What’s My Scene: Lou Blackwell shares the Great French Songbook
In our regular Q&A column What’s My Scene, InReview speaks to emerging and established local artists to get their take on the South Australian creative scene and their place within it. This week, Francophile cabaret star Lou Blackwell shares her journey from Adelaide to Paris and back again.
Where was your first gig, and how did it go?
It was pretty cool to get my first professional job as an actor in Geoffrey Rush’s Magpie Theatre when I was 18, working in theatres and going out to schools with a great bunch of actors doing original and creative shows, including the original production of David Holman’s The Small Poppies for the 1986 Adelaide Festival. I especially loved our season of Bill Harding’s Carols by Laserlight at Belvoir St. Theatre, where we shared the theatre with the Castanet Club who did a later show, and I met all those fun performers from Newcastle, many who went on to work as comedians and actors. Our show had a guest performer come in every night to sing a Christmas Carol, and the celebrities ranged from Penny Cook, to Ricky May to Mel Gibson. It was so much fun!
For my first gig as a jazz singer in Paris, well at the time, I was studying jazz singing with Sara Lazarus, a great American singer who had made Paris her home. I was also singing Irish songs around the Irish pub scene, especially in a little pub called The Quiet Man in the 3rd arrondissement. I was still to do my first jazz gig in Paris! A young Irish man who was riding the Irish tiger economy boom of the 90s, and very successful in business, came to the pub that night and said to me, “I haven’t a clue about the music industry, but I think you’re grand and I’d like to give you some money to help you!” I was totally stunned! That went towards recording my first demo CD and I set up my first concert in a little marionette theatre in the 20th arrondissement, L’Ogresse, where I played with great jazz players with whom I was to continue working.
What is your artist origin story?
My family was pretty musical and theatrical, so this had an effect on my creativity no doubt. My mother was a popular singer in Adelaide, Imelda Bourke, and my father Daryl Blackwell, was a swing piano player, but then got involved in the family business and didn’t pursue music as a career. With five kids, myself being the youngest, motherhood really got in the way of Imelda pursuing a full-blown singing career as she was truly capable of. But there was music in the house. Mum and Dad would play the piano and sing at parties, I can remember some early records that made a mark on me, Carmen McRae’s Gold, Oscar Peterson, and the more commercial Linda Ronstadt with Nelson Riddle, which made me dream of singing in an orchestra. My sister Lisa came back from Ireland in the 70s and brought a whole lot of Irish records from those golden years of Irish music. Anyway, these memories, and discovering Miles, Coltrane and all the jazz singers a bit later on, all were part of my inspiration. As for acting, my brother Paul and sister Madeleine were both at NIDA when I was still at school, I thought actors were the COOLEST, and loved going up to Sydney on school holidays and meeting their young actor friends. I was very impressionable!
Being a member of Pembroke Girl’s Choir was a big part of my musical education, and performing ‘I’ve Been to a Marvellous Party’ in the school production of Noel Coward’s Cowardy Custard, seemed to score some points for me…. so I suppose I have always enjoyed performing. I joined Unley Youth Theatre and then Magpie Theatre, before moving to Sydney to pursue acting, getting jobs in TV and theatre, and then moving to Melbourne, where I got involved in an Irish/Greek vocal band and enrolled in an arts degree at Melbourne university. I enjoyed going to university and learning songs from these other cultures after feeling a bit rudderless, just going for acting jobs and living a pretty heady life in Sydney, as fun as it was!
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What was your impression of the Adelaide creative scene when you first started, and how has that changed?
The Adelaide creative scene was very exciting for me as a young performer. I used to love going to the State Theatre Company productions and I also became a part of Unley Youth Theatre. I loved the Bistro, downstairs from the Playhouse, it had such a fun atmosphere back in the day! The opening night parties… I was there! What has changed? Well, I was away for many years, and came back in my early 40s, so it has taken time to build a profile again, especially at an older age. The Fringe does help you to slowly build a name and a profile – you need staying power and resilience as it grows every year, and it costs of course, but it is one major avenue for young people to build a name.
When I was young, the Fringe was never as big as it is today. It would be great to see a really great new venue for young musicians and performers, where they can develop their craft without having to pay big hire and publicity costs. I know the Elder Conservatorium have created their own venue, Hal’s Hall. I’d love to see a great medium-sized, decent venue for young people. There are great venues around, such as the Wheatsheaf and Nexus, but one that is really sponsored by council or big donors would be terrific.
