FRAZEY Ford has been the sultry lead singer of Vancouver trio The Be Good Tanyas for the past ten years and Obadiah is her debut solo release.
In her words, its 13 tracks of love, loss and life have “come out of the healing that I’ve done; the knowledge that in all grief there is joy, and in all joy there is grief”. You would rightly deduce she’s not a barrel of laughs, but “moved by motherhood, earth and land”, she brings summer warmth and even a little whistling to songs of hardship, exaltation and recovery.
The Be Good Tanyas’ fireside folk template has not been discarded – Trish Klein’s guitar is still present and velvety – but Ford’s swelling love of Memphis soul music is newly writ large. If Cat Power’s The Greatest was indeed the greatest soul revival of this decade, Obadiah could be its sleepier kitten sister.
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