'It's my home town, my inspiration and what made me who I am': Beverley Knight - The Queen of British Soul - on Wolverhampton life, influences and memories of performing with Prince

The 52-year-old has packed a lot into her life, from hits like "Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda" and "Come as you are" and performing to one billion people at the 2012 Paralympics opening ceremony, and she admits that, even now, she still can’t believe that she’s got to where she’s gotten to.

She said: “I thought to myself recently, how have I got here? I’m just this kid from Wolverhampton who had a dream and I wouldn’t let go of it and I just kept pushing until I realised that dream.

“Also, because of that dream, all these other things have happened to me and I’ve been all over the world and I’ve done some many things that I would never have expected to do.

“There’s performing at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, the Paralympics in London, meeting Prince and David Bowie and I think, how has this happened to me, and yet it has and I absolutely thank God for every single second of it.”

The career Beverley Knight has had is one she’s very proud of and is the foundation for the upcoming Born to Perform tour, which will see her take to the stage across the country to perform what she said would be a different experience to what people would normally expect.

She said: “With the Born to Perform tour, it’s a little different to what people know when they come to see me as it’s going to have all the high energy as it always does, because that’s me, but I’m going to be putting a lot of music theatre songs into the set.

“That’s because it’s something of telling the story of how I came to be where I am, so born to perform, literally, from my beginnings right here in Wolverhampton, right through my career in musical theatre and the all the musical stops in between, from my hits, from other people’s hits, people who have inspired me and, all the way through to the musical theatre.

“It’s also a broader remit than just the greatest hits as it’s the hits and also the hits of other people in other circumstances that have contributed to me and my life and to who I am and why.

“There’s going to be songs that people don’t know and while there will be fan favourites, there’s also going to be songs where people go ‘oh wow, so she did this musical and sang this song’ and so I hope it encourages people to then go back and discover.”

The tour itself will take in cities such as Cardiff, Glasgow and Manchester, and will culminate in what Beverley excited said is the big finale at the Civic Hall in Wolverhampton on June 30.

She said she hadn’t had any say in where the tour ended but said her promoter Simon Moran knew that she would love to put on a huge show in her home city, hence being able to finish the tour and, in her words, “leave everything she has out on that stage” at the Civic Hall.

That link to Wolverhampton is still so important to Beverley, who went to school at Woodfield Infants and Juniors and Highfields Secondary School and who still has family living in the city.

While she now lives in London with her husband James, she still returns regular to Wolverhampton and said it was a huge part of her musical DNA and shaped who she was.

She said: “It’s been essential to me and I always say to people that I’m glad I was born and raised in Wolverhampton as opposed to anywhere else as if I had been a Londoner or a Mancunian, it would have been easy to fall into a little kind of cliquey sound.

“But, coming from Wolverhampton meant that, musically, my remit was broad as, being of Jamaican descent, I heard reggae, but having Christian parents meant I grew up with gospel.

“The Midlands is also the home of metal, so we would hear some more commercial metal songs on the radio and I grew up with a real appreciation of rock and that heaviness, and then the backdrop of my life was hip hop, because of just the age I am.

“There’s also the soul and R&B and all the great pop that was around at the time, so I had access to it all because I grew up with Beacon Radio 303, as it was back then, and I wasn’t just listening to this one little tiny definition of what music was, as that would have limited me.

“Wolverhampton gave me the musical education that enabled me to go on and sing on any stage anywhere and while I’ve never got the chance to sing with him, it would be great to do it one day with Robert Plant.”

Beverley’s love of the city was put on full display in 2022 as she joined fellow Wulfrunian Goldie on stage at the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games, performing “Inner City Life” in front of a sold out crowd at Alexander Stadium in Birmingham and millions worldwide.

The symbolism of the occasion has never been lost on Beverley, who said the choice of song and outfits all about showcasing hers and Goldie’s home city, with Beverley wearing a custom made Wolves jumpsuit and Goldie a vintage Wolves tracksuit top.

She said: “Inner City Life was appropriate as we were in Birmingham and we were as Wolverhampton as we were showcasing Wolverhampton to the world, saying that it’s not some little, genteel place in parochial somewhere, it’s an inner city place, so that song couldn’t have been more fitting to have a demonstration of what Wolverhampton is, what it’s about and with the two of us as ambassadors for the city.

“It also made sense that it was that song and when we were performing, we had behind us this wonderful montage of Wolverhampton with the club logo and everything just flashing, which we were also wearing, so that song was, for me, was Wolverhampton aurally and that made sense.

