Ashleigh Smith’s debut album is appropriately named ‘Sunkissed’. It is a beautiful album of light Bossa and Samba grooves backing her lovely sweet voice singing songs of love on mainly original material. She won the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal competition in 2014. ‘Best Friends’ is a great melodic Bossa opener featuring the Soul Committee Horns which has a Stevie-ish style harmonica solo from Kevin Wyatt. ‘Sunkissed’ is a bright and breezy samba with positive lyrics. ‘The world is calling’ has a subtle Latin mid tempo groove and interesting keyboard chords. ‘Sara Smile’ is a good contemporary cover of the Hall and Oates classic. The string laden Latin rhythms of ‘Love is You’ transform Chrisette Michele’s ballad into a completely new song, and there’s an interestingly different version of ‘Blackbird’. Very nice album.
Track listings:
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01 Best Friends by Ashleigh Smith
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02 Sara Smile by Ashleigh Smith
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03 The World Is Calling by Ashleigh Smith
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04 Love Is You by Ashleigh Smith
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05 Blackbird by Ashleigh Smith
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06 Sunkissed by Ashleigh Smith
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07 Into The Blue by Ashleigh Smith
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08 Brokenhearted Girl by Ashleigh Smith
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09 Beautiful And True by Ashleigh Smith
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10 Pure Imagination by Ashleigh Smith
Andy Britten (verified owner) –
Sublime voice. Kandace Springs might be getting lots of media attention but Ashleigh is just as good. Excellent album. Highly recommended.