George HaffendenEighties soul icon Alexander O’Neal returned to the Jazz Café for 4 nights of his classic hits
A few decades go Alexander O’Neal was selling out night after night at the Hammersmith Odeon, and was perhaps the UK’s second favourite soul singer of the eighties after Luther Vandross. Now, he’s playing the much smaller Jazz Café to smaller, but no less dedicated, groups of fans.
You might be thinking, where did it go wrong? But that would be unfair, and actually Alexander looks pretty well these days. He’s clean of drugs and has carved out a decent touring career in the UK, most recently one of the performers on the Giants of Soul UK tour. And on the soul scene, he remains one of the most beloved singers/performers of his generation.
Testament to that is his annual 3 or 4 day residencies at London’s Jazz Café, an intimate venue that allows us to get close to our musical heroes in a way few other places do. This time however, COVID struck his original run of dates in January 2022 and thanks to the venue’s packed schedule (and presumably Alexander’s, he has also been doing some dates in the US) it was nearly a year later until it could be rescheduled.
I think it’s fair to say that the years haven’t been kind on Alexander’s voice. He’s not yet reached the sad vocal demise of Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, but his voice lacks the oomph it once had. What was once a powerful roar is now somewhat diminished, and during the faster numbers he seemed to lose his way, struggling catching his breath. And there’s no shame in that, he’s an older man now, he’s battled a very public drug addiction and is a bit frail on his feet. But he doesn’t hide behind auto-tune nor does he lip sync, unlike some others. And no one in the crowd seemed to give a toss anyway. It was the songs they came to hear, and no doubt in part to pay tribute to this musical giant.
In part he’s helped by the quality of his catalogue – the set is almost entirely made up of selections from his first two albums, which even today sound incredible – and the ferocity with which the band attack the material. The band its no small affair either: 3 backing vocalists, guitarist, bassist/keyboardist, two further keyboardists, drummer and percussionist. It’s a small miracle they fit on the stage. But they did an excellent job re-creating Alexander’s hits, sounding not that far off the original versions. (Fun fact: the guitarist, Angelo Starr, is Edwin’s brother. He’s also a phenomenal vocalist).
The music is a very polished affair, but we’re only treated to an hour’s set tonight, presumably that’s as much as Alexander can manage these days. But by and large all the hits are covered, and they sound pretty good.
Alexander opens with a personal favourite, ‘(What Can I Say) To Make You Love Me’, and while it gets the capacity crowd going it seems to sap a fair bit of energy from the big man. But the pace didn’t slow, as the band roared into ‘What’s Missing’ from his debut album.
What you’d largely expect to hear from Alexander, we did: the band slowed the pace on ‘Sunshine’ giving Alexander time to catch his breath, and the intro to ‘If You Were Here Tonight’ was greeted with a loud holler from the crowd. And actually, on the slower numbers Alexander sounded much better. He even found room to slot in a cover of Louis Armstrong’s ‘What A Wonderful World’, his Mother’s favourite song. As impressions of Satchmo go, his was pretty spot on.
With it the week before Christmas and most people in party mode, the band ramped up the tempo again with 4 big numbers: ‘The Lovers’, ‘Saturday Love’, ‘Criticise’ then a finale of ‘Fake’, which seemed to go on for a good 9-10 minutes. Again, the band were superb, sounding as close to the original records as you could probably get. And by this point, even if Alexander started to flag, it hardily mattered given the crowd sang almost all the lyrics anyway.
With that, and no encore, it was time to leave. Slightly disappointing there was no ‘Hearsay’ or ‘Never Knew Love Like This’ (especially considering he’d duetted with one of his backing singers on ‘Saturday Love’). Was it the greatest performance I’d seen in 2022? No, but it was still thoroughly enjoyable. Four decades later, Alexander O’Neal can still command an audience and the warmth towards him was a reminder of how great his musical legacy is. He might not have any new music out, but his greatest hits still endure. A true soul survivor.