From YouTube to stage role

FOR singer Jude Perl, it was a lucky break in the best Hollywood tradition that led to her scoring a plum role in the new musical Let’s Get It On.

The 24-year-old Caulfield singer, who has been performing professionally for the past six years and in December 2012 released her debut EP 3am, stars alongside Bert LaBonte in the show that is set around the life of singer-songwriter Marvin Gaye, who died 30 years ago.

In January, Perl recorded her own version of Gaye’s hit song Sexual Healing and uploaded it onto YouTube under the title “Neurotic Girl Sings Sexual Healing”.

The video caught the eyes of the producers creating Let’s Get It On, who, unbeknown to Perl, went along to a gig she was headlining at the Paris Cat jazz club in Melbourne a couple of months ago.

“My version of Sexual Healing is very different to the way Marvin Gaye sings the song, but the producers thought that I must be a big Marvin Gaye fan – which I am – and came to my show at the Paris Cat and liked my singing,” explains Perl.

“It was a total surprise to me – I didn’t know that the producers were in the audience until I met them after the show.

“They asked me to join the show. Of course, I said I was interested straight away.”

Let’s Get It On opened at The Clocktower, in Moonee Ponds last week before a season at the Athenaeum Theatre in the city from May 13-25.

Perl says that Gaye has been one of her favourite singers since her schooldays at Leibler Yavneh College.

“I’m a huge fan – his music means more to me than I can express in words. His albums helped get me through adolescence and he continues to inspire me all the time.”

Let’s Get It On is set around Gaye’s life, exploring his music and his troubled relationship with his father and the women in his life.

“Bert plays Marvin Gaye and I represent the female singers that he sang with – we are both narrating the story together,” says Perl.

“He had a tragic story, including his troubled relationship with his father, but I had not realised that he had written so many hit songs for other singers.”

Gaye’s many compositions include I Heard It Through The Grapevine, Inner City Blues, Wherever I Lay My Hat, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, What’s Going On and the Grammy Award-winning Sexual Healing.

“In the show we are telling the story of his life, but it’s the music that drives the show,” says Perl.

“Let’s Get It On is more of a narrative concert than a musical.

“It’s the first time I have done a professional musical show – when I was at Yavneh my crowning moment was in year 10 I played an old hag in the school musical production of Oliver.”

After Yavneh, Perl went on to complete VCE at performing arts school Sandringham College.

A week after the show finishes its Melbourne premiere season, Perl is off to the United States for almost six months.

“I had to delay my departure for a few weeks when I was offered the role in the show, which I was happy to do,” she says.

While in Los Angeles, Perl will be working on a new album.

“The producer who worked on my last single is based there and I plan to work with him on a new album,” she says.

“I have lots of songs that I’ve done as demo recordings with my band, and want to take them to LA and start working on them.

“My band may come over to record them with me.”

Having already released her five-track EP 3am of original soul/funk/pop tunes – from which came the single, Girls and Boys – Perl believes it’s time to move on to an album.

“I have a backlog of songs that I wrote around the time I did the other recordings.”

Let’s Get It On is at The Clocktower, Moonee Ponds from May 9-11 and at the Athenaeum Theatre, 188 Collins Street, Melbourne from May 13-25.  Bookings: www.ticketek.com.au.

REPORT by Danny Gocs

PHOTO of singer Jude Perl at the Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne. Photo: Peter Haskin