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Elly Roberts reviews
Womanly Hips/ADA Global Records
- Released: November 2008
- Rating: 6/10
- Vote and comment on this album:View Comments
Louiseville songbird goes all Soul? – with dream team.
For her new album, Little Wild One, Joan Osborne has reunited with producer/writers trio Rick Chertoff, Rob Hyman and Eric Bazilian who collaborated on five million selling, six times Grammy nominated breakthrough album Relish. Released on her own label, its Osbornes second so-called Soul adventure this year. Her last was Breakfast In Bed out in April.
If Osborne isnt a familiar name, then her cross-over hit One Of Us, out over a decade ago is her touchstone, still getting considerable airplay today. Osbornes normal comfort zone is steeped in country, blues and folk, so how does she fare with this? Well, firstly, its debateable if this fits the Soul genre per say, more like gospel-tinged typified by opener Hallelujah In The City which has more of its share of country about it.
In many ways it brings back shades of Leonard Cohen, except for the rockier moments.
As per usual, Osbornes vocal class is on brilliant form pure and adaptable on this bag of eclecticism, and so she switches code to a lightweight rocker Sweeter Than The Rest, then onto a haunting and wistful ballad on Sweeter Than The Rest. Then comes a brooding and tight and sparse ballad (title track) using a much huskier tone. Once again, theres a chance to belt out a rocker thumping drums, rolling chords and dollops of joyous wailing by Joan, making the CDs centre piece.
Inevitably, or maybe not, there had to be a song about conflict resolution Meet You In The Middle – a yearning tale of love and optimism, which is why it never borders on melancholy, rather opting for an uplifting jaunt. The happiness prevails on the overwhelmingly sweet gospel inflected Light Of The World.
As good as this album is, theres seems little chance of a hit single to push sales.
File under: OK, not great.
Weblink:joanosborne.com
The full list of tracks included are :
1. Hallelujah In The City
2. Sweeter Than The Rest
3. Cathedrals
4. Little Wild One
5. Rodeo
6. To The One I Love
7. Daddy O
8. Meet You In The Middle
9. Cant Say No
10. Light Of This World
11. Bury Me On The BatteryView the discussion thread.blog comments powered by Disqus= 0) {query += ‘url’ + i + ‘=’ + encodeURIComponent(links[i].href) + ‘&’;}}document.write(”);})();//]]]]>]]>
Elly Roberts passed away in 2011, but he was a man who was so passionate about all types of music and loved meeting his musical heroes, such as Mick Hucknall at a book signing at the Trafford Centre, Manchester in 2007.
A former teacher and also a music journalist, DJ and radio presenter on local community station Calon FM, plus appearances on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Radio 2, Elly started doing reviews for DVDfever.co.uk in 2004 and he did the majority of the CD and concerts reviews on the website.
I know also that he loved getting away for the summer to Spain and I hope that wherever he is now he is enjoying the hot sunshine and, as one of his friends has said on his Facebook page, that he is interviewing his musical heroes.