Rebecca Downes is one of the most extraordinary artists in the country, a blues voice and soul that can win your heart with one breath or phrase.
Here she takes on fellow Midlanders Slade’s gang singalong anthem from 1973 ‘Mama Weer All Crazy Now’ and turns it into something to either make you crumble into a sobbing heap or burst with the luminous power of its beauty.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAfq2pWzWLA&w=560&h=315]Stripping things apart and slowing it right down, Downes and musical partner in crime Steve Birkett have literally distilled the song from a drunken rabble rouser into a much darker and elegant piece that that will haunt your dreams.
Birkett’s brief but powerful guitar solo is the perfect emotional crescendo that matches the flawless and quietly earth-shattering vocal delivery.
Without doubt one of the very best things to come out of these troubled times, it catches the zeitgeist exactly and will rock your world. This is stunning.
Review by Paul Monkhouse for MPM