Album Of The Week: Jessie Ware Devotion

I spent something like five seasons recapping American Idol, so I feel like I can tell you some things about backup singers. Along with church wailers and vocal instructors and major-label refugees and yarly bar-rock frontmen, backup singers are fixtures on shows like Idol, and they almost never work out. Obviously, they can sing the lights out; you don't get to make your living singing if you can't do that. And you can imagine how they feel: Standing off to the side of the stage, supplying needed ahhs and echos while someone much more famous and better-paid soaks up all the attention. But when they get their shot on shows like these, they often come off tentative and halting, not sure what to do with an entire stage once they've finally got the run of it. Or they go the other way, busting out big Broadway smiles and ridiculous dance moves; it's pretty embarrassing to watch when that happens. Jessie Ware is a former backing singer, and I don't know how she'd do on a show like Idol. But on her debut album Devotion, I like to imagine that she's using her backup-singer past as a sort of advantage, holding back when it's necessary and refusing to overcompensate and go all bazooka-voice. Instead, she's a calm and tremulous presence, a conversational singer in that listening to her sounds like having a conversation with someone shy who doesn't talk much but who deeply, sincerely means everything she says. She's made a soul album that sinks gradually into your brain rather than strutting out and demanding your attention. And it's great.