Rebecca Ferguson: Lady Sings The Blues: A centenary celebration of the great Billie Holiday

Boisdale of Canary Wharf is a two-floor venue overlooking Cabot Square which comprises a restaurant, four private dining rooms, Oyster Bar & Grill with a terrace, whisky bar, Cuban Cigar Library & shop and live music venue.

The restaurant’s music programme comes with the seal of approval of no less than Jools Holland, Boisdale’s Patron of Music with a programme packed with the best in jazz, blues and soul.

Full music listings: http://tickets.boisdale.co.uk/

Still the best voice to have come out of a Simon Cowell talent contest, former X Factor finalist Rebecca has a rich, tender, soulful tone that oscillates between happiness and sadness. Tonight’s show will include That Ole Devil Called Love, Summertime, Lover Man, God Bless The Child and many other Billie Holiday classics.

What’s the most surprising thing you could imagine Rebecca Ferguson doing right now? In a career which has seen remarkable highs – 1 million sales of her debut album “Heaven”, comparisons with her heroes Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Dusty Springfield and Macy Gray, plaudits from Adele, every major critic in the UK, Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme (the first artist from the X Factor ever to appear on the show), Rebecca herself freely admits that such perfectionism hasn’t come without a price. Her second album ‘Freedom” came after a protracted period of huge turmoil as Rebecca found out the hard way that the music industry wasn’t always just about the music. That the album appeared so stridently assertive was an inevitable result of a long and painful gestation period where this artist questioned everything in her creative and professional life.

Yet now, having come through the anguish Ferguson remains both sanguine and resolutely fatalistic. She also now exudes a quiet confidence because Rebecca Ferguson has just made her third album and it’s the album of her life. But, more tellingly, it’s also the album of someone else’s life, someone whose voice and career propelled her to legendary status, whose tragic story is none to every music lover, someone who truly is a legend.

Rebecca Ferguson has chosen to remake Billie Holiday’s classic “Lady Sings The Blues”.

When it was suggested to Ferguson by a friend that she attempt such a Herculean task, one that most singers would run a mile from, her first response was fear. To re record an album that is seen as so untouchable, by an artist who is lauded above most others, an album which went on to spawn a massively successful film starring Diana Ross, an album that is a phenomenon in itself - well, the potential for failure just seemed too huge.

An hour later Rebecca Ferguson told her manager that she would do it.

Soon after, at a screening of the film held for her team and associates, a massively emotional Ferguson stood in front of everyone and said that she now felt a compulsion to make this record which she hoped would both do justice to the original and also bring its’ unique beauty to a new audience.

It’s hard to think of any other singer of her generation, in fact of ANY generation, who would have the chutzpah and the talent to carry this off.

That Ferguson has pulled it off, in a quite brilliant reinterpretation of some of the most moving songs you will ever hear in your life, is testament not just to her remarkable talent – THAT VOICE!! – but to her strength of purpose and her absolute dedication to her craft. This is a supreme record by a very special artist.