“Funny thing about the outfits was that we hadn’t spoke about it and when I saw him after he shouted down the corridor ‘Alright Bev!’, I saw he had an old gold zip up and there was me in my custom made jumpsuit and neither of us could believe it, so the stars just completely aligned, the universe knew what it was doing and we were visually a representation of our wonderful place.”

The discussion of Wolverhampton Wanderers is a tough one at the moment for many supporters, with the club at the bottom of the Premier League and staring relegation in the face.

Beverley said she had been there through the tough times, particularly in the 1980s when Wolves went very close to going out of business, and said she was still proud to say she was a Wolves fan and would defend the club at any time.

She said: “It is difficult and it’s hard, but all I can say is these are the moments where you really know when your mettle is being tested in this way and whether you’re made of good stuff.

“One thing I know about this club is we know what it’s like to be right the way down in the absolute nadir of football and the Football League and we’ve been there and done that and we’ve also known how to rise because we’ve been there and done that, so when your back is up against the wall, there’s only one way you can go up.

“I am a Wolves fan and I will tell people straight up when they ask me about football and if they don’t know about Wolverhampton that if I say I’m a Wolves fan, that’s when the light switch goes on and some people will scoff and make some little pithy comment about the fact I’m a Wolves fan.

“That’s when I’ll say that we’re some of the most robust fans you’ll ever meet on Earth because we know what it’s like to be down and to be hurt and we’re not just glory hunter fans.”

The biggest reason for coming to Wolverhampton in June for Beverley will be the music side of her life, a side which started back in her formative years with the sounds of Gospel in the house, but which really turned for her when she heard a particular voice from a singer from Minneapolis from at the age of nine, a man she would later get to fulfil a dream by performing with him.

She said: ”The first recorded voice I ever heard was Sam Cooke, as mum and dad had an LP which had two sides of his music, with one side being his pop recordings and the other being his gospel recordings.

“Living in my house, you only heard the gospel recordings, so I knew Sam Cooke as a gospel artist and didn’t know he had this pop career, but I thought he was one of the greatest things I’d ever heard in my life as his sensibility was incredible, so that was the first voice I ever heard.

“Then, on top of that, I grew up with Aretha Franklin, Shaka Khan and then, later on, there was Whitney Houston and all those great voices, but then when I discovered Prince aged nine, that was it and my heart was lost to Prince forever, hearing 1999 first, then Little Red Corvette, and that was it for me.

“I was influenced by his approach to his craft, how he would form his harmonies, how he put his band together, what the band looked like and sounded like and any time I was doing anything, I would think ‘how would Prince approach this and what would he do?’.

“I couldn’t ever be a carbon copy of him because he’s a genius, but I looked to him as a mentor, even though he didn’t know it at the time.

“I even got the chance to meet him and sing with him on stage at the O2, then he asked me to do an after show party with him, then I ended up doing a few and then he flew me to Los Angeles to sing with him at his Oscars party, so for someone who had been a lifelong fan, that was as magnificent as it gets.”

That feeling still hasn’t worn off for Beverley, who says she still loves music and will pay to see shows, and said she was also very humbled by the thought that people may want to follow in her footsteps and look at her as inspiration.

She said: “It’s a humbling and sobering thought because I still feel as though I am learning and looking to the greats to further my own career and hone my own talent, so the idea that people might be looking to me for that same thing is a really humbling thing.

“I love music, so I put my money where my mouth is, and I still haven’t seen a full show from Raye yet, who I think it fantastic. I was lucky enough to see a short set that she did in London in a private setting, but I’d love to see her do her full show with her orchestra and everyone behind her as she had serious talent to make that all work.”

Ahead of hitting the road on tour, it has been a time for Beverley to reflect on her life, her work and what she has achieved and said that if she could talk to her younger self, she’d tell her to enjoy it and take it all in.

She said: “Performing with Prince will always be a highlight, as was performing in front of David Bowie, who came to see me perform at the Jazz Café, along with Iman, which was something I’ll never forget as long as I live.

“I’ll never forget singing to one billion people at the Paralympics opening ceremony in 2012 as it was completely insane as it was life and we had to improvise the ending, and I would tell my younger self to drink in those moments because they go so quickly and you’ll never get them back, so savour every moment as time moves and it moves rapidly.

“I look forward to coming to Wolverhampton in June, so get your tickets as it’s going to be fabulous as you’re going to get all the high energy and all that good stuff, as well as all the hits and stuff you’ve probably never heard before, so see you there.”

Beverley Knight brings the Born to Perform tour to Wolverhampton Civic Hall on June 30.