Laney Murphy
is a force to be reckoned with! Her strong yet warm, fluid, bluesy
vocals encapsulate anybody in earshot. It’s her voice that commands
silence as only then can you delve even deeper into the poetic lyricism
and realism that she brings to light from her own circumstantial
observations.
It was at The Picket, Liverpool that I first met Laney, she was
playing a set for Acoustic Dream’s fund raising night, and her band had
cancelled so she had to play alone with her guitar. Her voice was so
stunningly beautiful and incomparable that she shushed the audience
like a gun-shot fired into the air!
Her frankness is such, that one can only envy her class. She says
what most people would only think, leaving her personality unrepressed,
open and genuinely down to earth. This lady takes nothing for granted
and gigs often, balancing her domestic life bringing up two children in
Liverpool, to working on her material, she has a catalogue of about 60
songs! I can picture her playing on Jools Holland in the not to
distant future. So keep in touch for regular up-dates on our lovely
Laney. (Click on Laney’s pic to visit her myspace page and discover The
Voice for yourself).
The track I’ve selected for recommendation is STREETS ARE GREY, as
it combines rootsy guitars, dark bass lines and ska with a hauntingly
seductive groove and top line melody that will not get out of your
head. Laney informed me that she was pleased I’d chosen this song as
it was about her uncle’s transition from a heroin abuser to drug
counsellor. A story deserving accolade is not one we hear of usually,
this story should be out there, and in songform and sang by Laney.
This is real stuff.