As you know, we’re exploring the impact of Covid-19 and other 21st century traumas on UK life - particularly the worlds of business, culture and education - talking to those working at the coalface. A special area of focus, over a number of episodes, is the music industry. Already a sector facing radical adaptation in a digital age, always treading a fine line between a public devoted to live music, festivals and championing their favourite artists and unsustainable business models, the death of record sales and a fragile future for many grassroots music venues. Throw in a global pandemic, and even the most fundamental recording, touring, creating and performing becomes a minefield. We’ve spoken to Norman Cook about club and festival survival, Meeta Raval about the state of opera and Amy Lamé about London’s night-time economy in lockdown - with many more expert voices still to come, who will help to unpick this complex and valuable world. In this podcast episode, our special guest is Fiona Bevan. East Anglian Fiona is both a singer-songwriter of her own folk-inspired music and one of the UK’s most prolific pop and rock songwriters for global acts as diverse as Kylie Minogue, Steps, Nick Mulvey, Lewis Capaldi, Aurora, Ed Harcourt and The Backstreet Boys to name just a handful. A contributor to a clutch of top 40 hit singles and albums, and an acclaimed performer of her own work, Fiona is still best known by many for co-writing the song 'Little Things' with Ed Sheeran. The song was released by One Direction in 2012, getting to number one in 13 countries with platinum certified sales in the UK, USA, Australia, Norway, Mexico and Canada, winning a coveted BMI award for the song-writing. Richard spoke to Fiona about the real lows of being a performer when you are banned from performing, the highs of having a dizzyingly upbeat track included on one of the biggest selling albums of 2020 - and what she thinks needs to change as the industry recovers from this unprecedented crisis. --- Useful links: https://fionabevan.co.uk/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiona_Bevan http://www.navigatorrecords.co.uk/artists/fiona-bevan/ https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/kylie-minogue-songwriter-fiona-bevan-paid-only-100-in-streaming-royalties-for-album-work-xbdl0cxcs https://www.songwritingmagazine.co.uk/how-i-wrote/one-direction-little-things-fiona-bevan --- For more information on how you can get involved with The Possibility Club – an inclusive community of professionals working out what’s next, have a look here > www.thepossibilityclub.org You can also receive Finding Chances, a free weekly letter from Richard Freeman, looking behind-the-scenes at business, culture, community and education by signing-up at findingchances.substack.com/ We’d love to know what you think of this podcast. Please review and share your responses to this podcast on your favourite podcast platform. This is an always possible podcast. The interviewer was Richard Freeman for always possible and the producer was Chris Thorpe-Tracey for Lo Fi Arts.
