Music
Jo Lawry, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
Rob Adams
THREE STARS
Morgan Neville's documentary 20 Feet from Stardom highlights the role of backing singers in popular music and while Jo Lawry hasn't clocked up the years of experience of some of her co-stars, such as Merry Clayton, she might still, providing the demand for music touring continues. Equally, like Clayton, Lawry has a voice that would not be at all out of place centre stage.
The material Lawry presented as a singer-guitarist in this small-scale gig - certainly in comparison with her recent work on the Paul Simon and Sting tour - wasn't always up to the standard of the soulful songs she sang that she has co-written with Memphis composer Doug Wamble. And the tone setting on the keyboard both she and her husband, Will Vinson, played didn't always ideally complement her superbly controlled, sincere singing. At its best, though, this was a performance that made the prospect of Lawry returning with her band one to savour.
She's as endearingly down-to-earth in her introductions as she is open-hearted in her singing, relating the sometimes quite prosaic circumstances of her songs' creation and painting chilly matter-of-fact pictures of breaking up in a New York winter. Diversions from her own songs into her jazz background, however, revealed considerable chops and her vocalese based on saxophonist Hank Mobley's solo from Remember and a duet of Just You Just Me, with Vinson switching to his more familiar alto saxophone, were tight-rope walks skilfully negotiated. Some early Joni Mitchell influences shone through in her attractively wistful guitar patterns and Sting's wordy influence was felt on Impossible but overall Lawry emerged as an artist in her own image.
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