Everybody knows by Sharon Robinson is one of those albums that should be in every home. Played and resounded night after night, on good days and bad days. Especially in the ugly ones. But it is a practically unknown record that had decent reviews upon its release only because Robinson was, since 1978, Leonard Cohen’s backing vocalist and pianist, as well as the co-author of many later pieces of his career. Most reviewers compared Sharon Robinson’s style and sound to Sade’s, blatantly missing the mark. The similarities are there but they are all superficial: Robinson is first of all a singer-songwriter and an arranger and her music, unlike Sade’s, seduces by subtraction rather than by deployment of softness and sensuality. Everybody knows is a very delicate album, in which the voice and the lyrics seem to float in emptiness and silence. It is not opulent music but it is rich music.
The friendship and collaboration between Sharon Robinson and Leonard Cohen was described in detail by a long article in the Financial Times published in 2013. Robinson was hired as a backing vocalist for the tour that Leonard Cohen did in 1979, from which a historian was extracted live album titled Field commander Cohen: tour of 1979, in which the two singers (Robinson and an equally remarkable musician, Jennifer Warnes) were very present and often duet with Cohen.
From that moment Robinson has collaborated more and more closely with the artist, writing pieces with him and creating together an entire album of unpublished works signed by both (the splendid Ten new songs of 2001). Robinson also continued to write songs for others: he won a Grammy in 1985 for New attitude by Patti LaBelle (became a hit on the comedy soundtrack Beverly Hills cop) and signed The high road for the great comeback of soul singer Bettye LaVette in 2005. In 1986, together with Leonard Cohen, he also wrote a song for Diana Ross entitled Summertime.
Everybody knows it is therefore Sharon Robinson’s debut album as a solo singer, but certainly not as an author. With an unmistakable voice and perfect phrasing, Robinson retraces a series of songs he has written over the years, calmly savoring their sound and words. Invisible tattoo is a memorable opening, perhaps the piece that most justifies the comparisons with the indolent and rarefied Sade of Love deluxe. And then scroll through the pieces written with and for Leonard Cohen, Everybody knows e Alexandra leaving, up to a diaphanous and minimal version of Summertime, the piece he had written with Cohen for Diana Ross. Of course there is also The high road, the piece he had written for Bettye LaVette, which, taken from her, loses every edge but remains a powerful hymn of self-affirmation and love for oneself.
Sharon Robinson
Everybody knows
Floating world, 2008
.