Five singers who inspired Portishead’s Beth Gibbons
Portishead’s debut album Dummy was a commercial and critical success on arrival, back in 1994, but it has lived many lives since then, evolving from a standout record of the trip-hop era into a transcendent classic; a perpetual seller and mood setter that sits nicely alongside Joni Mitchell’s Blue or Air’s Moon Safari.
Somewhere along the line, Dummy also gained a reputation as a Marvin Gaye-level aphrodisiac, although the composer of much of the album, Geoff Barrow, has made it quite clear that he’s not thrilled about that. “I can’t think of anything worse to make love to,” he told The Guardian last year. Nonetheless, whether suited for sexy times or introspective wallowing, Dummy introduced Portishead to the world with a stunning, seasoned maturity, one of the reasons it’s often hailed as one of the great debut efforts in British pop history.
Things didn’t start out so smoothly at the beginning of the band’s story, however, as the collaboration between the young, aspiring hip hop producer Barrow and the semi-established barroom chanteuse Beth Gibbons didn’t begin in a club, a studio, or an art school, but in an unemployment office in Bristol, where they were both attending a training course.
“It was a one-day session, and there were all sorts of people in the room,” Gibbons told the Toronto Star in 1995, “Hairdressers, mechanics and the like. I was there, and he was there, and when the organisers went around the room asking everybody what they wanted to be, it seemed that what we did [music production and singing] was slightly related, so we had a chat.”
Even that chance encounter didn’t immediately lead to much excitement from either party. Barrow and Gibbons agreed to meet and have a listening session to get a sense of each other’s music, but it went over like a bad first date, sans the romantic gestures. “We listened to each other’s home-made tapes and immediately came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t work,” Gibbons recalled, “I wanted to do live things, needed an audience. Geoff was more of a studio guy, a real programmer. So pretty soon it was: ‘nice to meet you, bye!’”
As time passed, though, Barrow and Gibbons started rethinking their quick assessment, and through careful consideration, rather than a lightning-strike epiphany, they decided to try and make some music together after all, embracing their contrasting tastes and instincts as a potential benefit to their work; multi-instrumentalist Adrian Utley soon joined them in a similar capacity.
“Geoff listens to rap and old soundtracks,” Gibbons said in a 1995 chat with reporter Erik van den Berg, “Adrian comes from the jazz scene, and I mostly listen to Nina Simone, Otis Redding, Janis Ian, and Jimmy Cliff. Although lately, I often listen to The Joshua Tree by U2. I love Bono’s voice. It’s very inspiring.”
Hearing Bono’s name alongside the likes of Redding and Simone as an influence on one of indie’s great voices of the last 30 years, it feels a bit stunning from a 2026 perspective. One needs to remember that U2 were still just a few years removed from their cultural apex in the mid ‘90s, and uttering Bono’s name in admiration didn’t put one at risk of ridicule.
Gibbons also seemed to realise, early in her career, that having a booming voice wasn’t always suited to every style of music. She referred to her own voice as occasionally “cold, monotonous, and restrained”, but noted that it “adapts itself to the music. I can do a lot more than you hear in Portishead. Or rather: more than Portishead needs. Bono has a big voice, yes, but let him sing over a Portishead track, and there’s nothing left of it. With Geoff’s music you have to restrain yourself, otherwise you’ll ruin everything.”
