Born on November 24: Carmel, the English singer who combines jazz, gospel and pop
With a first name as colorful as hers, the English singer, now 66, had no need to bother with McCourt, the ultimately superfluous remainder of her official surname.
In the early 80s, England was experiencing the last throes of punk and was falling under the spell of the extravagant New Romantics. Initially accompanied by two solid lads (Jim Paris on double bass and his cousin Gerry Darby on percussion), the trio put everything on Carmel's incredible voice. Although it only had six tracks, their first eponymous mini-album on the Red Flame label in 1982 revealed a unique personality and some gaunt but poignant songs like "Track Of My Tears" or "Storm". Carmel attended several Catholic schools during her childhood and adolescence. With her voice timbre sometimes close to Billie Holiday, we can easily imagine her in a good place in the school choir. When we hear her, we imagine her as black as ebony but she was born in Lincolnshire and has the milky complexion of her compatriots.
Her first attempt is only a trial run. From 1984 and "The Drum Is Everything", Carmel strives to flesh out her orchestrations while keeping jazz and gospel in focus. Lush choirs and brass on "More, More, More", acidulous organ on "Bad Day", a long almost voodoo introspection with "The Prayer" and in counterpoint a escapade among the peripatetics with "Rue St Denis" continue to draw a fascinating but uncompromising path. The consecration will come a year later with "The Falling" and this "I'm Not Afraid Of You" which still causes the same shivers almost 40 years later. "Sally", her greatest popular success, also appears on the same album. In 1987, on "Everybody's Got A Little Soul", she continues to explore the meanders of an increasingly luxuriant jazz.
"J'oublierai ton nom" was indeed written by Jean-Jacques Goldman and Michael Jones for Johnny Hallyday's album "Gang", but we can't help to consider this duet with Carmel as an incongruity in the career of the English singer. In 2020, her homage "Strictly Piaf" is worth more for English versions like "Running" than for questionable covers of classics like "Mon légionnaire" with the exception of an inevitable "La vie en rose" which is beautifully unrecognizable. In 2022, with "Wild Country", still looking for new sounds, Carmel even escapes for a few moments to the Bollywood side and proves above all that she still has a hell of a voice, certainly more fragile but still as moving as on "Warm & Tender Love" for example...
(MH with AK - Photo: © Etienne Tordoir)
Photo: Carmel with Jim Paris and Gerry Darby behind the scenes of an RTBf TV show in Brussels (Belgium) in October 1986