Standing Still
Ruby Amanfu
(Thirty Tigers)
Four stars
Ghanaian-American singer Ruby Amanfu has just about done it all in her bid to become an established performer.
She has won singing competitions, appeared on talent shows and even became the youngest member of Nashville Symphony Chorus at the age of 15.
After a modicum of success with her 2003 debut album Smoke & Honey, and becoming one half of alt-country duo Sam and Ruby (check out their criminally neglected 2009 album The Here and The Now), Amanfu was seemingly resigned to a life under the not-so-bright lights as a back-up singer for hire.
However, her vocal chops, ranging from a heart-rending vibrato to a sensual wisp, could not be confined to the rear of the stage.
Things started to change after she toured with Jack White and performed in New York as part of a Bob Dylan tribute show. Her spectral take on His Bobness's Not Dark Yet, from his 1997 release Time Out of Mind, impressed the album's engineer Mark Howard so much that he immediately signed up to produce her.
That song is at the heart of Amanfu's sublime new covers album, the Pledge Music-funded Standing Still.
Howard provides Amanfu with the same sonic backdrop that he – alongside producer Dan Lanois – created for Time Out of Mind.
The sound is cavernous, full of reverb, washed keyboard lines and guitars that splinter like crystal. In the middle of it all is Amanfu, who uses a large range of vocal styles to reinterpret deep cuts from an eclectic and surprising range of artists.
For Irma Thomas's 1964 Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand), Amanfu strips away its Motown-ish bounce for a more sombre take. While she stays true to the main vocal melody, the difference lies in what words are accentuated.
Amanfu’s labouring over the chorus, particularly the word “understand”, gives her version an aged feel. Where Thomas was coming to grips with heartache, Amanfu sounds older and wiser as she looks back on a romantic experience with an almost rueful smile.
The same understated tone is offered on country artist Jimmie Dale Gilmore's 1993 track Where You Going, in which the twang has been jettisoned for a steady blues shuffle. Amanfu also dials it back, replacing Gilmore's keen tenor for something deeper and sadder. The most surprising remake is Kanye West's Street Lights. Lifted from his 2008 electro-inspired 808's & Heartbreak, Amanfu manages to salvage the track's inherent melody among its heady brew of bleeps and vocoder effects to reimagine it as an ornate folk song. It is the best kind of cover – one that thrills with its sheer reinvention, yet at the same time pays homage to the original artist's vision.
With this collection, Amanfu has cemented herself as a first-class vocalist. Here's hoping Standing Still sets her on a course towards bigger things.
sasaeed@thenational.ae
