Read below for our fifth Lockdown Round-Up, with new material from Bettye LaVette, Kygo & Tina Turner, Lady Blackbird, and Herbivores!

–

Bettye LaVette – ‘One More Song’

Bettye LaVette has been a singer for over 57 years. Her autobiography A Woman Like Me, co-written by David Ritz, is a gripping read, relaying LaVette’s struggle in the industry while her contemporaries from Detroit (Aretha, David Ruffin, The Supremes etc.) began to blow up into the stratosphere. LaVette is now enjoying a much belated recognition, garnering Grammy nominations for her stunning interpretations of the British Invasion and Bob Dylan songbooks. She has a cry in her voice – all the more reason why her rendition of Billie Holliday’s ‘Strange Fruit’, released last June in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, was so haunting.

She imbues a deep melancholy into newest release ‘One More Song’, a bluesy dirge taken from her upcoming album Blackbird. It is a song of unrequited love – the pain of which LaVette can only communicate through music. ‘One more teardrop in every note / One more lyric caught in my throat,’ she moans. However cathartic singing might be for LaVette, no amount of sad lyrics or minor chords can alleviate the pain of her heartbreak. ‘I wish it could be more than just one more song.’ With an overwhelming resignation, she slumps into her final note.

Kygo & Tina Turner – ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It?’

Kygo did a brilliant job fashioning Whitney’s (admittedly dated) version of Steve Winwood’s ‘Higher Love’ into a fresh, contemporary jam that still had Houston’s vocals at the centre. Tina Turner’s comeback smash ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It’ is the subject of his latest remix. His version, if not quite as nuanced as ‘Higher Love’, sounds custom-built for summer. He holds back on the verses and punches hard at the chorus, milking the key change brilliantly. (Also, is he using some studio outtakes from Tina’s 1984 recording?)

Lady Blackbird – ‘Blackbird’

‘Blackbird’ is an oft-overlooked number from Nina Simone’s canon of civil rights songs. Taken from the oddly titled Nina Simone with Strings (1966) album, Simone’s haunting vocal is accompanied by only bass and percussive claps. ‘So why you wanna fly blackbird / You ain’t never gonna fly,’ she sings, lamenting the predicament of the Black women. The fatalism of the lyric is diametrically opposed to the celebration of Black excellence and resilience Simone would communicate five years later with ‘Young, Gifted and Black.’

Jazz songstress Lady Blackbird, hailing from Los Angeles, has chosen to cover ‘Blackbird’ as her first single. “Since I was a child Nina Simone has always been a raw and honest, inspirational person for me,’ she says. ‘”Blackbird”, one of my all-time favorites of hers, was the first song I brought to [producer Chris Seefried] and the record unfolded naturally from there.’ With a darkly expressive vocal, she delivers a more tortured rendition.  It is almost a taunt – made all the more unsettling with discordant strings and eerily sparse piano lines. The music stops. ‘You ain’t never gonna fly‘ she sings. She takes the lyric ‘fly’ and begins to climb up the note before plunging into a minor piano chord.

Herbivores – Herbivores (EP)

Bel-Ami, Redddaz, Misha ‘Silky’ Savage, and Will Sacks are three musicians from Brooklyn, New York. Together they form Herbivores, a neo-soul collective drawing influence from the likes of D’Angelo, Anderson.Paak, and Childish Gambino. Speaking about the inspiration behind their eponymous debut EP, the collective say, “this project is inspired by where love begins and starts to blossom into something that could be amazing. The Herbivores sound reflects the stages of a romance as seasons of the year, and this EP – the first of two projects we are releasing this year, the second being ‘Nightshades’ for the autumn – represents the spring and summer months, with the record beginning with flirtatious blossoms and waning into an emotional first harvest.” Herbivores is a crisp, tight helping of neo-soul. The highlights are opening track ‘Kinda Like a Crush’ with its hypnotic chorus and angular guitar coda, the languid, Roy Ayersish ’90 Degree Bae’, and the sexually charged, synthy ‘6am’.

Image Copyrights:
Bettye LaVette, ‘One More Song’ – Verve Records
Lady Blackbird, ‘Blackbird’ – Foundation Music Productions
Kygo & Tina Turner, ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It’ – Kygo AS under exclusive license to Sony Music International
Herbivores, Herbivores – Greenhouse Records