This is she

>> Canadian soul singer Jully Black shares
her tribulations and her triumphs too

REVIVAL INSTINCTS: Jully Black

by GERARD DEE

Is Toronto-based singer Jully Black an R&B musician? “I’m an artist. I don’t even know if I could define what an R&B artist is,” she says. “There’ve been so many categories—are you urban, are you neo-soul, are you R&B? It’s very subjective. As a songwriter, my responsibility is just to write good songs.”

She’s done her job. Revival, the recently released follow-up to her well received 2005 debut, This Is Me, is an eclectic mix of songs that simultaneously shows off Black’s singing chops and writing skills. The album shimmers with retro grooves while staying true to the contemporary influences that Black has absorbed.

“This Is Me was almost leftovers, like half the record I rewrote and the other half was from my first deal, when I was with MCA. So since I had lived with so many of those songs for so many years, it was like a bit of a compilation in my spirit. Revival was organic right from zero. It was really working with other musicians, rather than beat-makers, you know, people who actually play the drums, play the keys, play the bass, live strings, live horns.”

The effort is evident throughout the album, and especially on Black’s feisty interpretation of the Etta James song “Seven Day Fool.” She and Keith Harris, the co-executive producer on the set who also happens to be the drummer for the Black Eyed Peas, wanted to do Etta right.

“Keith loves Etta James, and I love that woman too because she was quite the underdog,” explains Black. “If you listen to her songs, you think, man, she didn’t get the Diana Ross props. So I identify with her in that way. And a lot of people don’t know it’s an Etta James song. So the young generation is like, ‘Woo-hoo, brand new Jully Black,’ and the older generation is like, ‘Oh, you’re doing it like that?’ So now the parents come to the concert, they’re not just leaving [the kids at the show] and picking them up two hours later.” 

“Seven Day Fool” is the set’s lead single, but it’s another track, “Catch Me When I Fall,” that’s closest to Black’s heart. She wrote it in memory of one of her sisters.

“My sister died years ago, in 1990, but I only wrote that song about three or four years ago. I didn’t get a chance to sing at her funeral. I was supposed to sing ‘Amazing Grace,’ but I was young, I was scared. ‘Catch Me When I Fall’ came on her birthday, August 5. It’s more like a letter to her—it was like a live therapy session.”

These days, Black’s put the therapy behind her and is ready to enjoy life, a fact reflected in her new album’s exuberant title. “People will see that title and say, ‘Yeah, why not be revived, why not celebrate life?’ We often share our tribulations but don’t want to share our triumphs. I mean, the first song on This Is Me was ‘Hurt U Bad,’ it was, like, angry. And it’s not that I don’t still have my moments, but right now in my life, I choose to celebrate.”

With Justin Nozuka at le Savoy (metropolis)
on Saturday, Nov. 10, 9 p.m., $14