Sam & Ruby release The Here and the Now with a reverence for pop music, love songs and each other
by Jewly Hight
- Her and He: Sam & Ruby
We live in the wake of the recent Idol-ization (CMT's Can You Duet?), indie-fication (She & Him) and super-grouping (Robert Plant and Alison Krauss) of male-female duet singing. None of that had happened yet when Sam & Ruby teamed up in 2005. Even now they stand out, being an acoustic pop-R&B male-female singer-songwriter duo—and an interracial one at that.
It's scientific fact that genuine collaboration yields a different result than working alone. That's true for Sam (Brooker) and Ruby (Amanfu), who joined forces organically after years of friendship and mutual admiration. In Amanfu's words, "We did not say, like, 'Three, two, one and...team.' "
Amanfu—who grew up in Nashville after her family moved from West Africa—covered a wide range of perky electro-pop territory on her album Smoke and Honey (released in the U.K. in 2003). Brooker—a Wisconsin transplant who spent most of the past decade here—had been working a sleek lite-funk sound, à la Jamiroquai. You won't find much of the above on Sam & Ruby's first full-length, The Here and the Now (which follows an EP and a song placement in the movie The Secret Life of Bees).
Says Amanfu, "On my pop record, I was working with Scandinavian and British pop programmers, and I'd get tracks and I would write lyrics and melodies to these tracks. This is, I guess, the first time for me that there is a record that's natural Ruby, the natural side of me."
Brooker concurs: "This is the thing—I think we've finally got back to the heart of what we've always loved about music. We're both huge fans of the '70s singer-songwriter era."
During most tracks, an understated acoustic guitar figure stands alone for at least a moment. Even when the strings, horns and rhythm section come in, that acoustic guitar never gets lost.
"The production's not slick," Brooker says. "We want it to sound like this could be potentially a live album. A little more pop than that, but just real. Let the songs shine and not be overcome by the production."
Brooker and Amanfu bring out in each other a sweet, subtle, almost courtly chemistry that bears more in common with classic pop singing than anything from this millennium. (For the record, they're not a romantic couple.) Uncomplicated love songs with sunny, mildly soulful melodies—like the instantly pleasing "This I Know" and "Too Much"—are perfect for them. But—as in all pure pop—the balance can tip toward too-sweet: "Chillin'" is one such moment.
Amanfu and Brooker sing a little differently together than they do alone. Theirs is an easy, even vocal match—no trills, frills or embellishments, every note of lead or harmony gentle and breathy. "A lot of times people say families who harmonize have such a unique thing because there's the nuances of a brother or a sister in their voice that makes it extra-special," says Brooker. "Well, Ruby and I somehow found that."
Says Amanfu, "When I was 19, I got in trouble in a lot of [recording] sessions because I would walk in with the 'brown girl R&B' tone of voice. And it's like, 'OK, so go ahead, sing like Whitney Houston.' And I didn't know how. It's not something I was born with. Being from West Africa, what I do have are long notes and interesting rhythms. But I don't have waterfall runs in me. This is the most genuine. It's the most authentic voices that we have."
Email music@nashvillescene.com.
Comments (0)