Emmerald: Oh Dear!
Deborah Jordan: I’d pressed the button and was
waiting for the green man and the cab driver ran the
red light. I was hit on my right-hand side, went over
the windscreen, cracked his windscreen, bounced off
the car and landed in the road. The paramedics
thought I was dead on the scene, but luckily I was
not. It was a bit of a freaky experience and
something that I’m still dealing with everyday. I
thank God I’m still here and when I get into
those kind of lazy moments, I think, ‘hello, I could
not be here’. I try to motivate myself a bit more to
keep things going and to do what I want to be doing.
It was a pretty touch experience, even though I came
out of it relatively unscathed considering that I
should have been either dead or paralyzed. I had torn
ligaments in my right knee so couldn’t walk properly,
couldn’t look after myself. I had cracked ribs and
had braces everywhere which was a nightmare, just
ridiculously painful. So I had to go home to my
parents to be looked after for three months whilst I
had all these kind of splints and things on my leg.
Then I had to re-train my leg to bend so that I would
be able to walk. And that was just excruciatingly
painful. It’s a small price to pay to actually still
be alive and to be walking and to not have any kind
of permanent disability from it. It really was just a
lucky escape.
Emmerald: That’s incredible that you were able to
completely recover from your accident so well. I
would imagine that going through something like that
would have some kind of spiritual awakening
attendant to it. Did you find that to be the case and
if so, how did your spirituality come into play on the
Silhouette Brown project?
Deborah Jordan: Absolutely. Music has always been quite a
spiritual thing for me anyway. I’ve never necessarily
equated it with a particular religion or anything like
that. But particularly from the accident, I walked
away with a feeling that something or someone saved me
that night. And I’ve always had that feeling when I’m
singing, like I’m connecting with something really
beautiful that isn’t necessarily coming from myself.
It is really difficult to put a finger on it. It’s a
comfort factor too. I get hideously nervous when I go
on stage, but when I’m singing, there is a different
part of me that comes through and shows itself. Music
is such a universal language which is why so many
people can connect with the same piece of music. That
something connects you on a deeper level. Since the
accident, I definitely feel a lot more that there is
something amazing working through me, something bigger
and more special than just me as a person.
After the accident, I also started training in complementary therapies. I do a form of Reiki, which is a traditional Japanese hands-on healing. When we met up to talk about the Silhouette Brown project at one point, Bembe asked me to try a Reiki session for Kaidi. Kaidi is just this bundle of energy, and Bembe was like, ‘Kaidi, you should let Deborah do Reiki for you because we’re never going to get anywhere in this discussion’. (laughs) He was nervous at first and not sure if he wanted to try it. Then he tried it and was so chilled out and mellow afterwards; he was like a different person. Everyone was looking at me like I was some kind of freak. (laughs) Like I had some kind of mad powers to zap him. He was just lying there going ‘wow, this is amazing’. And like a second before that, he was bouncing off the walls. There’s been a couple of times when I’ve done sessions for people at the Jazz Cafe’ before shows. I get there and I’m suddenly doing Reiki sessions in the green room before everyone goes on.
Emmerald: What’s next for you?
Deborah Jordan: Good question. Hopefully we’re going to be
touring with the Silhouette Brown album. Then
hopefully later in 2005 I’ll be touring with Robert’s
album which is called Trust. I’ve been co-writing
with another fabulous London artist, Uschi Classen,
and she’s trying to get some material out there.
Another fabulous singer, Randolph Mathews just asked
me to get involved in arranging the backing vocals for
his album which he’s working on at the moment.
Hopefully I’ll still be doing Eska’s backing vocals
and she’s working on her album this year. So at the
moment, still working on different projects and seeing
what works and what gets support.
Emmerald: Do you think you’ll work on your own album
in the near future?
Deborah Jordan: Definitely, I would love to. I mean, I’m starting
to write more for myself and I’ve got a lot of ideas.
I want to co-write with Robert and explore the
slightly madder side of my songwriting because it’s
definitely not straightforward fall to the floor hooks
and all that with Robert. But mainly I’ll be finding
my own niche, being diverse and exploring different
sides of things.