Miss Kiddy and the Cads head to Goodwood Revival

Vintage music performers Miss Kiddy and the Cads launch join the musical fun at Goodwood Revival. They will be playing three evening sets each day over the three-day event (September 7'“9).
Miss KiddyMiss Kiddy
Miss Kiddy

The band was launched in 2016 by session singer Abi Gilchrist who at the time was better known for singing the theme tune to CBeebies’ show Do You Know? Performing to a sell-out crowd at their first gig in London’s Pheasantry Jazz Club, the six-piece have been making waves across the jazz scene ever since.

”We are so proud of what we have created with Miss Kiddy,” Abi said. “We like to think of ourselves not just as a band, but as a wholly-immersive experience that crosses over into jazz, cabaret, comedy and vintage. I am also very lucky to work with such a talented group of people. Ben Cummings our trumpet player also plays in Caro Emerald’s band, our drummer Andy Jones is a music producer who produced the latest Squeeze album and our MD and pianist/song arranger Ross Power is an award-winning composer and producer for TV and film.

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“I came up with the concept for it, and the concept was originally the idea of doing pop songs but with jazz and swing arrangements. That was basically the start of it, but since then it has grown into a show that is much more about the characters and the story of Miss Kiddy and the Cads. It started off as a straightforward band, but now is a lot more.

“The idea is that Miss Caddy is originally from Chicago, and she is a jazz singer, a bar singer, a club singer. She is in downtown Brooklyn in the 1940s, and it is all about her and her mob, the Cads, her band who have become her family. She came from hard times but she has now found her people and with them a degree of protection. She has become one of the gang as well, and they are all musicians who can forget their roots but occasionally go off to do a quick heist.

“She is a very sassy broad. That’s how I would describe her. She has got a big heart. I got to draw on a few definite personalities and personas, the big divas that I love. She is extremely confident. She is extremely out there. She is always on the look-out to make a buck or two or to find a new fella’.

“For me. the character just organically grew. I started out just wanting to play the right part for the era and we wanted to create that jazz-club feeling, whatever the size of the place we are playing, whether it is a small club or a 2,000-seater area. We want that feeling, a 1940s vintage jazz singer, and the whole thing very quickly became about the character. And we have also started adding the characters of the Cads. The characters of the Cads have become extremely strong as well.

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“It has been a mixture of things really. We have become very successful very quickly. We had a year where we thought we didn’t know if it was going to work. We were aiming at the corporate market and at private events, but it quickly transpired that it was a really, really popular show for the public as well, and every time we did something public it just sold old. We started doing things like Pizza Express and we started doing a few small theatre shows, and every time it was in front of the public it was a sell-out. Everyone just really latched on to it.

“We are really, really happy to play the festival circuit. We are maybe looking to do more touring... and then also maybe small theatres and going to jazz clubs around the country. But for the moment, Goodwood is great for us.”

www.misskiddy.com.

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