Jennifer Maidman

Maidman's first release was L-L-Lazy Days in 1976, as a writer member of the group Red Hot, signed to Phillips/Phonogram, and produced by Mutt Lange.[6] In the late seventies Maidman also trained as a recording engineer, sometimes assisting John Burns at Escape Studios and notably recording and mixing Marc Bolan's 1976 hit single 'I Love to Boogie' at Decibel Studio,[7] a track later featured in the film 'Billy Elliot'.

Maidman's work as a musician, producer or writer, has since featured on hundreds of recordings, working with artists including Joan Armatrading,[8] David Sylvian,[9] The Penguin Cafe Orchestra,[10] Ian Dury, Shakespears Sister, The Proclaimers,[11] Paul Brady,[12] Sam Brown,[13] Gerry Rafferty,[14] Annie Whitehead, Robert Wyatt,[15] Sniff 'n the Tears,[16] Loudon Wainwright,[17] and Murray Head amongst others.

Notable successes include the Shakespears Sister double platinum album Hormonally Yours,[18] (which spawned the single "Stay", number one in several countries and certified gold in the US), The Proclaimers' Letter from America (certified gold),[11] and producing Paul Brady's Back to the Centre (featuring Eric Clapton, and voted best Irish album of the year by the readers of Hot Press[19]) and the follow-up Primitive Dance (featuring Mark Knopfler). She co-wrote, arranged and recorded a number of songs with Boy George and Bobby Z (of Prince and the Revolution), which appeared on the albums Hi Hat and Tense Nervous Headache [20] and went on to work again with Z on the album Gobe by French artist Guesch Patti, on which she arranged and played all instruments.[21] Maidman has also written for Sam Brown, Eurovision entrants Bardo, and Murray Head.

She has written and worked extensively with her partner, the English trombonist Annie Whitehead and produced and played on her albums Naked, Home and The Gathering.[22] She produced two albums by the Irish singer songwriter Paul Brady, Back to the Centre and Primitive Dance (and appears on many others), produced and performed on tracks on Linda McCartney's solo album Wide Prairie,[23] and has also produced Murray Head, Dutch African band Pili Pili,[24] The Kick Horns,[25] Northern Lights, and Lund.[26]

Other notable appearances on record include When in Rome, Union Cafe and Concert Program with Penguin Cafe Orchestra, extensive contributions to Gerry Rafferty's sixth album North and South, Christie Hennessey's platinum selling album This is As Far As I Go, David Sylvian's Gone to Earth, Paul Brady's Full Moon, Oh What a World and Hooba Dooba, Sam Brown's Stop and April Moon albums, and many releases by Murray Head from 1984 until the present. Her distinctive fretless bass playing can be heard on a number of recordings, notably Taking the Veil and Silver Moon by David Sylvian, Heaven and Frustration by Joan Armatrading, The Awakening by Paul Brady, and Peril in Venice by Murray Head. Jennifer contributed guitar and accordion on Robert Wyatt's album Cuckooland, nominated for the 2004 Mercury Music prize.[27]

In 2015 The Vicar Street Sessions Volume One was released, on which Jennifer (on guitar and bass) accompanies Paul Brady, Van Morrison, Mark Knopfler, Bonnie Raitt and Ronan Keating amongst others.[28]

Maidman has performed throughout Europe, the UK, Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, appearing live with amongst others Joan Armatrading, Paul Brady, David Sylvian,[29] Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Murray Head, Bonnie Raitt, Terry Reid,[30] Elvis Costello, Van Morrison, Curtis Stigers, Boy George, Tony O'Malley and Kokomo. Major live performance tours include Joan Armatrading band's 'The Key', a six-month tour which visited major venues in the UK, US, Canada, Europe, New Zealand and Australia,[31] and, following on from her contributions to the critically acclaimed album 'Gone to Earth', an 'eighty day world tour' entitled 'In Praise of Shamans' with David Sylvian, Mark Isham and David Torn.[32] Maidman's performance on multiple instruments can be heard throughout the definitive recording of the first incarnation of Penguin Cafe Orchestra, the album 'When in Rome', a recording of a live performance by the band at London's Royal Festival Hall.[33] She toured extensively with the band throughout the world and played a key role in their reunion/farewell concerts in 2007, when the band played three sold out nights at London's Union Chapel and received a five star review from the Guardian.[34]

Major television appearances include a South Bank Show documentary as a member of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra,[35] a six-part RTE series on Paul Brady,[36] and a BBC4 documentary on Robert Wyatt, in which Jennifer appeared alongside Robert on lead vocals, guitar and accordion.[37] She played drums with Salif Keita and the Penguin Cafe Orchestra in Kevin Godley's 'One World One Voice', a global musical chain letter featuring Sting, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson and many other musicians from around the world. The project became a BBC TV special, a documentary and an album.[38] Jennifer provided music for the soundtrack to the film 'All the Little Animals' (1998), starring John Hurt and Christian Bale.[39]

Maidman sings lead vocal and plays guitar in SoupSongs, a project devoted to Robert Wyatt's music, put together by Wyatt and Annie Whitehead. Soupsongs have released a critically acclaimed live double album,[40] and performed at London's Royal Festival Hall,[41] Queen Elizabeth Hall,[42] at many other UK venues, and in France, Germany and Italy.[43] Writing in the Guardian, the music critic John Fordham praised the album and said that "Maidman catches the composer's sense of dishevelled dignity and casually poetic radicalism".[44]

Maidman also performs regularly with the Orchestra That Fell to Earth (five members of the original Penguin Cafe Orchestra, including Geoffrey Richardson),[45] plays regularly in France with Murray Head,[46] and with Kokomo,[47] Terry Reid[48] and Annie Whitehead.

She has also appeared at a number of performance poetry events with the beat poet Michael Horovitz,[49] and with Penny Rimbeau's Last Amendment, including a concert at the National Cite' de la Musique Museum's auditorium in Paris.[50] Jennifer also collaborated with James Tartaglia (Saxophonist and Professor of Philosophy at Keele University [51]) on albums influenced by Tartaglia's philosophy work, 'Dark Metaphysic' (2008) [52] and 'Kooky Steps' (2014).

In 2020 Maidman's track 'Psycho Loco', a collaboration with lyricist Verna Gillis, won the Independent Music Award in the Funk Fusion category. [53]

In November 2020 Maidman released a single 'All In', a vocal duet with Senegalese star Youssou N'Dour recorded during the covid lockdown. The Afropop website described the track as a "soaring anthem of solidarity".[54]

Maidman's first theatre appearances were with James Cooper's Renegades company in East London. She has subsequently appeared on stage in London, featuring in 'Strange Cargo', a devised piece directed by Jamie Beddard and Claire Hodgson for Diverse City, and on the New York stage in Chris Wells' "It Will All Work Out' at Dixon Place, Mannhatan, in 2017. In January 2019 Maidman appeared in Leah Coloff's musical theatre piece This Tree, which premiered at the Prototype Festival in New York City.[55]