FEATURE:
Greatest Day
The Fabulous Beverley Knight at Fifty: An Ultimate Playlist
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I have written about…
PHOTO CREDIT: Simon Frederick/National Portrait Gallery
Beverley Knight before. I also think I have assembled a career-spanning playlist too. Because she is fifty on 22nd March, I wanted to celebrate with an ultimate playlist. This features her best-known hits, plus some deeper cuts. She is one of the all-time great singers, and a musician who has released some phenomenal albums (one of the best, 2002’s Who I Am, leaps to mind!). Before I get to a playlist of songs from the R&B icon, AllMusic are at hand with a detailed biography of the stunning and much-adored Beverley Knight:
“Neo-soul diva Beverley Knight channeled the sound and spirit of classic R&B to emerge as one of Britain's biggest new pop stars of the '90s. Born Beverley Anne Smith to Jamaican parents in Wolverhampton, England, on March 22, 1973, she grew up in a strict Pentecostal environment and sang in her church choir throughout adolescence. Raised on a steady diet of gospel music and forbidden to listen to its secular counterpart, she nevertheless discovered crossover legends Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin and began writing her own original songs at age 13. By 17, Knight was headlining local nightclubs and singing advertising jingles for a local radio station; the exposure earned her a recording contract offer, but she declined, instead studying religious theory and philosophy at the University of Wolverhampton. In late 1994, Knight signed to the independent label Dome, teaming with London production trio 2BE3 to cut her debut LP, The B-Funk. A critical smash that earned plaudits for its adherence to old-school soul production and sensibilities, the album won a number of media and industry awards but failed to translate into commercial success.
The single "Flavour of the Old School" nevertheless cracked the U.K. Top 40 following a 1996 re-release, but soon after, Knight split with Dome in the wake of creative tensions and signed with EMI's Parlophone subsidiary to release Prodigal Sista in the summer of 1998. The album generated five Top 40 smashes, chief among them "Greatest Day" and "Make It Back '99," a collaboration with U.S. rapper Redman, and was well on its way to winning Best Album honors at the annual MOBO (Music of Black Origin) Awards. The chart smashes "Get Up!" and "Shoulda Woulda Coulda" anticipated the spring 2002 release of Knight's third LP, Who I Am, a Top Ten hit and Mercury Music Prize nominee celebrated as the singer's most deeply personal effort up to that point. She next teamed with pop producers Guy Chambers and Peter-John Vettese for 2004's Affirmation, which boasted a polished, mainstream sound that alienated a significant segment of her urban audience. The record still became Knight's biggest-selling release yet, buoyed by the hits "Not Too Late for Love" and "Keep This Fire Burning," while the singer also picked up a lifetime achievement award that year at the Urban Music Awards in London. Affirmation was profoundly inspired by her relationship with platonic soulmate Tyrone Jamison, host of the BBC program The Gay Show, who lost his battle with HIV in 2003.
Knight would become an ambassador for charities including the Stop AIDS Campaign, Christian Aid, and the Terrence Higgins Trust, and in 2006 was honored as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her creative and charitable contributions. That same year, Knight co-starred in the BBC1 music showcase Just the Two of Us and issued the retrospective Voice: The Best of Beverley Knight, enjoying a Top 20 hit with her cover of Erma Franklin's soul classic "Piece of My Heart." Beverley Knight's fifth album, Music City Soul, then appeared in 2007, peaking inside the Top 10 of the U.K. Album Charts. Featuring the single "No Man's Land," the record once again won Knight critical acclaim. Two more albums -- 100% (2009) and Soul UK (2011) -- followed before Beverley Knight performed at the 2012 Summer Paralympics opening ceremony in London, which coincided with the release of The Collection 1995-2007. After a lengthy stint in the theater -- first playing the role of Rachel Marron in a stage adaptation of The Bodyguard, and then the starring role in the musical Memphis in the West End -- Knight returned to the studio for her 2016 album Soulsville. Recorded in the famous Royal Studios in Memphis, the album also featured appearances from Jamie Cullum, Jools Holland, and Memphis' own Sam Moore of Sam & Dave fame. Celebrating her 25-year career thus far, 2019 saw Knight release BK25, an orchestral re-imagining of many of her classic tracks, recorded with the Leo Green Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall”.
Looking ahead to the fiftieth birthday of one of the music world’s best talents, I have compiled a playlist featuring her hits and deeper cuts that are well worth a listen. Lots of love to Beverley Knight ahead of her birthday. Her last non-live album was 2016’s Soulsville. Let’s hope that we hear more from her, as her music is incredible, powerful, and hugely memorable! There is nobody in the music industry…
QUITE like her.