thu 05/12/2024

Album: Sarah Jane Morris - The Sisterhood | reviews, news & interviews

Album: Sarah Jane Morris - The Sisterhood

Album: Sarah Jane Morris - The Sisterhood

A brilliant ode to female torchbearers

Ten songs honouring female artists past and present

Released yesterday to coincide with International Women’s Day, The Sisterhood will surely prove to be one of the brightest jewels in Sarah Jane Morris’s varicoloured discography.

A labour of love which Morris has been contemplating for two decades, the album presents a tribute to “my ten singers, my essential lodestars”, as she puts it, acknowledging and honouring female artists past and present who have inspired her own musical journey. Wonderfully arranged and stylistically diverse, Morris and her co-writer/co-producer Tony Rémy pull off a remarkable feat of crafting 10 songs which tell each singer-songwriter’s story while simultaneously capturing their musical and lyrical essence.

The multilayered title track serves up a deliciously funked-up homage to the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, while the trailblazing Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith, is celebrated in “Couldn't Be Without”. A monstrous backbeat and stacked up horns underpin “Tomorrow Never Happens”, a paean to Janis Joplin tellingly programmed directly after Joplin’s greatest musical inspiration.

As well as glorious tributes to Nina Simone (“So Much Love”), Rickie Lee Jones (“Jazz Side of the Road”) and Billie Holiday (“Junk In My Trunk”), “Rimbaud Of Suburbia” draws aofascinating line between the singular sound-world of Kate Bush and the striking free verse of the precocious French poet of the title, whose 1872 poem, Bonne pensée du matin, is heard in its entirety.

With a beautiful string arrangement by Sally Herbert, the song honouring Joni Mitchell, “Sing Me A Picture”, possesses something of the epic quality of Mitchell’s own “Paprika Plains”. The concluding “Miss Makeba” moves seamlessly from spoken-word praise for the iconic South African singer and anti-apartheid activist to an exuberant Afrobeat anthem graced by the presence of the Soweto Gospel Choir, which echoes their contribution to Morris’s acclaimed 2014 album, Bloody Rain.

A heartfelt expression of love and a celebration of musical torchbearers, The Sisterhood will have you hooked from its opening bars.

@MrPeterQuinn 

Add comment

The future of Arts Journalism

 

You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!

We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d

And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.

Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.

To take a subscription now simply click here.

And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?

newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters