Peter Straker’s Brel is his first album in 30 years

Peter Straker’s Brel is now an album as well as a successful theatre production

Paul Vale goes along to the launch of actor and singer Peter Straker’s new album, Peter Straker’s Brel.

In the plush surroundings of the 1707 Wine Bar just off Piccadilly, actor and vocalist Peter Straker launched his new album Peter Straker’s Brel. Straker has been a familiar face and voice in the West End for more than 40 years, first appearing in the ground-breaking 1968 production of Hair at the Shaftesbury Theatre alongside Elaine Paige, Paul Nicholas and Tim Curry. Since then he has appeared in a broad range of productions from Shakespeare to Tommy in the West End – and even a few episodes of Doctor Who! (not to mention recording with Freddie Mercury).

Straker’s first love however is singing and after sell-out productions of Peter Straker’s Brel in both Edinburgh and on the London Fringe, he is ready to release his first album in 30 years.

Straker said: “I discovered Jacques Brel as a young man and began singing his songs then – long before I even knew what they meant or their emotional content, I just loved the music and it has had a profound influence on me. Brel sang from the soul and possessed the uncanny ability to transfix his audience. His songs remain as powerful today as they did four decades ago and are just as relevant. From the simple melodies that said so much to the theatrical feel of the lyric, everything about the man was unique to the point that he could be considered his own aesthetic. His intensity and his singular insight into the universal joys of wine, women and song remain unsurpassed.”

Having just flown back from a successful revival of Ken Hill’s Phantom of the Opera in Japan, Straker was in fine voice, belting out a selection from the album accompanied by a small three-piece band including an impassioned ‘The Flat Lands’ and a lively and well-received finale of ‘Madame’.

Peter Straker’s Brel has been produced by Strike Force Entertainment via Cherry Red Records.

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