(R&B,Soul,Funk,Country) Nina Ferro - Into The Light - 2013, MP3, 320

NINA FERRO
“A fabulous performer with a knockout voice!”
Tony Bennett
Nina Ferro is a London-based singer/songwriter who is fast making her mark as one of the hottest young stars of the international music scene. A multi award-winning vocalist, songwriter, session and recording artist, Nina’s powerful, evocative voice, stunning vocal range and captivating stage presence have earned her an enviable international reputation.
Nina’s musical upbringing started with the family record player. Out of the speakers came a mix of classical music, especially opera (her paternal grand mother was a mezzo-soprano), Soul, Motown, Rock & Roll, Rhythm & Blues, Jazz and Pop could be heard. Her favourite singers as a young girl were Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Elvis Presley. Nina began piano lessons at the age of 8, trained classically as an opera singer from the age of 14, but her passion for singing Soul, Jazz, Country and Pop took over and she began singing professionally by the age of 15. By the age of 20 Nina was recording albums and touring the world performing at festivals, clubs, concerts, TV, radio and guest appearances throughout the USA, Europe, Australia, Asia and The Middle East.
Through Nina’s travels she has shared a stage with music greats such as Tony Bennett, Hugh Jackman, Jose Feliciano, Billy Ocean, Ricky Martin, Chris Botti, Frank McComb, Gilbert O’Sullivan, Chick Corea, Rick Price, Tina Arena, Jessica Mauboy, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, The Blues Brothers Band, The Commitments and many, many more…..Nina is a dynamic and enchanting performer with a rapidly growing international fan base who is highly sought after for bookings at Clubs and Festivals across the globe.
Nina’s latest album, Into The Light, showcases not only an unforgettable vocalist, but also an accomplished and insightful songwriter. Written and recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, Into the Light features 13 beautifully crafted original compositions with foundations in old school Rhythm and Blues and Jazz, infused with Soul and awash with the signature Nashville sound.
“Ferro’s voice is a pleasure to hear… natural, sexy and effortless.”
Cadence Magazine, New York.
Nina has been in the industry both performing and recording for many years already and whilst she started out as a jazz singer (singing that other kind of “Americana”, the American song book of Jazz!!), Over the past few years her music has become influenced more and more by her own passions and musical loves, those being jazz, soul, old school rhythm & blues, blue grass and country which she brings into her songwriting.
In June this year (2013) Nina took a trip to Nashville on the invitation of Music Producer, Songwriter and Guitarist Sam Hawksley. Sam and Nina began writing the album together as well as collaborating with some of Nashville’s finest songwriters such as Gary Nicholson (Grammy award winning songs for Bonnie Raitt & Trisha Yearwood), Michael Heeney (Brooks & Dunn, Reba McEntire), Jerry Salley (Reba McEntire, 2003 “Country Music Songwiriter of the Year”), Sam Hawksley (Adam Brand, Keith Urban, Kim Richey), Jedd Hughes (Kasey Musgraves), Johnny Duke (Little Big Town) and over the course of 16 days 16 songs were written and on day 17 they started recording!!
“I don’t think it’s overstating the case here – unsurpassable perfection!!”
Sebastian Scotney, London Jazz News
The resulting record features 13 songs that exude a Jazzy, Bluesy, Funky, Soulful feeling – its essentially a classic singer songwriter record – No studio trickery just a great band, great songs and outstanding vocals! – If you like the idea of Norah Jones and Bonnie Raitt making a record together it might sound a bit like this!
The musicians on the album are some of Nashville’s finest and most sort after session players, they include Sam Hawksley on Guitars and vocals, Rob McNelley on Guitars (Kasey Musgraves, Bob Seeger) Steve Mackey on Bass (Dolly Parton, Winona Judd), Jano Rix on Drums (Liz Wright, Adam Brand), Michael Rojas on Keys (Dave Stewart, Bonnie Tyler, Joss Stone), James Farrell on Keys (Matt Nathanson).

#777The trick with a singer songwriter is always to finds a suitable niche with which to build their profile. In the case of Anglo Australian Nina Ferro things are slightly different. She’s already a multi award-winning vocalist, songwriter, session singer and recording artist, but the question remains how best to market a voice that can make ice melt at 20 paces?
The answer of course is Nashville. Not the Grand Ole Opry model of old, but the contemporary music scene that houses the likes of Dan Baird and Gary Nicholson, who contributes to this album. Then there’s the essential vision of guitarist /producer and project collaborator Sam Hawksley who has placed Nina’s versatile vocals within a roots rock, song-driven environment.
The assembled muso’s apparently nailed 16 songs in as many days and the 13 that made the cut are carried by a sense of purpose that permeates the album as a whole. Thereafter the subtle production emphasizes the harmony heavy hooks, and Nina’s occasional spine tingling phrasing.
And yet there’s still the question of how to label her? After all, there’s blues, jazz, soul, alt- country, and funk. Nina navigates a delicate balance between polished and by turns emotive singing, on a batch of songs that derive their equilibrium from carefully chosen song styles, and the consistency of her performances.
The outstanding thing about this album is that Nina brings such presence and authority to the material through her phrasing and interpretive skills, that the closing ‘All In The Name Of God’ comes as less of a shock than it might do. She shifts her focus from relationship songs to the lack of woman’s rights in different parts of the world and imbues the heartfelt lyrics with a spiritual quality that lifts the whole album beyond its mere commercial possibilities.
