REVIEW Sing the Truth at the Barbican

Friday July 08, 2011

From the Guardian

Sing the Truth – review
By John Fordham

From the opening harmonies of Tina Turner’s Bold Soul Sister to a carousing finale including Miriam Makeba’s African hit Pata Pata, this two-hour tribute to 50 years of female musical fearlessness never came off the boil. Singing stars Dianne Reeves, Angélique Kidjo and Lizz Wright were back at the scene of their triumphant Nina Simone celebration in 2009 – this time showcasing pioneering women singer/songwriters from Makeba, Mahalia Jackson and Ani DiFranco to Carole King, Abbey Lincoln and Nona Hendryx.

With Wright visibly shaken by her own emotions on Mahalia Jackson’s How I Got Over, and Kidjo racing through the crowd dancing, it was a spectacular show that clearly exhausted, surprised and thrilled its participants as well as its audience. Though all three vocalists are individual stars, it was a collective enterprise from the off, as dependent on the unflagging engine of Terri Lyne Carrington’s funky drumming, as it was on Geri Allen’s quiet anchoring role at the piano.

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