10 SUNDAY MERCURY SUNDAY, JANUARY 19, 2020 news RUBY GIVEN 2 HOURS TO COMPOSE HIT SONG FOR MOVIE

■■ Ruby Turner and inset, Derek Jacobi in new film The Host

PAUL COLE melody, but that was it. After a crazy with his Orches- Print Editor couple of hours, I came up with the tra – and all these years later we’re song we needed, just in time for me still touring!” to get over to the set for hair and It is not Ruby’s first film role – she IRMINGHAM R&B make-up. was the sensational Jean Anderson queen Ruby Turner was “Then I was singing it as the cam- in rom-com Love, Actually. given just a COUPLE OF eras rolled. We later recorded it in She is, she says, proud of the new HOURS to come up with the studio for the finished result.” because for the first time she the lead song for a new That result is Chasing Love, a big has been in complete control of eve- Bgangster movie. song worthy of a Bond movie and a rything and has co-written all the With the clocking ticking down, bonus track on Ruby’s new album, songs. film producers moved her into a Love Was Here. “It is apparently my 20th album,” Mayfair hotel in the afternoon – with For Ruby, it has been a return to she says. “I had no idea. I wasn’t recording due at 6pm that same day. her roots – she started out as an keeping count. And it’s my first since The Host, out in America this actress at ’s Crescent 2014. week, is a tough new thriller starring Theatre. “To be honest, I didn’t know Derek Jacobi as a banker who gets “Back in 1977, we took a produc- whether I’d ever make another caught up in a drugs cartel. tion up to the Edinburgh Fringe, in album. Studio bosses wanted a big song which I sang a Ray Charles song,” “I didn’t know if anyone would for the movie, in which Ruby also she recalls. really want one. sings and acts, but scheduling “That was when they said ‘Hey, “Besides, I’ve been funding all my changes left them almost out of this girl can sing’. After that I was in own work myself. But then I met time. things like A Streetcar Named Desire husband and wife producers Nick “They came to me and said they and Puttin’ On The Ritz. Atkinson and Kat Eaton – and they wanted to record the song at 6pm,” “I eventually made an EP, spent a got me! she says. “‘But we don’t have a song!’ year on the road with , “This is the album I’ve always I told them. then went solo and got a No 1 record. wanted to make. It’s how I see myself “So they booked me into a hotel in “Then it all fell apart. I ended up – not how other people see me, and Mayfair, and I started writing, and out in the wilderness without a deal. want me to sound. singing into my computer. I went back to the theatre, playing at “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed making “They’d teamed me up with Hong the Young Vic. it, and I can step back and be proud Kong musical prodigy Wan Pin Chu “Then one day of it as a piece of work that, for the so we had a broad outline of the came knocking, offered me a year first time, is the real Ruby Turner.”