Annie Lennox feels nostalgic for jazz
Eurythmics singer Annie Lennox OBE is set to release her debut jazz album ‘Nostalgia’ on the iconic jazz label Blue Note Records.
Eurythmics singer Annie Lennox OBE is set to release her debut jazz album ‘Nostalgia’ on the iconic jazz label Blue Note Records.
She told the BBC, “I’ve never sung in this genre before and when you're an artist you tend to get labelled, you get categorised and put in a little box and people think this is who you are," she explains ahead of the launch of her new covers album.
I always like to push my boundaries and I think if I repeat what I've done over the years, I've never found that interesting. The challenge for me is to interpret because you can easily in a short space of time just sing a song and record it and there it is.”
Jazz fans will be keen to see which boundaries will get pushed as the album will include a collection of standards and classics including ‘Summertime’, ‘God Bless the Child’, ‘’Strange Fruit’, ‘I Put A Spell On You’ and ‘Georgia On My Mind’.
This will be Annie Lennox’s sixth solo album on the cusp of her 60th birthday. She believes the relevance and impact of these songs are as strong today as they were many decades ago. In a bold move she cover’s ‘Strange Fruit’, a powerful song notably recorded by jazz legend Billie Holiday. It refers to the lynching and hanging murder of African Americans who were left hanging from trees and street lamps.
‘Nostalgia’ is released in the UK on 27 October. Blue Note Records are currently celebrating their 75th anniversary.