Ada Morghe’s current album ‘Box’ captured the musicality of the multi-faceted creative talent. The artist demonstrated a real talent as a jazz vocalist and songwriter, with the ability to be simultaneously elegant, passionate and melancholic.
Ada now shares another compelling taste of her accomplished musicianship by sharing a new live performance of ‘Rainy Days’, one of the highlights of the ‘Box’ album. It was filmed live at Real World Studios, the world-renowned recording facility in Wiltshire that was founded by Peter Gabriel.
While the album version of ‘Rainy Days’ adorns Ada’s performance with guitar, bass and a beautiful string arrangement, this new performance strips the song back to its essence. Her vocals are warm and evocative, which infuses her infatuated lyrics with a deeper sense of yearning. Its testament to the power of her songwriting that ‘Rainy Days’ feels just as engaging performed solely on piano as it does with the album version’s full production. It’s a classy performance that’s elevated by Real World’s gold standard acoustics and the video’s classic monochrome cinematography.
The release of ‘Box’ inspired upbeat comparisons with timeless artists such as Edith Piaf, Juliette Gréco and Scott Walker. It’s a collection that’s jazzy, soulful and deeply personal. The songs are themed around her multitude of life experiences. She can’t be easily pigeonholed as any one thing, so don’t put her in a box. It’s a concept that resonates with Andrew Roachford, who co-wrote the album’s title track with Ada.
Under her real name Alexandra Helmig, Ada Morghe is also a highly-regarded actress, scriptwriter and children’s author. Her career in music began in earnest three years ago, after she wrote and starred in a play, then a film, called ‘Mother Bee’. Having been encouraged to also write songs for the film, those compositions fell into the hands of former Prince collaborator Hans-Martin Buff and just six week later, Alexandra found herself recording at Abbey Road. That ultimately put her in the unusual position of releasing her debut album ‘Pictures’ in her 40s, a record which has since accumulated over a million streams.