‘Into the Light’ is simply a magisterial album, and both her singing and the accompanying musicianship would be difficult to better. Whether Sam Hawksley heard something special before extending his invitation for her to go to Nashville, is something only he will know, but other than the rather formulaic opening track ‘To Get To My Heart’ – a predictable pedal steel guitar line meets a telegraphed chorus – and the radio friendly funk of ‘When I Found You’, this is an album that sparkles with her eloquent phrasing, pristine diction and intuitive timing over nuanced backing vocals.
The album builds subtly by degrees and flows naturally into the one of the album highlights, the percussive funk and ironic message of ‘Plutonic Delirium’. The title track in contrast, is a more relaxed funky groove with an uplifting chorus flecked by guitar and keyboard splashes.
And almost to order, she wraps her warm vocals round the slow blues of ‘Cry Cry Cry’ and hovers, swoops and soars magnificently on the piano led ‘I Turn To Stone’. On the funky ‘Dangerous Move’ the tightly wrapped rhythm section underpins Sam’s brief ascending guitar break to cut through the tension, before Nina’s second vocal attack takes things up a notch with some startling phrasing, on a song that could easily find a home on blues radio play list.
And it is the crossover appeal that makes ‘Into The Light’ more than just another MOR vocal album. There’s a nice ‘live in the studio’ feel, counterweighted by a polished production and Nina’s impressive interpretive skills to push the songs to their potential. And I guess it wouldn’t be Nashville without a brace of country tinged outings, with ‘Finish What You Started’ being the kind of relationship song that fits the old Nashville mould perfectly. And then there’s the confessional ballad ‘Let You Go’, on which she fills the track with a Karen Carpenter style vocal, except for the spiky lyrics given emphasis by a sudden tempo change: I’ve moved all the furniture around, I took all your pictures down, but I still feel the ghost of you, Erased your number from my phone, got use to sleeping all alone, I’ve been putting off the hardest thing to do’.
Sandwiched between the two, there’s the undulating funk of the rockier ‘I’m In’, which gives the album a notable lift at the three quarter mark, as she soars over a sweeping baking vocals in a perfect match of voice, song, and production. It’s also the track on which the session really sparks and nicely frames what has gone before.
‘Into The Light’ is full of good songs, well crafted musicianship and is shaped by Nina Ferro expressive vocals, which much like Amy Winehouse before her, makes light of any stylistic considerations. **** ~Review by Pete Feenstra
#777Who likes a story with a genuinely happy ending? The sequence of events which has led to Nina Ferro's new album and to a joyous launch, is exactly that, but there is only one night left to catch it: tonight, Saturday.
Ferro and her extremely classy band are at St James Studio in the basement of the St James Theatre close by Victoria Station, just a few corgi-steps from Buckingham Palace.
Back to the story, are you sitting comfortably? Australian-born guitarist Sam Hawksley says he had admired Nina Ferro ever since he heard her hitting the high notes so perfectly as a regular breakfast singer on the TV show Good Morning Australia.
Eventually their paths were to cross - he is now based in Nashville, she in London - and earlier this year he made Ferro a simple if completely improbable invitation/suggestion:"Why don't you come here to Nashville and do an album?" She found more reasons - and presumably the cash too - to say yes rather than no, and in the sixteen days she spent there, she says, "you just get into an artistic vibe and you make it happen". The result is Into the Light, her first album since Waiting for the Sunset from 2008. The songs are mostly co-written with Hawksley. It was recorded as recently as mid-July this year.
The songs - with one exception, I'll come back to that - are of the kind to bring an instant smile to the face of the every member of the audience. They are hooky, they're catchy, and optimistic. What are they? Amazon has the album curiously classified as "Blues/Country" but there is also funk and soul in the mix. Each one just launches itself easefully into a groove, sunroof off, cruise control on. I wrote down Crusaders, I also wrote down Reba McIntyre. Take a lyric like "(Everything's gonna be all right) When I Find You," and you get the picture. Others are sassier - I enjoyedPlutonic Delirium, in which a man who has failed to pick up obvious signals that he had been assumed to be in a relationship gets his failings pointed out to him. Ferro did take the trouble to warn the audience in her chats between the songs that the dangers of dating a songwriter should be obvious. 'Saturn' gets rhymed with 'holding pattern', 'Lover' with 'Supernova'. It has a tricky push-pull ending - most of the songs depart with a fade, in every case perfectly executed by the band.
The exception among the songs is All in the Name of God a powerfully emotional condemnation of the degrading of women which happens in some non-Western societies. Its seriousness and focus caught the audience unaware - people seemed genuinely to be moved by it.
One of the joys of the evening is quite how tight,slick, professional, characterful, and punchy the band are. Pianist/ keyboardist Grant Windsor -another Australian expat alongside Ferro herself and Hawksley- was appearing earlier this week with Gregory Porter in the Albert Hall, and it felt a privilege to hear him on this smaller scale. His duet with drummer Tim Weller on the Ferro-Tom Cawley funk excursion Deals with the Devil was a highlight. Hawksley took every guitar solo well, always expressive rather than attention-craving. Bassist Simon Little was just on the money all evening.
All band members with the exception of Tim Weller were on duty as backing vocalists, but a constant unfailing delight of this live gig was the understanding, the telepathy, and the musical rapport between Nina Ferro and her backing singer, Ulster-bornNiamh McNally. The two have worked together as fellow backing vocalists for Gilbert O Sullivan. They evidently get on well, and their vocal blending and support of each other, the instinctive matching of phrasing, timbre, was - I don't think it's overstating the case here - unsurpassable perfection. The McNally/Ferro duetting is a very good reason - but in reality just one reason among many- to get to this uplifting show on its second and only remaining night.