Dame Deborah James’s courageous fight with bowel cancer and her tireless campaigning inspired the nation, and a year after her death aged 40, her inspiring legacy lives on. Because today, on the eve of the first anniversary since her passing, Dame Deborah’s close friend Natalie Rushdie has announced she is honouring her in a very special way.
The jazz singer has recorded an emotional cover of Tell Me It’s Not True from the Blood Brothers musical – the song that Dame Deborah had asked Natalie to sing at her funeral when the pair saw each other for the final time at Royal Ascot last year. All of the song’s proceeds will go to the Bowelbabe Fund for Cancer Research UK, which has raised an incredible £11.3million for clinical trials and research into personalised medicine for cancer patients since Dame Deborah set it up shortly before her death last June.
WATCH THE EMOTIONAL TRIBUTE TO DAME DEBORAH JAMES IN THE VIDEO BELOW...
The single, which will be released on all major platforms on Monday 3 July, has an accompanying music video featuring never-before-seen footage of Deborah dancing her way through life, including family videos of her doing cartwheels in the garden as a child.
It was at HELLO!’s Inspiration Awards last October, just four months after Dame Deborah’s death, that the idea to release a charity single in honour of the late journalist, author and podcaster came about. "I was sat next to Deborah’s parents Heather and Alistair at the Hello Awards and that’s when they asked me if I would record Tell Me It’s Not True for Deborah,” says Natalie, who was a long time family friend of Deborah’s. Natalie’s husband Zafar – the son of celebrated author Sir Salman Rushdie – has known Deborah’s husband Sebastien for 25 years.
From that moment, the project “snowballed”, with Natalie recording the song at the iconic Abbey Road Studios, joined by 25 musicians, who included Izzy Judd, the violinist wife of McFly’s Harry Judd, and viola player Polly Wiltshire, who was married to Lord Lloyd Webber’s composer son Nick before he died of gastric cancer in March.
“I phoned up everyone I'd known or worked with previously and asked them to help me. Everyone came on board so quickly, which was lovely,” Natalie tells HELLO!. Of bringing everyone together at London’s Abbey Road– which has played host to such musical legends as The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Amy Winehouse and Adele – Natalie adds: “It was one of those bittersweet moments where it was a dream come true to go to Abbey Road, but at the same time, I wish that Deborah had been there to experience it. She would have loved it.”
‘Tell Me It's Not True’ by Natalie Rushdie will be available on Monday 3rdJuly 2023 from all major streaming and download platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Amazon Music, TikTok, Deezer, YouTube and more.
The full interview will be in HELLO! magazine next week