Marti Webb - Tell Me On A Sunday

Tell Me On A Sunday

In 1979, Webb was flown to New York to audition for Harold Prince after being suggested to the producers of Evita as a successor to Elaine Paige who was, at the time, expected to transfer to the recreate the role on Broadway. Prince was impressed and persuaded her to cover while Paige holidayed and sign up as a regular alternate for the remainder of Paige's contract, performing two shows a week, in preparation for succeeding Paige as the star. At her original audition, show's composer Andrew Lloyd Webber had asked whether she would be interested if he wrote anything he thought appropriate for her voice. Assuming it was a kindly rejection, she was later surprised to be invited for a meal at Mr. Chow with Lloyd Webber and the lyricist Don Black to discuss the concept of a song cycle inspired by the story of a friend of the composer who had moved from London to the United States to begin a new life.

Webb was asked to collaborate on the piece when only two songs, the title piece "Tell Me on a Sunday" and "It's Not the End of the World", had been written, so the rest was created specifically with her voice and character in mind. Black, who became her manager and a close friend, said of her performance, "She was the girl, and that was it." Her tendency to, "Talk for hours about the most boring everyday things, like the gas or insurance," also inspired him in creating the narrative pieces in the song cycle which were letters to the character's mum.

She worked on the piece with Lloyd Webber and Black each day before being driven from Sydmonton Court, Lloyd Webber's country house, to the Prince Edward Theatre where Evita was playing. An album was recorded and it was performed at the 1979 Sydmonton Festival, the composer's annual workshop for new works, where a BBC Television producer contracted the collaborators to produce a version for television featuring Webb backed by a band and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. A one-off performance in January 1980 was recorded at the Royalty Theatre, London. Black recalls, "It was fantastic on television because it was almost all filmed in close-up on Marti Webb's face. Every eyebrow raised, every look registered. It was a brilliant piece of TV, like one of Alan Bennett's Talking Heads series, but sung."

The album of Tell Me on a Sunday was released and the television programme aired in 1980 just as Webb took over the starring role in Evita. It was a #2 hit in the UK Albums Chart, and saw Webb become a household name. The lead single, "Take That Look Off Your Face" was a similar success, reaching #3 in the UK Singles Chart.

Webb has a distinctive, untrained voice and Lloyd Webber was said to have told her "You sing in my keys." She agreed, "You write in mine." She has since regularly performed at his Sydmonton Festival. He produced her second solo album Won't Change Places (1981) which featured the lead single "Your Ears Should Be Burning Now".