Music |
Wild Belle
By
Published: Apr 02, 2013
Category:
Rock
I showed my wife a photo of Natalie Bergman, half of the brother-sister group Wild Belle.
She laughed.
Long blond hair. Good features. A kind of vacant beauty.
“I’ve see these crushes come, I’ve seen them go,” she said.
True. Too true. But as Berry Gordy used to say, “It’s what’s in the grooves that counts.” So I played “Keep You,” the song currently delighting Vogue Magazine and any number of Kool Kids, for my wife.
“I find that voice an intriguing blend of Corinne Bailey Rae and Billie Holliday,” I said.
“She sounds like every female singer who bores me on WFUV,” my wife said.
My wife drifted away. I did a little research on the origins of the reggae-drenched Wild Belle sound.
“I love Bob Marley,” Natalie Bergman told an interviewer. “He’s amazing.”
Okay, so she’s in no danger of splitting the atom.
Why do I champion this CD? Because I want something new to play when it’s 11 PM and I’m blitzed and I imagine I’m running on a beach in slow-mo toward a beautiful woman who just happens to be my wife. And these kids — languorous Natalie and her Jesus-bearded brother Elliot — have a sound that delivers this experience. More or less. [To buy the CD from Amazon, click here. For the MP3 download, click here.]
Consider what happens when you filter and process lyrics like this:
Same song, again and again/ You rob me twice and I keep coming back/ Tell me what the matter is, little man/ I’ve got a pretty face and I wear a nice dress/ Why can’t I keep you?
Then add Elliott Bergman’s honking sax over a Caribbean melody. You don’t get Bryan Ferry, but it’ll do.
Ditto:
And….
It turns out all the sex is in the sax. The sister’s out in front, but my wife’s right; Natalie Bergman is no advance on Amy Mann. The brother’s the better reason to pay attention. His electronics, his keyboard work and a sax so primal it makes Clarence Clemons sound effete — he’s the music maker.
A bauble? Probably. I prefer to think of Wild Belle as the soundtrack for a seasonal time capsule. Spring’s finally coming on. And here’s some modest fun.
