The October 2018 issue of Cry Me A Torch Song – The Video Version. Piers Ford reviews albums from Betty Buckley (Hope: “Reinforces her reputation as an astute interpreter of lyrics”); Barb Jungr and John McDaniel (Float Like a Butterfly – the Songs of Sting: “These songs emerge into brilliant Autumn sunshine as if dressed in fresh, flowing robes”); Anne Sumner (Beacon: “An arresting, throaty voice which brings a touch of soul to these harmonies”); Laughing With the Raindrops (Laughing With the Raindrops: “A polished sound that evokes languorous evenings and long summer nights”); and Mary Hopkin‘s new recording of Those Were the Days (“It’s astonishing how little-changed her voice is.”)
The April 2017 issue of Cry Me A Torch Song – The Video Version. Piers Ford reviews albums from Betty Buckley (Story Songs: “Adventurous in her song choices and fearless in her commitment to them”), Sound of the Sirens (For All Our Sins: “A wonderfully cohesive, mature sound which will hold its own on the global stage”), Anna Coogan (The Lonely Cry of Space & Time: “Yma Sumac meets Americana… a sweeping, arresting exploration of the state of the world”), Patricia Kaas (Patricia Kaas: “Polished, expertly crafted chansons, full of complex, subtle emotions”), and catches up with Songs of Separation (“A celebration of the female voice, but also a resonant, bold statement for our times”).
There’s no Sondheim on Ghostlight but in the absence of more current video content, here’s a blast of “Children Will Listen”
Ghostlight: Betty Buckley’s atmospheric new album is effortlessly majestic
I wonder if I was the only one whose heart sunk just a little with the release of Barbra Streisand’s commercially fail-proof duets album. Not because there would be any doubt about the quality – which is as clinically polished and pitch-perfect as we’d expect – but because this great, great artist is treading such predictable water at a time when other mature singers are forging ahead into new territory.
Cue – and all hail – Ghostlight, the shimmering, moody new album from Texas’s finest, Betty Buckley, which sounds positively experimental in comparison. There has always been a freedom in Buckley’s song choices that, while paying glancing obeisance to her status as a Broadway leading lady, suggests an independence and elegant wilfulness.
She has never been a conventional belter, and in this eclectic selection of standards, torchy ballads and soft rock and country songs, she takes some of the most familiar lyrics in the American songbook to darker, outlying terrain – exposing them to the ghostlight of the title and stripping them back to a kind of minimalist perfection. She is joined in her quest by producer T Bone Burnett, a life-long friend, who is responsible for the album’s stark, spacey beauty.
Looking back to a review I wrote of her 1993 record Children Will Listen for The Gramophone Good Musicals CD Guide, I note my remark that Buckley is “Refreshingly unafraid to try something different… [her] voice is unusual – husky and intense – often falling away almost to a murmur…” I would change little about those observations today, beyond adding that the years have simply brought greater depth and resonance to her interpretations.
She never forces the issue – as these beautiful versions of “Body and Soul”, Bewitched” and “This Nearly Was Mine” aver, pressing all the right emotional buttons without ever going over the top. Heartbreak is only a note away. “Lazy Afternoon” takes on an extraordinary air of mystery, hinting that anything could materialise out of the haze.
But the most interesting tracks fall in the album’s second half. There’s a sublime take on the Jefferson Airplane number “Comin’ Back to Me”, with its exquisite string arrangement, a poignant “Take it With Me When I Go”, and an honest, lyrical reading of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “When Time Stands Still”. Effortlessly majestic.
A complicated proposition: Sarah-Jane Morris talks about how Bloody Rain came about
Bloody Rain: a scene-stealing new album from a singer who has always defied easy categorisation
This is shaping up into a golden autumn for the elder stateswomen of rock and popular music across the genres. From Sandie Shaw’s exciting collaboration with Davidge to Marianne Faithfull’s best album in years, from Annie Lennox’s forthcoming dip into the American standards to Betty Buckley’s Ghostlight, from Kate Bush’s extraordinary live performances to Peggy Seeger’s ageless vocals, they are each a testament to their own capacity for reinvention and boundary-pushing in a notoriously youth-obsessed business. And they are producing some of the finest and most interesting work in their already illustrious careers.
To the growing list we must now add Sarah-Jane Morris, who practically steals the show from the lot of them with Bloody Rain, an exhilarating Africa-inspired journey through intimacy and friendship, passion, the political legacy of colonialism, homophobia, industrial exploitation, child-soldiers and the fractures that explode when Western culture impacts on traditional family life.
It sounds like a complicated proposition. But Morris’s song-writing is so adept that the personal and universal perspectives, swept up in a constantly shifting net of beats and lilting melodies, are always clearly defined and accessible – and unflinching.
Given many of the subjects tackled, an underlying anger throbs through numbers like “No Beyonce”, “David Kato” and “Coal train”. Morris’s skill is to keep it subliminal, rendering the shock of the shattering lyric above a seductive rhythm all the more potent.
Don’t be misled by the Joplin-esque fierceness of the cover image, which might suggest the album is a long howl of rage. The range of textures in this most distinctive of voices gives her a wide palate of choices, from the dark, ominous growl that she deploys on “Deeper well” to her eloquent narrative on the human cost of the diamond trade on “Coal train”, to the stark beauty of “On my way to you”. There’s even an impassioned take on “I shall be released” for good measure (apparently, it’s compulsory for everyone to include a Dylan cover when they make a new album – but this ties in seamlessly with the arc of Bloody Rain).
Morris has always been a nomadic singer when it comes to style, eschewing easy categorisation and gracefully side-stepping the legacy of “Don’t leave me this way”, that gloriously excessive, soulful collaboration with The Communards which could so easily have consigned a less-resistant artist to the “eighties singers” pen.
Further evidence of that versatility can be found in the album’s several love songs and tributes to friends and family, grounding its complex themes in the powerful resourcefulness of human relationships. And on the last track, the triumphantly satirical “Men just want to have fun”, with its calypso sway, Morris unleashes a needle-sharp humour to make her point about male attitudes to sexual freedom. This is a “Man smart, woman smarter” for the 21st century, frank and utterly contemporary.
With an exceptional band of musicians and backing singers, including Courtney Pine, the Soweto Gospel Choir, Pee Wee Ellis and Ian Shaw, Morris has created an enthralling work which ultimately soothes having delivered some powerful emotional punches. That’s quite a feat.
Don’t leave me this way: gloriously soulful, but don’t call Sarah-Jane Morris an “eighties singer”
Someone who sings about love and loss, and the pain of experience. The power of torch-singing lies in its effect on the listener. For me, it transcends musical genres. These pages explore the dazzling, and sometimes dark, world of the female singer through history and in the present. Concert and CD reviews, interviews and articles combine to create a comprehensive view of this vital strand of popular culture. Why not share your views and experiences of your favourite artists, suggest performers you would like to see featured - and let me know what makes a torch singer for you?
The Art of the Torch Singer 
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