Top Scots vocal coach Yvie Burnett on how Louis Walsh changed her life, her X Factor days and becoming an author

YVIE BURNETT is the Scots vocal coach who has helped some of the world’s top singers.

Aberdeenshire-born Yvie, 49, has coached big names on shows such as X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, with Susan Boyle just one she’s worked with.

Now she’s written a book Yes, You Can Sing! (published by John Blake £14.99, Waterstones).

Yvie, who has two kids, Emily, 23, and Ollie, 20, with husband Gordon, tells us of her 10 Big Moments.

EARLY DAYS

The first big moment I remember came when I was about seven and I was in the 12 Days Of Christmas at a show at Methlick Primary.

My line was: “Five gold rings!” What came out of my mouth sounded like a fully-fledged opera singer and it was such a shock to me and everybody else.

That was the very first time I knew I had a voice that wasn’t “normal”.

I went on to a local choral society in Aberdeenshire at Haddo House.

Everyone else was grown up and there I’d be standing on a box.

From a very young age, maybe from 10 on, I was performing mature adult songs.

A NIGHT – AND LONG DAYS – AT THE OPERA

I went to study opera at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama, then the Guildhall in London.

The big turning point was being given my first major role as Olga in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin.

Being an opera soloist was a great moment in my life.

I had never been secure at college, feeling like a small fish in a big pond, and this was the confidence boost I needed.

LOVE MATCH

I shared a flat at college in Glasgow with Dougie Vipond.

When I went to London for the first big Deacon Blue concert I met the guy who signed them to the record company, Gordon Charlton, and ended up marrying him.

It wasn’t quite love at first sight – I thought he was cute, wearing very unusual shorts and trainers, where I was probably dressed 20 years older than my age, in twin set and pearls.

We were real opposites, but opposites attract – I probably made him more old-fashioned and he made me more trendy.

Twenty seven years later, we’re still going strong.

My life went from stuffy opera to the pop music world.

THE WALSH FACTOR

Gordon introduced me to Louis Walsh who wanted a vocal coach for the second X Factor series.

He changed my life.

That year Alexandra Burke auditioned but only got to Judges Houses as she was very tearful and just not ready.

The standout was Shayne Ward. We knew from the start he had a great chance of going all the way and I wanted to nurture him and bring out that talent.

It was the technique, the making the most of the high notes, that he needed, which was perfect as that’s what I knew.

I can always do the technical stuff, what I can’t help with is the emotional connection and that certain something about them that really gets to you – that’s when you know they’re a star.

X MARKED MY SPOT

After Shayne did so well, Simon Cowell and Sharon Osborne said they wanted me, too.

So I became the vocal coach for the whole of X Factor and with other things such as This Morning I found myself known and had people coming up to me in the street.

I saw from famous friends how difficult attention could but I just had a nice little foot in the door of fame – I’d get people singing at me!

 

TALENTED TIMES

As well as X Factor I was asked to do Britain’s Got Talent, which was so exciting. I was in America and had been sent a DVD of the singers I’d be working with, but hadn’t seen it yet.

I turned on the TV news one day and saw a report about Susan Boyle and the amazing impact she’d made.

So I watched my DVD to see this phenomenon I was going to be teaching and saw she needed a bit of a polish but she was feisty and had guts.

When I met her she walked into the room with a pink feather boa. I just thought, ‘Woah, this one’s something special’.

We got on right from the start and I worked with her daily and helped make her as strong as she could be.

It was like no time I’ve even known for any other singer. I’ve never seen fame come so quickly and with such intensity.

It was hard, but she became a superstar and got the thing she wanted most, which was to become a famous singer.

FROM JET SET TO BURN OUT

I was offered America’s Got Talent and my year then consisted of X Factor, then BGT, then that.

I was also teaching a lot of big stars here, there and everywhere and it was a crazy time.

But my mother Molly was ill in a care home and every Wednesday I’d fly up to Aberdeen to see her.

With looking after two teenagers as well, I just burned out a bit.

I was in LA when I got the call to say mum had died. It was a huge shock.

I came home, but the next week I was due to go to Tokyo with Susan and then America and I went because it took my mind off it.

A while later I got the call saying they didn’t want me on X Factor anymore. I’d never really taken time to grieve for mum and it all hit me really badly.

Simon said I should come back. Stupidly, I did, and it wasn’t a good idea. I was a bit of a wreck all the way through and when I wasn’t asked back the next year I knew why.

I needed to step back and look after me, not others.

A STEADYING VOICE

I cut right back, only doing The Voice and my life got back to a bit more normality. I really needed that.

We all had the benefits of what I was doing and I’d never have chosen not to do it all.

The kids were teenagers and the whole family would spend three months in LA when I was working during the summer, so none of realised it was too much until later.

One of the things I’d have loved during that time was for my dad Allan to enjoy it, too. He died not long after Gordon and I were married.

I was his only daughter and was trying to make him proud.

He did see me have opera success but after I got X Factor there was always a sadness he didn’t get to see that.

TWO OF THE BEST

I did Superstar with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Let It Shine with Gary Barlow, both were such a joy.

When I started working with Andrew he said he wanted me to be his vocal coach on Love Never Dies, his sequel to Phantom Of The Opera.

I remember hearing it at his house for the first time and I sat sobbing buckets of tears because it was such wonderful music.

And Gary knows so much that he instructs me to do specific things because he understands precisely what the singers need.

BECOMING AN AUTHOR

Having done all the shows and all the coaching I felt I wanted to share what I know.

I’ve been lucky to work with so many big stars and the experience I have is different from other people’s.

I had to train my voice, eat the right things and be like an athlete.

Pop singers don’t do that. They think they can just turn up and sing, but then they fall by the wayside or lose their voice.

Once I get them to understand what to do, they soar and teaching that is what the book is all about.