How has your own work evolved since you first started?
I started out more as an actor, and that somehow slipped away when I moved from Sydney to Melbourne and music took over. It was really in Paris that I felt free and confident enough to develop my jazz singing, which I had always wanted to do. I discovered a jazz school where Sara Lazarus and Michèle Hendricks were teaching, and it all went from there. It was a great joy to meet the pianist Vincent Bourgeyx, who had just come back from studying at Berkeley and playing in New York. He played at my first gig, and we went on to play over several years, also with Karl Jannuska, a great jazz drummer from Canada, and bassists, Gildas Boclé and Chris Jennings. We recorded three CDs and I was living the dream. I had to come back home to Australia as I couldn’t be on a student visa forever, and it was hard to get a visa as a jazz singer – you needed a big contract at Disneyland or the like. I was pretty devastated, as my singing career was getting going, I would have liked to stay at least a couple more years to develop my craft before coming back to Australia. Things work out in the end, and I had time with my dear brother Paul and my parents before they sadly passed. Funnily enough, my jazz practice needs a little oiling, as my time has been taken up with French repertoire and all the production/administration that comes with running a band. I have the most wonderful band, so feel very fortunate.
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What is it about your next project that you’re most excited/nervous to share with the world?
I also work as an English teacher, and now changing to aged care and disability, due to visa restrictions for international students. This can get in the way of working full time as a creative, and also, it costs a lot to run a band and try and produce shows. The band members are all extremely busy being parents, educators, composers, run jazz schools, etc, they are all very inspiring and so industrious! This is all fine, but it means that projects can take a bit of time to get up and running, as so many creatives know!
Our current band, Lou Blackwell and the French Set, haven’t recorded for a while, so it would be great to record again, and make a video or two to accompany this. I am not a songwriter, so my project with the band is simply to try and bring a first-rate delivery of the Great French Songbook to Australian audiences. I was so thrilled when we were invited to play at the upcoming Adelaide Cabaret Festival, so it’s all engines revving at present! I would also love to play more in other capital cities where there is a big French cultural presence.
Who are the artists around you that inspire or challenge you?
As a jazz singer, I love Adelaide’s Lauren Henderson, she is totally world class. Amazing improvisor, and storyteller, with a musical sensibility that inspires all the musicians around her – a real musician-singer, with a big, whopping heart, she can easily move you to tears. My jazz teacher in Paris, Sara Lazarus, loved by all the musicians around her in Paris, has a jazz sensibility and phrasing that is awe-inspiring. Her main album Give me the Simple Life is one of my favourite jazz vocal albums. Michaela Burger is another world class performer, as is Libby O’Donovan, they both can sing the roof off and have a huge gift for storytelling and comedy, so their upcoming show will be yet another bobby dazzler no doubt!
Favourite venue to play?
The Dunstan Playhouse of course, it has such a great stage, that houses a reasonably sized audience, yet also creates a sense of intimacy. And with such a friendly and professional production crew, you can’t go wrong! I loved my first theatre experiences there, seeing productions by Jim Sharman’s Lighthouse company, or Neil Armfield’s STC company. It was wonderful to catch Heather Mitchell perform Ruth Bader Ginsberg recently, and it took me back to the times when she performed on the same stage as a young woman. She has hardly aged at all, and always so brilliant!
Dream artist to perform alongside?
I would love to get back into some more jazz sensibility and perform with Lauren Henderson and some of the young, talented singers like Courtney Hooper, or cabaret with stars like Michaela Burger and Libby O Donovan… but more than anything, I just love seeing them perform.
Favourite artist to collaborate with?
Pianist Mark Simeon Ferguson, the head of jazz at Elder Conservatorium and a fine composer and musical director is amazing to collaborate with. He has transformed the Elder Conservatorium into a world class jazz school, providing great teachers and opportunities for young jazz musicians. His skill as a shaper of a cabaret show is particularly remarkable at this crunch time… he knows what works narratively and musically and the horse has bolted.
Where is your next performance, and how do you hope it will go?
Our next gig is A French Romance with Lou Blackwell and the French Set at the Dunstan Playhouse on June 7th at 7.30 pm for the 2026 Adelaide Cabaret Festival. See you there!
Lou Blackwell and the French Set will perform A French Romance at Dunstan Playhouse on June 7 as part of Adelaide Cabaret Festival
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