WOULD SHE LIE?
Lennox’s voice rings true with ‘Nostalgia’ on PBS
Annie Lennox has always been one of pop’s great hams. She loves to show off the rushing wind in her lungs and the hairpin turns of her phrasing. Those qualities mirror the theatrical character she brought to her videos with Eurythmics as well as her early solo work.
It’s that happy artifice Lennox applies to her renditions of the American songbook, the conceit that anchored her recent album, “Nostalgia.”
Now it’s the basis of a like-named “Great Performances” special on PBS. The one-hour show, which debuts next Friday, gives Lennox more space to elaborate her phrasing than the studio recording allowed — and more power from a sprawling live band.
On the album, Lennox sounded confined and self-conscious. That could be because, as the Scottish singer has admitted, she didn’t grow up with these songs, a rare claim for someone of her generation.
The fact that she came to the American classics relatively naive may explain why she didn’t feel the need to make any radical alterations in their arrangements. Essentially, she followed an old story, a point admitted by the “Nostalgia” title. But for the live project she developed her own telling.
Much like Lady Gaga’s recent cheekto-jowl recording with Tony Bennett, Lennox treats the songs of Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington and George Gershwin athletically. They’re a trampoline, offering a taut and wide canvas for her to show off her vocal loop-deloops. She offers big, bold performances, less attuned to hurt, or nuance, than to the grand gesture.
In the opening “Memphis In June,” Lennox luxuriates in the scene-setting lyric, acting as an all-knowing narrator. Her version of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put A Spell On You” equals her showstopping performance of the song from the most recent Grammys, where she nearly stole the night.
Even the ballads thrive on flair. She doesn’t find an original way into “Summertime,” the way Big Brother and Janis Joplin did in the ’60s, but Lennox wins through her slow-burn dazzle.
The deepening tone of her voice helps on that score. At 60, Lennox’s contralto has more tawniness and richness than ever. In tone and pitch, she’s starting to sound like Nina Simone, though she lacks that singer’s internality and righteous rage. Luckily, Lennox has just enough solemnity to get away with a dangerous choice: “Strange Fruit,” Billie Holiday’s chilling tale of a lynching.
Still, there’s no mistaking the true focus of these performances. It lies in the pleasure Lennox takes in walking her voice through material whose melodies roam so far. The standards offer her more of a workout than any songs in her own canon.
Lennox brings fresh arrangements to the two pop songs she allows from her own catalogue, featured here as encores. First, she performs the Eurythmics’ “Here Comes The Rain Again” alone at the piano, without its pumping synth beat and weighted with heavier chords. Lennox goes the same route with her best-ever solo song, “Why.” By delivering both pieces like a lonely, young Joni Mitchell, Lennox finds the depth that’s missing elsewhere. Even so, the rest proves that performances informed by the pure joy of discovery also have their place.