Jamie Cullum thinks the COVID-19 lockdown was “good” for his creativity.
The 42-year-old jazz singer – who shot to fame when his third album ‘Twentysomething’ stormed the charts back in 2003 before going on to release a string of further records and has since married author Sophie Dahl – admitted that he was able to pen his latest album and explore photography during the lockdowns.
He said: “I think there was something about the predictability of it that was quite good for my own personal creativity. And I did write my Christmas album during that time. I do a lot of drawing too and I love taking photographs and listening to music – and obviously I do my radio show [on BBC Radio 2] as well. Sophie always creatively present. She’s obviously an incredible writer and has amazing taste and when you’re with someone and they’re creative too, it’s a thing you do together.
The ‘All At Sea’ hitmaker went on to express his shock at the time that has passed since he released his first album and joked that he looks back on his old music with a “sense of horror” but has also learned to be “kinder” to his younger self as time goes on.
He told Metro newspaper’s Sixty Seconds column: “It’s actually more like 23 years since my first album, which is amazing to me. Like a lot of people, I did a big sort out during lockdown and I found old flyers for gigs I put on myself and the old ‘I could have been too busy pinching myself then’, but a few years on, you realise your worth. Payslips from when I was making my records. Sometimes I look back on things with a sense of horror – not because I don’t like it, but because I always want to be moving forward. If you hear your voice, the way you play the piano or a certain lyric and you think, ‘I wouldn’t do that now’. But as you get older, you’re kinder to that child you see on the front cover of a record.”