ANNA CALVI
“If Batman played guitar, it would be that guitar.” Anna Calvi is giving her opinion on her new instrument, a Fender American Professional II Telecaster that sports the company’s polarising Dark Night finish – and you have to say she has a point. It’s a colour of which the caped crusader would surely approve but one equally suited to Calvi, whose music regularly attracts many of the same adjectives – dark, brooding, melancholic – as Gotham’s own Dark Knight.
When it comes to Telecasters, Calvi’s opinion is worth paying attention to. The 40-year-old Londonborn virtuoso has been in love with the Fender’s many alluring utilitarian charms since she was 17, when she first saw Jeff Buckley playing one on television. “I didn’t know anything about the instrument but I just thought it was the coolest thing ever,” she explains of that initial attraction. Since then, Telecasters have accompanied Calvi on every step of her astonishing musical journey.
After playing in a series of bands before going solo and touring with Interpol, Arctic Monkeys and Nick Cave’s Grinderman, Calvi’s first big, made famous by Édith Piaf. From the simmering spaghetti-western atmospherics of her self-titled 2011 debut album via the more expansive instrumental textures of three years later to 2018’s defining statement (as well as its collaborative sibling ), Calvi’s playing has been jaw-dropping. Fusing classical and Spanish influences with sizzling lead work, and co-existing with a towering operatic vocal style, it’s seen her perform hundreds of gigs across the globe, conquer the festival circuit several times over and earn three Mercury Prize nominations. Remarkably, one single guitar, a sunburst 1997 American Standard Tele, has matched her stride for stride.
