* Releases debut album "Is Your Love Big Enough"
* Follows Adele, Amy Winehouse, Joss Stone into US
* Stevie Wonder, Bon Iver are big fans of La Havas
LOS ANGELES, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Lianne La Havas sings from
the heart, admires people like Billie Holiday and Ella
Fitzgerald, and may be the latest young songstress to emerge in
a steady stream of British talent invading the U.S. music scene.
She counts stars like Stevie Wonder as fans, and with her
debut album "Is Your Love Big Enough?" out this month in the
United States, La Havas follows the footsteps of singers such as
Grammy-winning Adele, soul singer Joss Stone and the late Amy
Winehouse.
"There have been some wonderful UK singers of late, which is
great for me, because they just sound to me like women who
really enjoy singing and I'd like to think I'm one of those
women as well," La Havas told Reuters.
The 22-year-old singer from South London, who will tour
North America with Grammy winner John Legend this fall, dropped
out of art school four years ago to pursue her music career,
collaborating with friends at London performing arts college The
Brit School (graduates include Adele, Winehouse and Leona
Lewis), and providing backing vocals for singer Paloma Faith.
Born to a Greek father and Jamaican mother, La Havas
credited her multicultural upbringing for her eclectic musical
influences, which range from Mary J. Blige and Jill Scott to
Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.
"I'm very influenced by the old blues and generally just
singing from your heart," La Havas said. "Singers like Billie
Holiday sang as if they had been through (life), so I'm really
influenced by that and I wanted to inject that into the record."
La Havas' soulful sound has already caught the attention of
some well-established names in the U.S. music industry.
Grammy-winning folk artist Justin Vernon of Bon Iver asked
La Havas to join the band on their North American tour this
year, and Motown legend Stevie Wonder came to see the singer at
her Los Angeles gig in May, which left La Havas starstruck.
"(Wonder) has influenced generations of people and has
always made really honest, uplifting music. I felt really
overwhelmed while meeting him, I cried a bit, being next to him
was just too much ... I will never ever forget it," she said.
FUSING GENRES
"Is Your Love Big Enough?" documents the singer growing up
from her late teens into her early 20s. La Havas described the
album as "a collection of songs written in response to various
situations" in her life.
"I've used the songs on the album to demonstrate my head and
heart over the last three years," the soft-spoken singer said.
While jazz and soul have a core element in La Havas' debut
album, the singer's sounds range from upbeat funk on title track
"Is Your Love Big Enough?" to melancholy pop on piano ballad
"Gone" and an acoustic guitar-driven duet with Willy Mason on
"No Room For Doubt" -- La Havas' favorite track on the record.
"There seems to be a mish mash of things influencing artists
these days and their music sounds like you can't put your finger
on it. I think all music feeds other music and then manifests
itself in whatever way it does," La Havas said, calling her own
sound "soul music, but not in the traditional sense."
Indeed, La Havas is part of a new generation of British
artists unafraid to experiment with fusing genres including the
likes of Ed Sheeran, who rose through the ranks of the UK hip
hop scene by incorporating urban sounds into his folk pop music.
"Is Your Love Big Enough?" has been received well by
critics, earning a score of 73 out of 100 on review aggregator
website Metacritic.com, and has already achieved success in the
UK, where it was released last month, ranking No. 4 on the
official album chart.
BBC's Chris Lo called the record "a strong and skilfully
delivered debut," while Maddy Costa at The Guardian praised the
singer's "raw, repetitive" lyrics in songs like "Lost & Found,"
giving the album three out of five stars.
Jon Pareles at The New York Times praised the album's
"low-fi core," and La Havas' "intimacy of a voice that hints at
Alicia Keys, Amy Winehouse and Erykah Badu but is fully her
own." Rolling Stone's Judy Rosen gave the album three and a half
stars out of five, saying "the cool, pretty, expertly arranged
music washes over you like a healing wave."
(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte, Gary
Hill)