From her early days with Transvision Vamp, Wendy James has always been more than your average pop star. She was the darling of the tabloids in the late Eighties and songs like Baby I Don’t Care were big hits but you always suspected there was more to Ms James than being the latest flavour of the month. Wendy James (Picture: David Leigh Dodd) And so it has proved for she has just released her 10th album, The Shape of History, and on Wednesday she will be performing some of the songs live at an in-store appearance at Preston’s Action Records.
“I think it expands on what I have done before as a songwriter but it doesn’t divert into any odd places,” she said. “My taste has always remained pretty consistent but with experience you can just expand on that palette.” Wendy cites her debut solo album - Now Ain’t Time for Your Tears - as being the key moment in her career as a songwriter.
The album was famously written for her by Elvis Costello, supposedly within a week. “After that album it became apparent to me that to continue to be the musician I thought I could be I absolutely had to start owning my own words and developing my own melodies,” she said. “That’s really where it all began.
” Racine number one was her first solo album, released in 2004, to feature songs she had written. “When I listen back to that now, albeit the production is far more lo-fi, the songs are pretty evolved,” she said. “All that’s happened is that I have found a gang of mu.