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She wasn’t long out of stage school when Queen’s Brian May saw Kerry Ellis in a West End production of My Fair Lady and clocked that indefinable star quality.
Her latest album, produced by Mike Stevens and featuring May, reinforces his belief in her potential with a potent mix of crossover pop covers and heart-rending ballads.
How good is Kerry’s voice? Well, she took over from Idina Menzel as Elphaba in the Broadway run of Wicked and her version of Defying Gravity was just as spine-tinglingly powerful as Menzel’s – a stand-out moment of 21st-century stage musicals.
It takes a real singer to nail that final note.
Sir Brian has been trying to hitch Ellis’s talents to something beyond musical theatre ever since her top 15 solo album, Anthems, in 2010.
They’ve released two albums as a duo, including the 2017 hit Golden Days.
These 12 songs are just as impressive. The mid-paced opening title track begins with strings before building to the instant “oh-oh, oh-oh” hook of the chorus.
Emotional ballad Battlefield, featuring May, perfectly showcases that wonderful voice.
Written by Charlie Turner, it’s a piano-led break-up number, a final serenade for a lost love – “Tell me how the wounded become healed”.
May’s gently evocative lead guitar soars without overpowering the sentiment.
Covers include a moving take on Tina Turner’s Be Tender With Me Baby – about break-up fears – and James Taylor’s melancholy 1970 classic, Fire And Rain, about lost love.
Mean The World To Me sees Kerry team up for a sublime duet with Newton Faulkner.
It’s not unusual for musical theatre stars to cross over to mainstream pop success. Elaine Paige did it memorably in the 80s. Kerry has got what it takes to follow suit. Big voice, big songs, big personality, big future.
