Wakefield singer, songwriter and musician Ruby Macintosh to appear in John Godber musical

If Wakefield singer, songwriter and musician Ruby Macintosh had taken a job in a wedding dress shop her career might have gone in a different direction.
Wakefield singer, songwriter and musician Ruby MacintoshWakefield singer, songwriter and musician Ruby Macintosh
Wakefield singer, songwriter and musician Ruby Macintosh

If Wakefield singer, songwriter and musician Ruby Macintosh had taken a job in a wedding dress shop her career might have gone in a different direction.

Finding herself jobless one Christmas Eve her mum suggested she try her hand at busking.

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Ruby donned a ballgown and a fur coat and treated the Wakefield shoppers to a selection of her vintage songs making £200 in the process.

She said: “ I realised then I could actually make music a full-time career.”

When she was 16 Ruby began studying popular music at Wakefield College gaining a BTEC and HND before embarking on a degree at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, whose lead patron is Sir Paul McCartney.

After graduation she combined working full-time in a coffee shop with doing gigs all over the country but this became unsustainable.

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She said: “I was exhausted. I was gigging every weekend, working full-time and trying to put a band together.

“I handed in my notice at the coffee shop for a part-time job in the wedding dress shop which didn’t happen so the decision to devote myself full-time to my music was made for me.”

Ruby’s first love is the music of the 50s and 60s with Doris Day, Elvis Presley and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas cited as her particular favourites.

She said: “It’s music I enjoy listening to. It gives me what I don’t get with modern music. That’s where my heart it.”

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Theatre-goers will be able to hear Ruby this week when she appears in a new musical comedy written by John Godber in partnership with his daughter Elizabeth.

Ruby and the Vinyl has its debut at Theatre Royal Wakefield tomorrow night and plays until February 12 when it will go on tour. Ruby wrote and will perform the songs in the show, a shorter version of which was first performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Fesitval in 2016.