Portsmouth date as Gilbert O'Sullivan marks six decades of music

Gilbert O’Sullivan, one of the UK’s most enduring singer-songwriters, returns to the stage for a series of special concerts celebrating sixty years of music.

Not that it's a number that he thinks about much: “I'm not into self-analysis but someone told me it's 60 years. I don't really think about it but if you go back my first record, it was 1967, my first record in a major studio. The records did OK but things were moving on on the songwriting front. The key thing was having good representation, and by 68-69 I needed good representation, so I wrote to Gordon Mills who managed Tom Jones. And that was the key.

“1967 was a great time to be in the UK and to be in London. London was the place to be. I had a piano in the bedroom in my flat, and we'd go down the Kings Road and the Portobello Road and you had all the music, The Beatles, The Stones and The Kinks.”

And it was from that era that Gilbert emerged, going on to achieve 16 top 40 records, including his breakthrough release in 1970 with Nothing Rhymed, six number-one songs and classics including Clair, Get Down and Alone Again (Naturally) – the latter topping the US charts for six weeks and earning him three Grammy nominations.

Across his career he has released 20 studio albums and received three Ivor Novello Awards, including Songwriter of the Year in 1973. His last three album releases have also achieved top ten, top 20 and top 30 positions in the UK album charts.

Once big success came along, Gilbert was fine with it: “There was no problem for me. I'm not really a big socialiser. I'm pretty much stay-at-home. I always love being at home which is great as a songwriter.”

Tour dates include Wednesday, November 4 in the New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth. On November 6 he releases his new album.

“I am in a happy place. The key for me is the craft of songwriting, and that's what has allowed me to continue with my career. That's the most important thing. The last 20 years I've used a cassette to record. I've got all the digital devices but I don't like them. You just pop the cassette in.

“I just come up with the songs and get producers on board and you are off. We record fairly quickly. What tends to happen is I meet the musicians and they stand around the piano. I play the song and then they work on it. We do maybe a couple of takes and then you get the overdubbing and the orchestration taking place afterwards. It is variety that is the key factor. There are fast songs and slow songs and medium songs and up-tempo songs. It's good to have it. Music was essential for me growing up. I loved what was going on around me and I still love what is going on around me. You don't have to agree with everything but I enjoy a lot of what is happening, and I love what I do.

“We just had a great night in Edinburgh. It's two hours and it's just me and a guitar player up close and personal. It works really well. People can really hear the lyrics. When you have the band, people complain that they can't hear the lyrics but this really works well.”