‘Despite such an esteemed career as a backing vocalist, one cannot help but conclude that Hill’s voice belongs front-and-centre.’

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Backing vocalist sensation turned solo artist Judith Hill is currently touring around Europe. The House That Soul Built attended her penultimate night in the UK at Pizza Express High Holborn. 

Judith Hill’s impressive musical credentials are apparent. As a backing vocalist, Hill has supported the likes of George Benson, Rod Stewart, and Michael Jackson amongst many others. In 2013, she competed on the fourth season of NBC’s The Voice, wowing the celebrity judging panel with her astonishing, reinvented version of Christina Aguilera’s ‘What a Girl Wants’. She was also featured in the Academy Award-winning film 20 Feet From Stardom, an insightful documentary focusing on the important role played by backing singers in the music industry.

However, despite such an esteemed career as a backing vocalist, one cannot help but conclude that Hill’s voice belongs front-and-centre. At times brittle, with natural rasp and vocal cracks (think Sia), she can also power through with scratchy force, and sooth with her head voice.

Her self-penned original material reveals a vast array of musical influences. Elements of synth-pop, funk, gospel, hard rock, and vintage soul permeated last night’s setlist, often mixing and spilling into one another. At a Judith Hill concert, a song with a piano-driven balladic intro may mutate into a scorching funk-soul jam with roaring guitars by the end. Joined by a dazzling live band, including her mother on keys (ferocious concentration) and her father on bass, Hill sung and played on songs from her debut album Back In Time (2015, produced by Prince) and her upcoming sophomore Golden Child.

She began ‘As Trains Go By’ in three-part acapella harmony with her backing singers, before a strutting funk grove and 1980s synths entered the fray. On this track, Hill decries police brutality and institutional racism. ‘Might as well be famous / Since I ain’t gon’ be white’, she sings – acknowledging the obstacles presented by race, yet still aspiring for greatness.

Her latest single, ‘The Pepper Club’, extols the ‘baddest cabaret’ in town with retro yet contemporary flourish, in a similar vein to the likes of ‘Uptown Funk’. The listener is introduced to a range of different characters – from patty-flipping Georgia May to cocktail-expert Josephina – in this ‘toxic funkacoma’ of a song with vivid and sensory lyrics. A fantastic first single for her sophomore.

The raucous funk of the night was occasionally dialled back to make way for Hill’s more vulnerable compositions. ‘Irreplaceable Love’ has a vintage soul polish, with a layer of Hammond organ that gives an almost religious gravity to the song’s declaration – ‘Everything honest and true / I found in you / A once in a lifetime / Irreplaceable love’. The other pure ballad of the evening, ‘Beautiful Life’, has an uplifting, consoling lyric that would risk appearing saccharine in the hands of a weaker vocalist. There was particular beauty to the way Hill would extend her voice on the song’s chorus and let her natural rasp take over.

The evening’s penultimate number, ‘Cry, Cry, Cry’, was perhaps the highlight. Beginning with bluesy guitar licks, the song swells as Hill implores strength and endurance through pain – ‘When all is said and done / A change is gonna come’. Hill wallowed in the song’s melancholy, riffing and extemporising expressively. At one point during the performance, Hill handed over the reins to backing singer Ashley Minnieweather who wrung every drop of pain from the lyrics with her gospel-inflected, penetrating vocals.

Commendations also to Myra Washington who took the lead on a cover of The Staple Singer’s 1975 hit ‘Let’s Do It Again’, sung with honey-toned finesse. Perhaps these are two backing singers we should be looking out for?

Tickets for Judith Hill’s final Pizza Express High Holborn (19/07/18) concert can be found here. 

The full-band

Judith Hill – Vocals/Piano/Guitar
Peewee Hill– Bass
Michiko Hill  -Keyboard/B3
Michael White – Drums
RJ Ronquillo – Guitar
Myra Washington – Background Vocalist
Ashley Minnieweather – Background Vocalist

(Image Copyright: Judith Hill)