“Our first show was actually at Red Bennies on Chapel Street, which featured Candice Monique, Randa Khamis, from Randa and the Soul Kingdom, and myself,” she says. “Randa and I met at the Oz Soul Collective and got to talking about a night featuring Australian soul women, and realised that we’d both been recording with the same band line up, who were actually Candice’s regular band. It isn’t super cost effective to bring over a full band from WA for one show and [Candice and I] loved the idea of a triple gig with Randa. So we all used the same band for the show, named it Women of Soul and amazingly, packed out the venue. The event then just kept growing.”
Indeed, over the past few years, Women of Soul has become one of the most popular events in the Melbourne soul scene, with the collective of women regularly performing to sell out crowds. Wilson attributes this success to the party-like atmosphere created at their shows, as well as the diverse assortment of artists involved.
In celebration of their fifth anniversary, Women of Soul have released a collaborative album, Melbourne’s Women of Soul. The ten track release features vocals from Wilson, Monique, Kylie Auldist, Rita Satch, May Johnston, Lisa Faithfull, Stella Angelico and Christina Perfection. Rather than throwing together a compilation or live album, each artist recorded a song especially for the record, which makes it a very unique document. Thanks to the contributions of such an illustrious list of performers, Melbourne’s Women of Soul encapsulates a diverse range of subgenres, including northern soul, funk, neo-soul and garage soul. The album also explores different themes, from survival to heartbreak.
Wilson is especially prominent on Melbourne’s Women of Soul; she recorded the solo number Who Told You, performed a duet with Candice Monique, What We Had Back Then, and wrote Accelerate for Lisa Faithfull. “Accelerate is about being so hurt and so broken from past relationships that you have shut down emotionally and haven’t let anyone in for a long time,” she says. “Then you finally meet someone special that makes you open up again and start to fall in love. However, once the flood gates are open, you can’t stop and rather than take the new relationship slowly, you dive back in full throttle and can’t slow down.
“I love Star Trek and anything space – I want to go into space one day – so I tried to use some ship references in the chorus,” Wilson continues. “‘Lock it in, engage, drop to maxim phase, my love skyrockets into space’ – it’s a wee-bit cheesy and nerdy, but when Lisa sings it, the words sound powerful. I sang the tune at The Athenaeum when I supported Macy Gray last month and the audience responded well. People dig mushy stuff.”
Melbourne’s Women of Soul is not just a showcase of impressive vocalists, but also features some damn fine instrumentation. The band that plays on the record features members of The Putbacks, Cookin’ On 3 Burners and The Bamboos. Wilson feels very fortunate to work with such talented musicians. “It was lovely to have all these different acts come together for the biggest collaboration in the Melbourne soul scene,” she says.
Although this album was purely a Melbourne-based effort, in future Wilson hopes to expand the project to record with other “soul sisters” from around Australia.
BY ALI BIRNIE
