‘Watts’ voice is mellow but thick in tone. Loud and powerful enough to cut through the band, but always smooth and warm.’
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Rarely have I come across a vocalist as naturally charming, warm, and cheerful as Natasha Watts. Even when scolding an (obnoxious) audience member for talking, she did so with gaiety and wit.
The House That Soul Built has reviewed Watts on three occasions: performing Janette Mason’s re-arranged Prince songs at Hideaway, performing other Mason ‘d’rangements’ at Pizza Express Live, and delivering a warm-up set of her original material at The O’Jays farewell concert in July. As Watts made clear to the audience, she feels most comfortable when performing her original material. Hence, last night’s set at Pizza Express Live, High Holborn comprised cuts from her previous two studio albums, her upcoming third album, and only a handful of covers.
Watts’ voice is mellow but thick in tone. Loud and powerful enough to cut through the band, but always smooth and warm. It is thus unsurprising that she has attracted the attention of house and R&B producers such as Cool Million. Particularly when scaling the top-end of her range – as she did excellently on a cover of Chaka Khan’s ‘Sweet Thing’ – she maintains precise vocal control and fullness of tone. Her set was well-designed in showing the different textures of her instrument.
She radiates a love for life which filters through into her writing: celebrations of love for her husband, expressions of romantic intrigue, and messages of perseverance – wrapped around loungey, post-disco, funky grooves. Admittedly, it is heavy on the platitudes at times but Watts has the charisma and the impressive vocal ability to enliven what could be rather vanilla in the wrong hands. Her acoustic rendition of ‘Many Rivers To Cross’, a poetic piece by Jimmy Cliff about isolation and loneliness, and a cover of George Michael’s ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me’, a heartbreak ballad which sat in Watts’ rich lower register, widened the emotional range of the set. On the former performance in particular, she used her range to capture the despair and sense of liminal uncertainty in Cliff’s lyrics.
But at her core, Watts opts for the uptempo grooves. Opening number ‘Waited For You’, from her sophomore album 2nd Time Around, bubbled with amorous excitement and anticipation. Highlighting material from My Next Chapter, the second set ventured more into soul house territory with energised performances of ‘Out Of My Mind’ and the mid-tempo club jam ‘L.O.V.E’. ‘I Do, I Did, I’m Done’, about realising with a sense of healthy closure that a relationship needs to end, has a 70’s soul groove with punchy phrasing at the chorus. While Watts could benefit from digging a bit deeper emotionally for later releases, with her vocal prowess and personal ebullience one can’t help but root for her.
Full Band:
Bass: Nick Cohen
Keys: Nick Gilmore
Drums: Lee Alloway
The reviewed performance took place at Pizza Express Live, High Holborn on 13th October 2018. You can check out other Pizza Express Live concerts here.
Wow! @natashawatts singing one of my fave @ChakaKhan songs ‘Sweet Thing’ at @pizzajazzclub #soul #vocals pic.twitter.com/MIZ4iVRgEQ
— The House That Soul Built (@The_Soul_House) October 13, 2018
(Image copyright: Natasha Watts)
