Julie Anthony, OBE, AM, just loves to sing.
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In fact, she loves it so much she sings at the supermarket.
“I can be shopping and singing to myself and people come and say ‘Oh, you really do like singing’ - I don’t know I’m doing it,’’ laughed the entertainer who has seemlessly belted out almost 1500 renditions of the national anthem.
But the singer whose smile and beautiful voice have lifted many a spirit since she first began performing 42 years ago admits it’s time to call it quits.
Just the solo act - not the happy stage partnership she has had for the past few years with Simon Gallaher.
At 61, she’s still relatively a “spring chicken’’ but insists that “the spring chicken needs to find some free-range grass’’.
Perhaps at her family home on the Tweed coast or her second home in Melbourne.
“I’m not going to being standing up there when I’m 80. I’d like to do just normal, everyday things - like play tennis - not have a diary which says ‘you can’t do that today’.’’
After she has completed the last five solo performances pencilled in her diary, Ms Anthony intends to close the door on the solo performances.
“I’m doing five more solo dates and then that’s it for good - then I’ll just work with Simon.
“What we do is fun,’’ says Ms Anthony of her upcoming duo performance in Dubbo.
Asked to single out a musical inspiration, Ms Anthony nominated Ella Fitzgerald.
“She’s got to be hard to beat.’’ And Burt Bacharach. Also the former star of Criminal Minds, Mandy Patinkin, whom Ms Anthony saw as Che Guevara in Broadway’s Evita in 1980.
“He sings like a dream.’’
What about Lady Gaga?
“Well, you’ve got to have them, the Lady Gagas.
“There has to be an edginess in life - for instance, in business if you find an edge you have an advantage.’’
Art, fashion, theatre and music are the same, she contends.
“Otherwise it would be a mediocre mass where everyone was the same - the Lady Gagas, the Dita von Teeses are
important because they set the bar in a different place for the rest of us.’’
Julie Anthony and Simon Gallaher - with musical director Kevin Hocking at the piano - will perform on March 24 and 25 in Dubbo on their Moments to Remember tour, their first combined concert in the region.
Tickets are available at the Dubbo Regional Theatre and Convention Centre.
