Amel Larrieux has been defying the role of women of color in popular music since her Groove Theory days. More than a million albums later, Larrieux is still proving she is as eclectic and unclassifiable as they come. Amel is the perfect combination of a distinct voice filled with soulful range and lyrics that get at the heart of human emotion. After the release of Infinite Possibilities her celebrated debut project at Epic Records in 2000, Larrieux took a chance, and went to indie label Bliss Life Record. The risk was successful and Amel’s artistic freedom has resulted in critically acclaimed work that is honest, haunting and lasting. While at Bliss Life, Amel birthed Morning and Bravebird. On May 22nd she released Lovely Standards on Bliss Life and dared to defy stereotypes once more.
The Project
In May, Amel released Lovely Standards. If it were any other current artist, the project would be called a cover album. But because Larrieux demonstrates an uncanny intuitiveness for translating decades old music into material that is fresh and original, this album is called her own.
In the space of 10 tracks, Larrieux brings listeners on a journey spanning eras, genres, styles and experiences. To add to the already daunting task of making the old and familiar, new and never before, the tracks selected are classics. Amel tackles big name songwriters like Rodgers and Hammerstein, Ellington and Bernstein and hands audiences a finished product where she is clearly an authority and co-author. She contemporizes Lucky to Be Me and makes is sweet like manna from heaven. Wild is the Wind may not posses the dark vacuous trills that haunt Nina Simone’s rendition, but Larrieux presents an airy version filled with exasperated breaths calling for love that hovers above air. The sauntering of ebony and ivory on You’re My Thrill refreshingly signals a break in Larrieux’s vocal range reeking of Lady Day’s matter-of-singing of love so exciting you can sing it in a monotone and still paint a poly-chromatic mental fantasy.
Today’s R&B is filled with aggressive lyrics and spasmatic beats, Larrieux does a musical about face on Something Wonderful that is spacey yet weighty, dreamy and painfully plain. She starts with a declaration recalling a young Diana Ross and crosses on a sweet and bubbly note comparable to an older, more experienced Carmen McRae. Combined with lyrics so true, denying them is vain, Larrieux does something wonderful to Something Wonderful that feels like the “I should leave… but” love anthem for this generation of ballad lovers. The album comes to a light and refreshing close on I Like the Sunrise which reassures listeners that Amel is still, after all, a brave bird soaring and singing on melodic strings.
The Performance
After such a drastic, yet just as successful departure from her previous styles of music, I had real questions about how the new material would find a way into her live show. I took her in for the first time at B. B. Kings on May 26th.
… she smeared my make-up even before she stepped onstage.
Her two daughters Sanji-Rey and Sky walked out and opened the show with the hit single For Real. It had to be the most soulful polysyllabic intro in contemporary R&B funk history. The song about being better for real, was better for real, as tears wet the eyes of a mom never too established to be amazed by her daughters at work. Sanji-Rey and Sky made another guest appearance mid-way into show with their rendition of Michael Jackson’s Human Nature and Sanji-Rey took the lead as Sky backed her. The audience was enthralled by the dynamic performances of Amel’s 7 and 11-year-old girls.
Even the way she grabs for and vocally mounts the mic is memorable. It marks the beginning of her descent into losing herself on stage. Most female vocalists today don’t have the balls to allow their inner beauty to outshine their appearance so overwhelmingly that they can afford to make their outer selves ugly. When she is submerged in the act, she makes faces. Ugly faces that reveal the pain of delivering something that comes from deep down in the stomach’s pit. Some of the sounds are guttural and emerge from a primordial space pre-dating placentas and umbilical cords. In the seconds between the progressions of faces, she hums tunes in pitches that are near inaudible, but unquestionably delectable.
A true shifter, she changed her energy and everyone else’s as she launched into a rendition of Lucky to be Me. She went from an animated 70s revolutionary to a 40s diva with Dinah Washington’s easiness and Hazel Scott’s grace. By the next track, she called for a lover’s attention like Tina Turner when she was a Gypsy on Acid. If cult classic Super Freak had a female counterpart Earn My Affection with lyrics like “you can’t fool me like my fruit ain’t worth making pie, you gotta earn my affection, put your back into it” is it. Amel demands while purring creating something that sounds somewhat hip-hop with a heavy dose of Betty Davis and Ella Fitzgerald laced with Patti Smith.
