Vanessa Williams
The Real Thing

Never before would I have thought of becoming interested in a singer thanks to a TV drama, yet, for the series never say never, here I am talking about Vanessa Williams, known as an actress, precisely in the role of the eccentric Renee Perry in Desperate Housewives. Intrigued by her adventures in Wisteria Lane, curiosity took over: an excellent opportunity to deepen my knowledge of black music, even before simple curiosity and the thrill of the gamble. Skeptical about her new jack swing beginnings, I dive into "The Real Thing" from 2009, curious about the Brazilian influences present in the album. Vanessa certainly gives the idea of an elegant and refined woman as well as objectively beautiful, and this album confirms this feeling: little R'n'B, plenty of bossanova with a slight jazzy touch for a true concentrate of class and grace.

For Vanessa Williams, I can easily use the term "diva," and you know it's an accolade I don't bestow lightly, but she has proven through actions (read music) that she deserves it. "The Real Thing" is an album both simple and sophisticated at the same time, which fully enhances her voice, as sensual as her splendid blue eyes, with practically unplugged soundscapes and silky, enveloping, relaxing atmospheres like a warm shower after a long day. Acoustic guitar, piano, strings, and brass create a very fluid and homogeneous stylistic continuum, and Vanessa completes the work by showing style, balance, and a great voice, all the best aspects of glamour, purified of its more destructive components. No vulgarity, no exaggerated swooning, only lots of sensuality and a perfectly executed "exotic" turn; after all, Vanessa's subtle vocals perfectly match this type of sound, and the level of songwriting is considerably high. The most representative episodes are above all the opening and closing tracks, "Breathless" and "If There Were No Song", the first with its dreamy and twilight idyll, fluid, echoing, and suffused almost hauntingly, reminiscent a bit of Mariah Carey before her move to Burinia Lane, the second where the ghost of Joni Mitchell echoes, the melody at times seems to echo that of "The Arrangement," contaminating it with touches and fugues of samba, quick and incisive brass interventions that animate an expressionist painting of great charm, a very dynamic and changeable refined piano-ballad played on fascinating light-shadow contrasts, melancholic twilights, and sweet carefree evenings that harmoniously intertwine. In between these two polarities, the title track, a great classic signed by Stevie Wonder-Sergio Mendes is a reliable guarantee, adding a touch of liveliness to the slow rhythms of the album, also thanks to the feline grace of a simply masterful Vanessa Williams.

Elsewhere, the album lives on ballads, which never abandon the "candlelight and on tiptoe" approach to slide into the mawkishness of broken loves and cheap pseudofeminism, no drop in style, and a seemingly homogeneous whole, given that notable individualities emerge like "Hello Like Before", sweet and sustained by splendid orchestrations, with a slight touch of saudade, the delicate and suggestive colors of "October Sky", the beauty of a tropical landscape described in "Lazy Afternoon", characterized by splendid double bass and acoustic guitar work, a sensual folk-jazzy embrace, and the intensity of "I Fell In", the most melancholic and heartfelt ballad of the album, enriched by the discreet yet strongly characterizing presence of synthesizers, which add momentum and depth to a classical and emotional yet not trivial melody. "Loving You" is somewhat the wild card of the album, partly detaching from bossanova in favor of a highly sensual vintage swing, cheeky and vaporous, with piano and brass in great shape; the kind of song that Nina Hagen in her vintage period would have gladly covered.

So here I am, a little confused but mostly happy, delighted with how what started as a simple bet turned into sincere esteem and admiration "Wow, not bad Renee!" was my first thought as the notes of "The Real Thing" flowed for the first time in my head, easily overcoming any kind of resistance or preconception I might have had. A beautiful surprise, not just the perfect background for a gala evening but a beautiful album practically in its entirety, overflowing with class and elegance so different, so far from the R'n'B monstrosities all breasts, butts, and botox imported by mainstream Italian radios and televisions, absolutely incapable of promoting quality proposals on the commercial front. I have nothing left but to humbly apologize to Renee... oops, Vanessa, I feared I would find myself facing a pseudo-Beyoncé, and instead, I found this, a great album by a great and incredibly elegant performer, to be proven wrong in this manner is truly a pleasure.