Franklin’s music and style will be at the heart of her latest tour around regional Australia, which is based on her album, Rewind. She will perform her intimate show of well known favourites in that signature style at Club Forster on Saturday, April 27. 

Christine does not remember Aretha Franklin’s music being introduced to her; it was always somewhere in the background. 

“If you find a song that has a lot of versions made of it, and Aretha has made one, that’s it – that is the end of the road,” she said.   

Those vocal stylings, with their roots buried deep in the Gospel tradition, inspired Christine in her own career. 

While she does not attempt to challenge the first lady of song (“In my dreams,” she laughs), Christine said she hoped audiences would enjoy the power of the music, and the personal stamp she was putting onto those classic songs. 

“I would like to make people feel they are hearing it as it was being written,” she said. 

This show would have a different vibe from some of her recent endeavours. She is starting her tour after a run as Bloody Mary in the hit musical South Pacific. Christine’s career has taken her from musical theatre to film and featured collaborations with other musicians and solo tours. 

This tour will feature bass tones, drums, backing singers and a saxophone – a “whole new world” for Christine as a performer. 

“It’s such a different vibe I don’t know how people will react to it,” she said.

“It’s making me nervous – a good nervous.” 

This tour marks the start of an exciting career shift, as she begins writing music for a brand new album of original music. It has been some years since Christine last recorded an album of her own music, and the tour will give her time to write on the road. She said she would be starting afresh, and redefining herself as a songwriter. 

In the meantime, she encouraged people to come along to her current show, which she expected to be high-energy and a lot of fun for audience members. She said, unfortunately, she does not make her way to Forster a great deal. 

“So turn up; it’s a long time between drinks,” she said.