When a 49-year-old Welsh jazz’n’folk singer decides to make it her business to cover songs ranging from Drake’s “Hotline Bling” to Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling”, most people’s immediate reaction would be to advise her to leave well alone. I’d be with them. However, despite some real no-no’s contained in Judith Owen’s new album, there’s also fun to be had.
Things do not start well for, despite Owen’s best efforts, her plaintive, sparse piano cover of Drake’s bootycall anthem “Hotline Bling”, while a brave idea (suggested by her husband, the actor-comedian Harry Shearer) does not come off. Somehow the colloquial lyrics sound slightly ludicrous enunciated in such a serious balladic manner. Much the same thing happens when she rethinks “Summer Nights” from Grease in a similar vein, with added strings, although she fares better with Deep Purple’s riff-monster “Smoke on the Water” which develops into a half-jokey brushed drum shuffle.
Fortunately, there are songs on board that partly save the day. Ed Sheeran’s ubiquitous “Shape of You” is given cheeky new life as a sassy Meghan Trainor-style bouncer; “Dream a Little Dream of Me”, a song that’s now nearly 90 years old, is indestructible in its gorgeousness and Owen inhabits it well; her cha-cha-infused take on Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff” is a solid frolic. Perhaps best of all is the most unlikely take on Soundgarden’s apocalyptic crossover hit “Black Hole Sun” that you will ever hear.
Owen has had an unaffected, unpretentious 20-plus-year career, working alongside everyone from Bryan Ferry to Richard Thompson, putting out numerous albums. Backed by a virtuoso rhythm section on redicCOVERed, you can hear that she’s having a good time. It’s a purposefully divisive set – always better than being bland, after all – and some will embrace her incongruous choices, but this writer could only get behind about a third of it.
Below: watch Judith Owen play a very sassy version of Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You" live in New Orleans
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