‘I’ll try not to cry,” said Laura Mvula, as she introduced Father, Father, her one solo song of the evening, during what was clearly an emotional reunion. Over a decade ago, when she was still a teenager, her aunt Carol Pemberton, director of the remarkable Birmingham a capella group Black Voices, helped change her life. “I couldn’t sing as a youth,” said Mvula, “but my aunt saw something in me. One day she invited me to rehearsals. I sounded terrible, but she pushed me. I started writing arrangements and now here I am today with albums and all that crap. But these women are the ultimate rock stars.”
This was the first time that Mvula had sung with Black Voices since she became a Mobo-winning, Mercury-nominated singer-songwriter, celebrated for her freewheeling fusion of R&B, jazz and classical influences. Watching her perform as part of a group that included both her aunt and her first cousin, Shereece Storrod, was a reminder of her family’s powerful musical roots. It was also something of a coup for Kings Place.
This concert united two festivals. It was part of the Venus Unwrapped season celebrating women composers, and also the first night of the 10th London A Cappella festival. “The brief,” said Storrod, “was to celebrate international women, and many of the songs in our repertoire are about human rights and women’s rights. And we wanted to celebrate fantastic women who have composed and arranged – Laura included.”
The resulting set list combined Mvula’s songs – all taken from her debut album Sing to the Moon, released six years ago – with American soul and gospel classics and a few surprises. It was dominated by the music of Nina Simone, who had shared the stage with Black Voices towards the end of her career. She was also an influence on Mvula, who took the lead at the start of the first song, an arrangement of Simone’s striking Four Women (“My skin is black, my arms are long”).
Then she eased back to join the singers around her as others stepped forward or added exquisite, chilling harmonies. Mvula and the members of Black Voices were dressed in long dark gowns, accentuating their sense of unity. Later Simone songs included Plain Gold Ring, on which Mvula played piano and shared pained vocals with Beverley Robinson, and a glorious, gutsy treatment of See Line Woman, in which Mvula strutted across the stage, backed by hand-claps and percussion.
Elsewhere, there were songs made famous by Sweet Honey in the Rock, the political and eclectic American women’s vocal group that started in the 70s and had a powerful influence on the early Black Voices. Then there was a cheerful, rhythmic burst of a cappella reggae with Althea & Donna’s Uptown Top Ranking and an unexpected switch to French for a reworking of Edith Piaf’s emotional L’Hymne à l’amour.
Mvula backed her own compositions on piano, including the adventurous, spiralling She and a soulful Sing to the Moon, now reworked with slick, thoughtful vocal harmony backing. She ended with another Nina Simone song, Be My Husband, and a parting comment on the collaboration: “Long may it continue.” Indeed: a reunion this impressive deserves more than just one concert.
• The London A Cappella festival continues until 26 January.
