Beverley Knight - Soul Covers, Volume 1 (1998-2007)

Here's something that I'm especially happy to post. I'd never even heard of British soul singer Beverley Knight until a weeks ago (writing this in May 2022). I randomly came across a YouTube video of her singing "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," and I was extremely impressed. I could immediately tell she has one of those rare outstanding voices, the kind that could go toe to toe with Aretha Franklin or Janis Joplin.

So I looked more into her music career. It turns out she's had a fairly successful career in Britain, starting in 1995, where she's had a handful of Top 40 hits, though no huge smashes. She's even received a knighthood from the queen for her contributions to music. However, she hasn't made the charts anywhere else, and since I'm American, I'd missed her completely. In addition to her music career, she's had a lot of lead roles with singing theater parts. You can read more about her career here at her Wikipedia entry (which, by the way, says she's "widely labelled as one of Britain's greatest soul singers"):

Beverley Knight - Wikipedia

She could go far just on her voice, but it turns out she's a songwriter too, and has written or co-written most of the songs on her albums. I have issues with most R&B music from the 1980s on for a variety of reasons. To her credit, she avoids many problems with that music, such as bad production. She also doesn't oversing with vocal gymnastics that show off one's skills but don't actually serve the song (a continuing trend I blame on the huge success Whitney Houston had with it). That said, I'm more interested in her cover versions of classic songs, because it's a very, very high bar to come up with material as good as the classics.

So I went searching, mainly through YouTube, and found that she's performed enough cover versions for four volumes in this series. I deliberately didn't include any of the performances from her studio albums. However, I did find live versions of some songs from those albums, and I included those. I also included a couple of covers that were only released as B-sides, and well as some "stray tracks," like songs from various artists collections.

ON the other albums in this series, the vast majority of the songs are unreleased versions, usually from in-person radio show appearances or concerts. But this volume is unusual in that only five of the performances are unreleased. The sound quality of those is high, just as good as the released stuff.

One thing I like about her is that she has great taste in music, judging by her covers choices. Here's a list of the original artists for the songs here:

01 Do Right Woman, Do Right Man - Aretha Franklin
02 Think [About It] - Lyn Collins
03 Hardtimes - Baby Huey
04 Feelin' Good - Nina Simone
05 Love’s in Need of Love Today - Stevie Wonder
06 Rock DJ - Robbie Williams
07 Is This Love - Bob Marley
08 Chain of Fools - Aretha Franklin
09 Where in the World - Jools Holland
10 Angels - Robbie Williams
11 Piece of My Heart - Janis Joplin
12 Sweet Thing - Rufus with Chaka Khan
13 Endless Love - Lionel Richie
14 Time Is on My Side - Irma Thomas / Rolling Stones

And here's the typical song list:

01 Do Right Woman, Do Right Man (Beverley Knight)
02 Think [About It] (Beverley Knight)
03 Hardtimes (Courtney Pine with Beverley Knight)
04 Feelin' Good (Beverley Knight)
05 Love’s in Need of Love Today (Beverley Knight)
06 Rock DJ (Beverley Knight)
07 Is This Love (Beverley Knight & Jeff Beck)
08 Chain of Fools (Joe Cocker & Beverley Knight)
09 Where in the World (Jools Holland & Beverley Knight)
10 Angels (Beverley Knight)
11 Piece of My Heart (Beverley Knight)
12 Sweet Thing (Beverley Knight)
13 Endless Love (Lionel Richie & Beverley Knight)
14 Time Is on My Side [Nashville Acoustic Version] (Beverley Knight)

This album is 52 minutes long.

https://www.upload.ee/files/15832871/BeverlyKn_1998-2007_SoulCovrsVolume1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of her dates to 2005. The background was plain white and didn't look good to me, so I added in a different background.