Rebecca Ferguson, Lady Sings the Blues (RCA)

Unlike many of her peers from world of the television singing competitions, Rebecca Ferguson at least sounds as if she understands the words she is singing. She is also blessed with a rich, smoky voice that would be well-suited to a centenary celebration of the Billie Holiday catalogue, were it not chill-filtered, as the title suggests, through the legacy of Diana Ross, and Miss Ross's pop tones. There is a plus side to this in that there are 17 tracks on this 53 minute disc, with few exceeding the 3 minute barrier, and Summertime, for example, mercifully more brief than it often is. While it simply uses the Porgy and Bess strings arrangement, however, elsewhere producer Troy Miller's settings range from the derivative to the inappropriate, with a couple of tracks nearer larceny. Fine and Mellow appropriates the riff of Ramsey Lewis's Wade in the Water while Johnny Mercer and Jimmy Van Heusen's I Thought About You is melded with the catchy chords of Norah Jones's Don't Know Why. Femi Temowo's big band Get Happy opener and pianist Stephen Large's Willow Weep for Me stand happily apart, but Miller's cheery the bossa nova/gospel closer of My Man is a car crash. Had he listened to those lyrics?

Keith Bruce