Sharon Robinson
Album: Caffeine
Label: Floating World
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.sharonrobinsonmusic.com

Although probably best-known as Leonard Cohen's long-time collaborator, as co-writer, producer and back-up vocalist, Robinson is also an artist in her own right, both as writer and performer. As a songwriter, she won a Grammy back in 1985 for New Attitude, sung by Patti LaBelle on the Beverley Hills Cop soundtrack, and has written for and with or had her work covered by such names as Brenda Russell, Diana Ross, Roberta Flack, the Temptations, Aaron Neville and Randy Crawford. She released her solo debut, Everybody Knows, back in 2008 and this follow-up has been much anticipated.

As you'll gather from the artists who've recorded her work, she's very much in the soul vein, something that also characterises her warm vocals and smooth, sometimes sensual, delivery, although, as evident from album opener The Harder You Look For Love and the title track, this is also filtered through the blues, the former calling to mind the mellower moments of Bonnie Raitt.

Working with piano, bass, guitar and drums, with the occasional dash of strings and, on the moody Safe, some mournful trumpet, this is a definite late night/early hours listen, Robinson's voice honeyed and smoky, the numbers either slow or mid-tempo affairs generally about matters of the heart (as titles like Strong For Me, The Storm In Your Eyes and A Fragile Love would suggest), though there's also strong social commentary and spiritual and eco sentiments permeating the likes of Safe and Along For The Ride.

There is, naturally, a Robinson-Cohen collaboration, here in the form of Lucky, a lyrically upbeat country and gospel inflected number with a reggae feel to its rhythm that would have been perfectly at home on a classic Bob Marley album. However, good though it is, Robinson is much more than a co-write credit in the Cohen canon, and hopefully this album and her debut solo European tour will bring the overdue wider appreciation and audience she deserves.

Mike Davies