Singer/songwriter Shara Nelson, who began her career as the first female vocalist to be down with electro-dub b-boys Massive Attack on the Bristol posse’s masterful 1991 debut album Blue Lines, has become the lost woman of trip-hop. Throughout the cocaine-fueled ‘90s, her voice could be heard crooning from the speakers of most cocktail lounges in Manhattan, but that was back when bars were still smoky and Massive Attack was the chill-out soundtrack for the end of the millennium. Nelson, who reminded me of Dusty Springfield – though with more grits and gravy – would go on to become the alternative Black chick of the moment.
While Massive’s comrades from Soul II Soul created the sound-system/soul sista prototype, unlike the more vocally grounded Caron Wheeler, Nelson’s voice was spooky, sinister and somewhat scary as she sang with a naked emotion that soon became the trip-hop trademark. Massive Attack’s blueprint of using damaged torch-like singers was followed by former band-mate Tricky who subsequently hooked up with his first (and best) soul girl Martina Topley-Bird and Portishead’s Geoff Barrow who selected morose muse Beth Gibbons to front the band. Of course, each of these women was brilliant in their own right, but they’ve also achieved a certain level of acceptance and acclaim that has always eluded Nelson, as though she has been erased from trip-hop’s contradictory history.
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