalist sings mainly new songs in a style which pays homage to the golden era of the big bands.
She became a household name with 2009 hits Back It Up and A Night Like This from debut album Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor, which has since gone on to sell more than 1.4m copies worldwide.
Follow-up album The Shocking Miss Emerald went straight to the top of the UK album charts in 2013. There's been a few singles since but no new album and Caro says that's the way it will stay until she's happy with an album full of great new tracks. But she is working on it.
And the seed has been planted to cover the Great American Songbook and possibly a Christmas album.
"Yeah, that would make sense. But right now I kind of feel it would be a boring thing. I don't want it to be boring. It has to be sparkling, be energetic, new and daring," she said.
She added: "We don't do the obligatory releasing an album and tour.
" What's most important to us is that anything we release has a very high quality and it's interesting on a lot of levels. What we never want to do is repeat some kind of trick or kind of bury ourselves in what we've created. Even if that means it will take another five years to release a full album, then so be it.
"We are driving it right now. But I can honestly tell you there's nothing there yet that's good enough. So we're just going to have to go on working on it."
Caro says of her singing style: "It's not like I picked it. I kind of feel like that style picked me. It's the way I sing. My sound has been like that ever since I can remember, from when I was a kid and the first time I ever sang a song.
"It just does something to me that makes a lot of sense and I feel very attracted to jazz music. I'm talking about old jazz music because it has a kind of simplicity to it. But at the same time it's very complex in a musical way.
"If you talk about singing a standard song, then you can make it as difficult as you want. It's all about getting the message across and trying to really carry the song.
"Contemporary vocalists have a tendency to try to show off their vocal abilities and I've always really hated that because it takes away from the attention the song deserves. I really feel that vocal jazz is all about bringing the song and the lyrics to life."
Caro added: "It started quite accidentally. I was just a demo singer and with some songwriters we went on to create an entire album. From the very beginning it was very clear that we wanted to make unique songs. We never wanted to sound like a band from the 30s or 40s or whatever decade, we wanted to borrow that sound and to make new music.
"We wanted old and new influences. You can really hear that my producers and the songwriters really have a very big love for that kind of music. We've just been doing what comes natural to us."
She told how she prepares for a month-long tour like a 'marathon runner', working out, watching what she eats and staying fit and healthy. On the night plays loud music in her dressing room then joins the band and finds all the pre-show yelling backstage gets her adrenaline up.
She said: "I work out a lot, look at my food and try to really stay fit and healthy. It's like preparing for a marathon, you have to start doing small distance walking and build up,
"It's definitely a physical thing.
"There's a few tricks that I use before a show. I play a lot of loud music and I enjoy being in the same room with the band, to really kind of get the excitement going with the guys. Everybody's yelling and it really helps me to kind of get my adrenaline up.
"When the band starts playing and I get fantastic sounds in my ear then that gets get me going. As soon as I hear them play I go like, 'wow!'.
"And the other part is the audience. I'm always amazed how much energy I get from the audience, even if we're like really screwing up, which happens. People don't know this. But the audience pick us up. They take me there even if I don't feel it's going to happen."
Caro, who trained as a jazz vocalist at the Amsterdam Conservatory, said singing for iconic producer, conductor, songwriter and performer Quincy Jones, at his all-star 85th birthday concert at The O2 in London this summer was the biggest vocal challenge of my life and "felt like the end exam of of my Conservatory life."
The gig included other star performances with a full orchestra playing Quincy's greatest hits, from Frank Sinatra's Fly Me To The Moon to Michael Jackson's Thriller album. She sung Misty, made popular by Sarah Vaughan and Honey Suckle Rose by Ella Fitzgerald.
"It was fantastic, exciting and nerve-racking at the same time because I knew it's Quincy Jones. It's the highest level you can get. The guy has ears. You can't really fool him. So that felt like the biggest challenge of my life vocally and that was very exciting singing standards, which I usually don't really choose to do. But these were really really difficult songs as well."
CARO EMERALD 2018 UK TOUR
FRI 05 OCT IPSWICH REGENT
SAT 06 OCT HARROGATE INTL CENTRE
MON 08 OCT LEICESTER DE MONTFORT HALL
TUE 09 OCT MILTON KEYNES THEATRE
THU 11 OCT GATESHEAD SAGE
FRI 12 OCT GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL
SAT 13 OCT EDINBURGH USHER HALL
MON 15 OCT MANCHESTER BRIDGEWATER HALL
TUE 16 OCT LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC
FRI 19 OCT CAMBRIDGE CORN EXCHANGE
SAT 20 OCT BRIGHTON CENTRE
MON 22 OCT SOUTHEND CLIFFS PAVILION
TUE 23 OCT BATH FORUM
WED 24 OCT CARDIFF ST DAVID’S HALL
FRI 26 OCT BOURNEMOUTH INTL CENTRE
SAT 27 OCT PLYMOUTH PAVILIONS
MON 29 OCT NOTTINGHAM ROYAL CONCERT HALL
TUE 30 OCT BIRMINGHAM SYMPHONY HALL
WED 31 OCT LONDON ROYAL ALBERT HALL
FRI 02 NOV LLANDUDNO VENUE CYMRU THEATRE
SUN 04 NOV SHEFFIELD CITY HALL
LINKS:
Web: caroemerald.comTwitter: @caroemeraldFacebook: www.facebook.com/CaroEmeraldOfficial.