When her first solo album appeared in 1999, soulstress Angie Stone was already 33, and more strapping than your average microbe-sized R&B singer. A little earlier in the 1990s she would have been overlooked, but she emerged during one of soul's back-to-basics spring-cleans, when voices are esteemed above image, something that also benefits Macy Gray and Kelis. Now she is comfortably ensconced as the latest heiress apparent to Aretha Franklin (her debut, Black Diamond, was Billboard magazine's album of the year; last year's follow-up, Mahogany Soul, was also acclaimed), and establishing herself as one of traditional soul's forces of nature.
Traditional, in every sense, is no exaggeration. Before diving into the showpiece ballad Bottles and Cans, she delivers a polite rant about keeping things "simple and raw and personal" because she's no Barbie-doll diva "who changes their clothes every five minutes". Sure enough, her long coat-dress stays pointedly on throughout. It lends a demure oomph to her assertion on Bottles and Cans that "every girl wants to one day be a wife".
She's not a surrendered wife, judging by the tough love dispensed on juddering versions of Mad Issues and Pissed Off. Furthermore, don't even think about borrowing money from her unless you can pay it back, she storms on the old-school funkathon 20 Dollars. Stone's themes are as old as soul music itself, and this sold-out show seems to have been transported directly from 1952. The sweatily funky band, trilling backing singers and Stone's in-your-faceness are of another century, compared with the impersonal money-making operation that comprises the typical R&B gig.
Her warm inclusiveness encourages audience participation; when she invites six men up to sing the gospel-flavoured Brotha with her, she is swamped by applicants, who cuddle up to her like puppies. The crowd even complies with the dull gimmick of competing to sing the loudest. They are putty in Stone's well-manicured hands, and Stone is the beaming auntie who, as aunties will, bursts into song in a booming alto that reaches into every cave-like recess.
It's certainly raw and personal, but what would happen if Stone weren't so swept away by nostalgia for soul's golden age? What if she were slightly less worthy, and slightly more frivolous? Just a thought.
