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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Ian Gittins

Lady Blackbird review – flamboyance and nuance from late-blossoming jazz-soul star

Could be a Fellini film … Lady Blackbird performing at the Palladium.
Could be a Fellini film … Lady Blackbird performing at the Palladium. Photograph: Sonja Horsman/the Guardian

Sometimes it takes a while to get to where you need to be. Los Angeles-based singer Marley Munroe has been around the block, having spent the early years of her career dabbling in alt-rock, R&B, Christian music, hotel covers bands and session singing. None of it got her very far.

She found her mojo in 2020 when a simultaneously stark yet sultry cover of Nina Simone’ 1963 civil rights lament Blackbird, released in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd, swivelled heads her way. She changed her stage name to Lady Blackbird and, since then, has become a skilled purveyor of nuanced, visceral jazz-soul.

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