Jennifer Hudson has revealed she’s clueless when it comes to fashion.
The singer-and-actress — who’s currently starring in Sex and the City: The Movie — said that despite having a role in the fashion-conscious flick, she’s not all that into clothes.
She says, “I have never been label-crazy. But I wouldn’t do a knock-off. In a recent interview they asked me what was I wearing. And I said, ‘I have no idea.’
As lead vocalist of The New Seekers, with her lilting Scottish accent and luxuriant 1970s hairstyle, Eve Graham was once one of the most famous singers in the world. She had 25 million record sales to her name and a list of acquaintances that ran from Paul McCartney to Henry Kissinger.
But proof that fortune does not always follow fame came yesterday when Ms Graham – who sang at President Richard Nixon's inauguration ball in 1973 – revealed that to make ends meet after The New Seekers parted company, and phone calls from record producers dried up, she took to fitting bras in a branch of Debenhams in Essex.
But just as it seemed that the world was ready to forget her, Ms Graham, 65, now living in Perthshire, Scotland, has been contacted by the producer of "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing", David Mackay, about the possibility of making a new record.
She said yesterday: "David and I are talking about doing traditional Scottish songs but in a way that would be more in keeping with the music we're both known for. I guess you haven't heard the last of me yet."
When The New Seekers were at the height of their fame, they had five records in the American charts at the same time and played to packed stadiums across the world. Their best-known song, "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing", adopted by Coca-Cola for its famous "Hilltop" advert, sold 96,000 copies in one day and recorded a total of 12 million sales.
But due to a contract dispute about her entitlement to the proceeds of further sales, Ms Graham has not had a penny in royalties since 1973. She left the band in 1978 and after trying to forge a solo career eventually decided in 2000 to find another career.
She said: "It's best not to dwell on the past. I don't get a penny when a New Seekers record sells and that can be irritating, but you can't let it rule your life. I thought I would retire up here but there are still good opportunities to make music.
"It got to the point when the agents weren't ringing and I needed to do something to pay the bills and get out of the house.
"I saw an advert for a vacancy at the branch of Debenhams in Colchester, close to where we were living then, and thought that would be good to try.
"I started as an assistant in womenswear and moved to the lingerie department. Then I became a qualified bra-fitter; a representative of a bra company offered me training. It was great work, making women feel good about themselves and how they looked. Everybody moves on from the different phases in their life."
After a two-year stint at Debenhams in Colchester, close to where her husband, Kevin Finn, another New Seekers band member, was working as a music composer for fairground rides, Ms Graham returned to her native Scotland to retire. She now helps her husband run a kitchen and bathroom design company.
It is a far cry from the heady days when fans would sleep outside Ms Graham's hotel door for the chance to catch a glimpse of her. At the height of their popularity, The New Seekers, whose brand of folksy pop was designed to appeal to the same fans who had enjoyed the music of their musical forebears, the 1960s Australian band The Seekers, were arguably the most successful act in the world.
Ms Graham rubbed shoulders with Bob Dylan and McCartney at glitzy parties in Los Angeles and recalls a "really interesting conversation" with Henry Kissinger, who was National Security Adviser and Secretary of State in Nixon's administration.
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The lineup: Steve Mathieson (vocals, guitar), Tim Van Dammen (drums, handclaps), Stephen Parry (bass), James Brennan (guitar, backing vocals).
The background: From the label that brought the world Late Of The Pier, Cajun Dance Party, Laura Marling and Jamie T come Collapsing Cities, who have just moved to Britain to capitalise on their reputation back home in New Zealand for exuberant, twisted post-punk indie rock. Twisted? The band's debut single Fear Of Opening My Mouth features the playful warning, "Next year I think I'll kill myself", and it's jolly enough to catch on with its "I've got the fear" chorus, unison sung-spoken vocals, handclaps, curvilinear guitar pattern and shambling rhythm just made for collapsing students at indie discos. Fans in high school of exponents of askew indie both American (Pavement, Truman's Water) and local (those heroes of the Dunedin scene, the Clean), CC played their first gig exactly two years ago, in May 2006, when they opened something called the Disasteradio/Kill Surf City Low Hum tour. "We're still toddlers," they say, "but confident toddlers".
You'll be able to catch a glimpse of these precocious indie infants over the next few weeks, starting tonight, when they appear at the Barfly in Camden, then over the next few days during the Levi's One's To Watch Tour with Late Of The Pier, and finally down at the Great Escape in Brighton next week. And if you miss all of those, they're supporting Black Kids in June. You'll be able to witness their modus operandi - the band apparently scam free studio time wherever they can and record as many songs as they can manage live - and find out what it is that's getting indie's crucial three of the airwaves (Steve Lamacq, Huw Stephens and Zane Lowe were all at their debut UK show last week) so excited. If you like ramshackle, anarchic, chaotic guitar-pop based on nagging, high-register, angular riffs, brainy/dumb choruses and lyrics that expose the contradictions of the modern world and the human condition, you should check them out.
The buzz: "Fear Of Opening My Mouth is a propulsive, jaw-dropping proposition."
The truth: They sound like an NZ version of one of those new American or Canadian commune-bands purveying close-to-collapse indie-pop.
Most likely to: Make Pavement reconsider the timing of their comeback.
Least likely to: Make you depressed.
What to buy: Debut single Fear Of Opening My Mouth is released by Way Out West on May 26, with the debut album Elixir Always to follow later this year.
File next to: Go-Betweens, Triffids, the Clean, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
Links: www.myspace.com/collapsingcities
Tomorrow's new band: Underground Heroes.
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