‘The magnificence of John’s voice was the take-home message of the evening’
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After successful roles in Memphis: The Musical, The Bodyguard, and Hamilton (for which she received an Olivier Award nomination), Rachel John is currently on a deserved break from the West End. A singer who grew up in church (‘it’s not a democracy,‘ she tells us about compulsory attendance), John has always stood out to this writer as a singer who would thrive in the premier venues of the London soul circuit, as well as on West End stages.
This evening, she performed at the Shaw Theatre in Euston to open the theatre’s ‘Singing at the Shaw’ series.
The magnificence of John’s voice was the take-home message of the evening. While she can shake the rafters with her elastic upper range, there is also a graciousness and satiny texture to her softer vocalisations. Marrying her gospel upbringing with the technical demands of working in the West End, John is expressive, at times uninhibited, but also controlled and precise.
The set drew heavily on John’s affinity with gospel music, including traditional hymns (‘This Little Light of Mine’, ‘His Eye is on the Sparrow’, ‘Jesus Loves Me’) and more contemporary gospel (Andrae Crouch’s ‘The Blood’ and Hillsong UNITED’s ‘Prince of Peace’). Soul/R&B cuts as well as show tunes from John’s theatre career were also mixed into the set.
Some of the finest moments came when John was backed by just keys, as per her rendition of ‘His Eye is on the Sparrow’ where she filled the theatre with her resonant vocals. Although the sound mixing in the venue felt occasionally imbalanced, John connected well with her band. She showed great intuition on a rendition of SWV’s 1993 jam ‘Weak’, lending her gospel inflection to the song’s R&B cadences. Her upcoming single ‘Fool’s Gold’ – an R&B ballad with an immediately engaging hook – showed her potential as a writer too.
Looking back to her role in the Cadogan Hall’s ‘one-night-only’ production of The Color Purple (2017) – a score which exemplifies the intersection between gospel/soul music and musical theatre – John performed the ‘reprise’ version of the title song. She paced herself through the meditative opening before driving the song towards its emotional climax with the help of her backing vocalists. She gave a similar treatment to ‘Colored Woman’, a song about racial inequality from Memphis: The Musical with a striving, determined lyric.
While the order of songs could have been tweaked to create a stronger overall arc, by the close of the show John was unleashing her full vocal might to an incredibly receptive audience. Let’s hope there are more live shows to come.