If the artistic fusions that made her previous selections addictive were not enough, she remixed How Do I Feel and made something that was pure performative genius and displayed informed worldliness in her musical approach and background.
The Project
In May, Amel released Lovely Standards. If it were any other current artist, the project would be called a cover album. But because Larrieux demonstrates an uncanny intuitiveness for translating decades old music into material that is fresh and original, this album is called her own.
In the space of 10 tracks, Larrieux brings listeners on a journey spanning eras, genres, styles and experiences. To add to the already daunting task of making the old and familiar, new and never before, the tracks selected are classics. Amel tackles big name songwriters like Rodgers and Hammerstein, Ellington and Bernstein and hands audiences a finished product where she is clearly an authority and co-author. She contemporizes Lucky to Be Me and makes is sweet like manna from heaven. Wild is the Wind may not posses the dark vacuous trills that haunt Nina Simone’s rendition, but Larrieux presents an airy version filled with exasperated breaths calling for love that hovers above air. The sauntering of ebony and ivory on You’re My Thrill refreshingly signals a break in Larrieux’s vocal range reeking of Lady Day’s matter-of-singing of love so exciting you can sing it in a monotone and still paint a poly-chromatic mental fantasy.
Today’s R&B is filled with aggressive lyrics and spasmatic beats, Larrieux does a musical about face on Something Wonderful that is spacey yet weighty, dreamy and painfully plain. She starts with a declaration recalling a young Diana Ross and crosses on a sweet and bubbly note comparable to an older, more experienced Carmen McRae. Combined with lyrics so true, denying them is vain, Larrieux does something wonderful to Something Wonderful that feels like the “I should leave… but” love anthem for this generation of ballad lovers. The album comes to a light and refreshing close on I Like the Sunrise which reassures listeners that Amel is still, after all, a brave bird soaring and singing on melodic strings.
The Performance
After such a drastic, yet just as successful departure from her previous styles of music, I had real questions about how the new material would find a way into her live show. I took her in for the first time at B. B. Kings on May 26th.
… she smeared my make-up even before she stepped onstage.
Her two daughters Sanji-Rey and Sky walked out and opened the show with the hit single For Real. It had to be the most soulful polysyllabic intro in contemporary R&B funk history. The song about being better for real, was better for real, as tears wet the eyes of a mom never too established to be amazed by her daughters at work. Sanji-Rey and Sky made another guest appearance mid-way into show with their rendition of Michael Jackson’s Human Nature and Sanji-Rey took the lead as Sky backed her. The audience was enthralled by the dynamic performances of Amel’s 7 and 11-year-old girls.
Even the way she grabs for and vocally mounts the mic is memorable. It marks the beginning of her descent into losing herself on stage. Most female vocalists today don’t have the balls to allow their inner beauty to outshine their appearance so overwhelmingly that they can afford to make their outer selves ugly. When she is submerged in the act, she makes faces. Ugly faces that reveal the pain of delivering something that comes from deep down in the stomach’s pit. Some of the sounds are guttural and emerge from a primordial space pre-dating placentas and umbilical cords. In the seconds between the progressions of faces, she hums tunes in pitches that are near inaudible, but unquestionably delectable.
A true shifter, she changed her energy and everyone else’s as she launched into a rendition of Lucky to be Me. She went from an animated 70s revolutionary to a 40s diva with Dinah Washington’s easiness and Hazel Scott’s grace. By the next track, she called for a lover’s attention like Tina Turner when she was a Gypsy on Acid. If cult classic Super Freak had a female counterpart Earn My Affection with lyrics like “you can’t fool me like my fruit ain’t worth making pie, you gotta earn my affection, put your back into it” is it. Amel demands while purring creating something that sounds somewhat hip-hop with a heavy dose of Betty Davis and Ella Fitzgerald laced with Patti Smith.
If the artistic fusions that made her previous selections addictive were not enough, she remixed How Do I Feel and made something that was pure performative genius and displayed informed worldliness in her musical approach and background.
© T.I. Williams
