Closing song from a 13-song set in 2009, the then-61 year old Grace Jones delivers an astonishing version of the title track of her (still most recent) album, Hurricane.
Grace Jones is curating this year's Meltdown Festival, postponed from 2020. Too much to hope for a new album, perhaps, but her energy and presence is inspiring. And that's before you even consider her incredible musical back catalogue.
After a show-stealing performance for the Queen's Golden Jubilee back in 2012, Grace proved that she was still handy with a hula hoop in 2017 and 2019. Here's hoping for a comeback special for the Platinum Jubilee, which has been conveniently scheduled to coincide with the Meltdown Festival...
Fantastic footage Khayem. Brings back memories when I saw her perform Hurricane live in 2009. Just 90 minutes of an incredible artist.
ReplyDeleteI can only begin to imagine how incredible that must have been, Walter. I'll bet it feels like only yesterday.
DeleteI'm sort of annoyed she hit Russell Harty as i think people just see her as this mad woman. So much more to her than that. The songs i keep coming back to are the Joy Division and Gary Numan covers...they are just brilliant and whoever was inspired to cover them needs a big pat on the back..
ReplyDeleteThat clip has been repeated so often on TV, that I can no longer trust my memory of whether I actually saw it when it was originally broadcast. I probably did, as my parents usually had the weekday early evening chat show, regardless of who was presenting it! Personally, I thought Russell Harty was smug and condescending and it was excruciating when a guest I was interested in appeared. In that context, fair play to Grace Jones for not taking his shit. But you're right that it typecast Grace with certain segments of the UK public.
DeleteI think the first song I heard was Living My Life, on a freebie Record Mirror cassette in the early 80s, so it was a while before I discovered Warm Leatherette and Nightclubbing (and longer still before I dove back into her previous disco incarnation). Hurricane - and it's dub companion - is a just another chapter in the story of an incredible artist. And that's without even mentioning her achievements and influence outside of music.
And yes, her choice of cover versions is frequently inspired. I have a soft spot for her take on Johnny Cash's Ring Of Fire.
I've got a 1993 CD single in a box somewhere with Grace's versions of Sheep On Drugs and Consolidated. Might be time to unearth them...
I am there with you Mike! The hat trick would have been the aborted cover of Houses In Motion she was set to record with A Certain Ratio backing her...
ReplyDeleteHurricane came out of nowhere and just hit you head on as a statement that Ms. Jones was still very much capable and up for it. That it was 13 yrs ago kind of blows my mind because that album still gets played a lot here. There's a remix of the single William's Blood by Belgian artists Aeroplane that just transports me.
Wow, Grace taking on Talking Heads with A Certain Ratio sounds like a missed opportunity. I wish we could have heard that.
DeleteHurricane is a brilliant album, in both its original and dub versions, and the various single remixes were also up to the task. Aeroplane's remix of Williams' Blood is suitably epic. I'm also a big fan of Greg Wilson's remix of the same, Dan Donovan's remix of Corporate Cannibal and Dave's Weapon Bass Edit of This Is by Deejay Jones.
That's got me thinking. In addition to a selection of Grace's cover versions, a 12"/remix selection may be beckoning...