Her stellar singing career may be on hold but that doesn’t stop Australian star Vanessa Amorosi from singing brilliantly in cameo appearances.
This week an Amorosi vocal titled Crazy surfaced in the SoundCloud account of writer and producer Robin Lynch, one of Sweden’s most successful songwriters and producers with whom Amorosi has worked before. In it she sounds at her powerful best with strong vocal control and a rich, mature tone.
American soul duo Gnarls Barkley recorded Crazy in 2006 and there have been covers released since.
Vanessa Amorosi’s cover of Aretha Franklin’s iconic Natural Woman
Lynch and fellow songwriter Niklas Olovson have worked as a team called MachoPsycho for more than a decade.
They collaborated with Amorosi co-writing and producing her 2009 album Hazardous.
Ikmultimedia.com lists Pink, Cher, Justin Timberlake, Backstreet Boys, Jessica Simpson, Esmee Denters, Keith Urban and Ilse DeLange as among other collaborations.
Lynch in his post describes Amorosi as “one of the greatest singers of our time”.Amorosi meanwhile has announced that she will appear in Australia in the Red Hot Summer Tour which features John Farnham and Daryl Braithwaite, to take place in March and April next year.
It will be her first appearance here since she gave a one-off performance with English musician Dave Stewart, half of the famed Eurythmics group, and Noiseworks frontman Jon Stevens in November 2016.
During that time in Australia, she said she expected to have a new album out the following year, but that album seems on hold now until 2019.
She did however indulge her passion for gospel soul in sessions with the Tennessee Mass Choir in 2016.
Amorosi was a pop star in her teens and delivered a memorable performance of Heroes Live Forever to billions at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.
After a period of relative quiet, she returned and released two more albums, Somewhere In The Real World followed by Hazardous, before slipping into relative obscurity living in Los Angeles.
Later she formed a close association with Stewart and was guest vocalist on Stewart’s album Lucky Numbers in 2013 – see below.
The following year she sung at the Hollywood Bowl at the 50th anniversary concert of The Beatles.
Published in The Australian newspaper, July 14 2018