Lennox takes a stroll through the show tunes and blues songs
ANNIE Lennox has hardly been prolific since her first solo album, Diva, in 1990.
One of the faces of the ’80s – when she was one half of electronic duo Eurythmics with her former lover Dave Stewart – she has made only five more albums, three of them cover collections, in the intervening 24 years.
But despite her relaxed work ethic, Lennox, at 59, remains a hugely gifted whitesoul singer. Her warm, impassioned voice shows little sign of wear or tear and is one of the most distinctive in pop.
It takes centre stage once again on Nostalgia, a stroll through the show tunes and blues songs of the pre-rock era.
Lennox has a knack of reshaping familiar numbers to suit her style, and her first album in four years is an assured reading of the classics.
The material, drawn largely from the ’30s, is a mix of familiar hits and less well-known tracks. Lennox brings a stately grace to George Gershwin’s much-covered Summertime, from Porgy And Bess, and Hoagy Carmichael’s Georgia On My Mind, a slow-moving ballad illuminated by soulful church organ.
The mood isn’t entirely reflective, either. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s I Put A Spell On You becomes a demented ballad, complete with a screeching, electric guitar solo, while Duke Ellington’s Mood Indigo is positively joyful. Lennox lets rip against a backdrop of dirty guitar licks and Cotton Club brass as she transforms herself into a smoky club diva.
She tackles three standards made famous by Billie Holiday. The Civil Rights anthem Strange Fruit feels like a false step, with Lennox sounding tentative, and coming nowhere close to replicating the haunting bitter ness expressed by Holiday.
She interprets God Bless The Child and I Cover The Waterfront with a wistful glow. Lennox excels, too, on sweet love songs, including the You Belong To Me and evergreen The Nearness Of You.
“I wondered whether these songs would suit my voice,” she says. “So I got to know them, and had a lot of fun.”
It has been seven years since she last produced any selfpenned material, and fans will want to hear some of her songwriting the next time she visits a studio. – Daily Mail