Rag’n’Bone Man is a big voice in need of a better songbook
Rag’n’Bone Man
‘Be your Valentine? With this shirt on?!” Swaying couples may have come out to spend February 14 with Rag’n’Bone Man, but the soul singer from Uckfield, East Sussex, was quick to extinguish any romance in the room. His multicoloured top, more Bez than Bublé, was the result of a rum-related accident back stage. His songs are all “miserable” or “about serial killers”, he announced, with a laugh that sounded like water through a plughole.
Yet Rory Graham, a 32-year-old former carer who signed a major record deal after years of rapping on pirate radio stations, is no stranger to matters of the heart. If anything, it sometimes feels as if they’re at the root of his enormous vocals. As Rag’n’Bone Man, Graham has rapidly won a cult-like following for songs that deal with unrequited love and selfeffacement, belted out with a talent so raw it could turn your skin pink. Graham’s voice isn’t merely soulful, it seems genuinely soul-baring.
It is fitting that his debut album, Human, is set to scoop the No 1 slot on Friday, a week after its release, with Adele having just made awards history by picking up five Grammys on Sunday. Both artists won the hattipping Brits Critics’ Choice Award, and both shun the mould global superstars are expected to fit (Graham is a bearded, shaven-headed goliath – he dwarfs his guitar). Instead, they shift records and melt hearts with big voices and even bigger personalities.
What lets Graham down is his material. A Muddy Waters fan, he opened with a cover of Reuben’s Train, by Sixties bluegrass band The Dillards, and closed with an a-capella version of gospel standard In My Time of Dying. Given its proper vehicle, Graham’s voice transformed him into a man beyond his years, grizzled with pain and experience. Lent to the downbeat ballads that fill his back catalogue, however, and his vocals – at once rasp and bellow, yelp and delicacy – were flattened into tedium. While a mournful Skin kept the crowd in rapt silence, his pop potential was better shown in the euphoric Changes.
Could Graham reach Adele’s status? I saw the Tottenham-born singer at a similar point in her career, and even then she was uniquely captivating. Graham may be similarly charming – and is undoubtedly as vocally talented – but he will have to get a better collection of songs to enter her stratosphere: after all, it was her hit-packed, heartbreak-drenched sophomore album 21 that cemented that stardom.
But what Adele has proved is that millions will listen to a voice that can outshine convention. It’s not impossible to imagine millions listening to Rag’n’Bone Man for the same reason.