These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things: Niki King, Singer

MUSIC BILL WITHERS LIVE AT CARNEGIE HALL, 1972

I adore live albums and there are so many it’s hard to pick one, but my favourite is probably Bill Withers Live at Carnegie Hall. He’s a supreme songwriter, but on this album you can hear the depth of him as a man. When you hear people live you can really pick up on their personality. Live albums take away so much of that sweet production that’s done for the studio recording, so you get a real sense of where a song is coming from. There’s one here called I Can’t Write Left Handed that still stands up today as a song about the tragedies of war, and it obviously comes from such a humane place. The audience sound amazing too – they’re just with him, totally with him.

FILM THE THREE COLOURS TRILOGY, DIRECTED BY KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI

I think the most memorable films I’ve ever seen were the three parts of the Krzysztof Kieslowski Three Colours trilogy. I just loved them. Despite the fact that he’s obviously a Polish director, they are very much French films, and I’m a big fan of French film. All the ones I’ve seen I’ve tended to adore because they’re so good at characterisation and because they’re very much about the writing and the story and the beautiful filming – the quality of their films just tends to be really strong.

BOOK CHICKEN WITH PLUMS, BY MARJANE SATRAPI

The books I’ve really been getting into at the moment are the graphic novels by Marjane Satrapi, whose Persepolis has just been released on film. All her books are so witty and charming, but also topical. She’s very good at getting the characterisation – and the way she looks at life through all the different characters in her books is just brilliant. The last one I read was Chicken with Plums, which is excellent. I also went to see the film of Persepolis, which was just fantastic. Sometimes when you really love a book and then it comes to the big screen it can be a bit disappointing, but because she was totally in charge of the animation and everything, it has translated really well.

Niki King and guitarist Marcus Ford play The Hub, Edinburgh, on 31 July as part of the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival. For tickets, tel: 0131-473 2000 or visit www.edinburghjazzfestival.co.uk

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