The second of Lucy Blu's "Got It Covered" EP's sees her sights set squarely on Christmas with her versions of 4 Yuletide faves reimagined as acoustic guitar chillout tracks. it really could not be more simple than that, just an acoustic guitar and Lucy adapting her voice as each song requires. The only trick missed on this EP is a failure to cover Blu(e) Christmas just to top things off nicely.
First up is "The Christmas Song" which sees Lucy move into full chanteuse mode, and it is a mode that fits her like a glove. There's room for a little jazzy guitar solo as well on this quite charming version.
Chris Rea's "Driving Home For Christmas" also fares well in this stripped back format, with Lucy adopting a more warm soulful approach to the vocal. The acoustic guitar line that really shine son this track and but for Lucy's vocal line following the original I might not have even recognized what the track was. As with her previous EP, in this format Lucy is really able to extract more from the lyrics than even the original as she commands the listeners attention being the sole focus.
It's hard to extract much out of "White Christmas", there is only one definitive version, so there is little scope to do much with it, although I seem to remember a speeded up punk version by Stiff Little Fingers. Lucy's version is fine but it won't be knocking Bing from many peoples playlists.
In contrast the closing track "O Holy Night" is ripe for reinvention, and this version makes you realise just how close this tune is to "Girl Crush", with the guitar line seeming achingly familiar. For Lucy it's a chance to merge her soulful performance with her chanteuse one while also finding room to go a bit choral. It makes this track the stand out one for us of the four for us. the closing vocal performance is quite splendid.
All round another enjoyable diversion from Lockdown Lucy and we eagerly await to see which genre next catches her attention.