Sting & Shaggy
Roundhouse, London
Two singers take to the stage, microphone stands in parallel. One is unmistakably a pop star – an outsize presence in a white hat, sunglasses and a white shirt so voluminous that it may have started life as a dress.
The other is lean, black-clad, sober as a session man. If they went clubbing, you might assume the guy in black was the bodyguard. In fact, he’s the bigger star of the two.
Sting and Shaggy enjoy confounding expectations. It was a surprise that they teamed up at all. It was a surprise that they called their album 44/876, as if hell-bent on making it hard to remember (unless you know your international phone codes).
For their first UK tour they seem to have struck a deal: Shaggy, a youthful 50, can hog the limelight as long as Sting, an improbable 67, supplies more than half the music
It was a surprise that the music, genial reggae-pop, was hard to remember too. It was a surprise when they won Best Reggae Album at the Grammys. And it’s a surprise that the partnership has lasted a year.
For their first UK tour they seem to have struck a deal: Shaggy, a youthful 50, can hog the limelight as long as Sting, an improbable 67, supplies more than half the music.
They rattle through 32 songs – nine co-writes, seven apiece from their solo careers, one borrowed from Bob Marley and eight by The Police. All of which adds up to a decent balance between fairness and commercial realism.
The division of labour doesn’t always go smoothly. When Shaggy sings, his playful rumble rather dominates Sting’s polished bird-call
The first hour is only fitfully satisfying. All the highlights come from the early chapters of Sting’s songbook: a sunny Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, a rousing Message In A Bottle and a lovable Englishman In New York – which, when Shaggy takes over, turns into Jamaican In New York, with the ‘walking cane’ in the lyric replaced by a ‘big spliff’.
Now that’s what I call a joint effort.
The tunes from 44/876, even with some well-drilled musicians on hand, remain less than memorable. And the division of labour doesn’t always go smoothly. When Shaggy sings, his playful rumble rather dominates Sting’s polished bird-call.
When he shuts up, he doesn’t have enough to do, and ends up ambling about, urging the fans to wave their arms.
In the home straight, though, everything falls into place. The new material and the jazz-pop subtleties of Sting’s solo work make way for the post-punk punch of The Police, which pleases the crowd.
So Lonely gets the joint jumping, Walking On The Moon is just made for Shaggy’s boyish sense of fun, and Every Breath You Take is still serenely sinister after all these years.
Sting’s ode to a prostitute, Roxanne, makes a strange bedfellow for Shaggy’s hymn to his own prowess, Boombastic, but both are sure-fire singalongs. By the end, 3,000 people are having a ball, and it feels as if we’ll see more of these odd couples.
Coming soon: Lulu and Lizzo.
Charlie Hunter & Lucy Woodward Music! Music! Music! Out now
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On Rod Stewart’s summer tour there is something missing: Lucy Woodward, one of his favourite backing vocalists. Woodward, who also sings with Holly Palmer’s band The Goods, has star quality.
One minute she’s radiating joie de vivre, the next she’s expressing deep pain – and hinting that that could be fun too.
For her fifth album, Woodward teams up with the jazz-funk guitarist Charlie Hunter, who’s worked with Norah Jones among many others. Jazz-funk went out of fashion about 30 years ago, but if anyone can change that, it’s these two.
For her fifth album, Lucy Woodward teams up with the jazz-funk guitarist Charlie Hunter, who’s worked with Norah Jones among many others
Hunter performs like a man with six hands, playing rhythm, lead and bass at the same time, while also knowing how to use silence.
Woodward is half-English, half-American and wholly fearless. Here she tackles not one Nina Simone song but three, including the classic Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.
She mixes blues legends (Bessie Smith, Blind Willie Johnson) with modern mavericks such as Lucinda Williams and Terence Trent D’Arby, whose 1987 hit Wishing Well comes up smouldering.
The whole album glows with feeling. If it leaves you itching to see Woodward and Hunter in the flesh, you can – at Ronnie Scott’s in London on June 16.
THIS WEEK’S CD RELEASES
By Adam Woods
Hayden Thorpe Diviner Out now
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Your reaction to Thorpe’s first solo album after Wild Beasts split will depend on your attitude to his louche, fruity falsetto, because Diviner keeps it exposed, framed either by skimpy, electronic pulses and piano, or, as on Earthly Needs or Love Crimes, sleek nocturnal rhythms. The spirit of Kate Bush hovers about and the atmosphere is a thick and heady one
Guy Chambers Go Gentle Into The Light Out now
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This album from Robbie Williams’s songwriting partner Guy Chambers consists of Chambers’s solo piano interpretations of 11 of their hits. It is a sedate, serious tinkle aimed at keen fans. Angels, The Road To Mandalay and others sound like you would imagine, though the cloudy, ambivalent Feel scrubs up the best
Carly Rae Jepsen Dedicated Out now
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Jepsen may never match the success of 2011 smash Call Me Maybe, even as her music becomes more impressive. Cult favourite Emotion deepened and enriched her soul-searching, relentlessly likeable dance-pop, and Dedicated continues in that direction, picking up a classy, euphoric disco influence. As with Swede Robyn, it’s the strength of feeling that makes the difference
Richard Hawley Further Out Fri
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Hawley always had plenty of musical tricks at his disposal – a heavy guitar crunch, a pastoral, mysterious folk side, a knack for keening, antique ballads. Having sometimes hopped between them, he manages to synthesise them all on the melodic yet vigorous Further. This is a fine album – his first in four years – and ought to please fans of all his various guises.