Malaya Blue

Malaya Blue has a voice that drips with coffee and treacle – spiced with cayenne.

She has a sensual and intense way of putting a song over and the songs themselves are perfect for her delivery. This is Southern Blues at its finest, drenched in the heat and humidity of the late night and soulful to the extremes.

Take a number like ‘Forgiveness’; the guitar line draws angst out (courtesy of Andy Littlewood) but the pleading and sorrow in her voice carries the song far further. To follow up with a power soul number such as ‘Bitter Moon’ is almost shocking as she blasts out a vocal full of anger and regret.
‘Lady Sings The Blues’ gives her the opportunity to just sing and you find that she has a fine voice as well as one full of emotion. ‘Guilty’ has a jazzy swing to it and a dark edge to her vocal and ‘How Did You Do This’ takes you right back to the days of Aretha and Etta James with the depth of her performance and ‘Missing You’ is a sublime piece of soul.

The images her singing puts up are of small clubs and slow dancing, the vocalist picked out by a lone spot as a smoky haze envelops her.

She deserves a wider audience simply because she has a real talent to put over a song that gets into your soul and in a world of talentless ‘Divas’ she stands out like a beacon.